Change Is Inevitable – You Better Adapt
In the first episode of season two, both teams received a letter when they returned to the suit after meeting Donald Trump. They quickly learned the competition had begun and The Donald had thrown them their first curve ball. The letter stated, “In business you have to be flexible and be prepared for anything. You have to be able to handle the unforeseen curve balls that pop up in the work place. Here’s your first opportunity to prove you can roll with the punches.” The letter then instructed each team to permanently give up one member to the other team. The member would not only join the other team, but would become that team’s first project manager.
The Donald’s little curve ball at the beginning of season two was only one of the “changes” thrown at the competitors throughout the seasons. Trump meant it when he wrote, “In business you have to be flexible and be prepared for anything.” You must be prepared for change, or you will not succeed. You must not only be prepared for change, but you must embrace it. Change is inevitable. Everything is in a constant flux of change: technology, economies, businesses, our personal lives and everything else you can think of. You can either choose to accept and go with it, reaping benefits from it; or you can resist it and potentially be drug down, passed up, or swept away by it.
Spencer Johnson, M.D. wrote a simple parable that revealed truths regarding change with his book Who Moved My Cheese? The book became a #1 International Bestseller with more than 10 million copies in print, illustrating the importance dealing with change is to people. The story involves characters faced with unexpected change and how they deal with it. It is a story about change that takes place in a maze, where four characters, two mice and two little people look for cheese. Cheese is a metaphor representing what people want in life, and the maze represents where you spend time looking for what you want. One of the characters deals with the change successfully and writes what he learned on the maze walls.
These simple truths from Who Moved My Cheese will help you deal with and adapt to change:
· Change Happens
· Anticipate Change
· Monitor Change
· Adapt to Change Quickly
· Change
· Enjoy Change
· Be Ready to Quickly Change Again and Again
If a business is not changing, it will not keep up and be successful. In today’s times, more than ever, change is not only inevitable but necessary. As Trump stated, you must be able to roll with the punches. The person who can adjust to change quickly will be more successful.
Leaders can not afford to resist change. In fact, true leaders are the ones initiating change. Those that resist will not make it to the pinnacle of their organization, let alone success. Some people never change, and they pay a price for it. They get passed by for promotions, eaten up by competitors, and then feel like victims while blaming others. When the market changes, you must update your corporate vision and identify the changes that will get you ahead, or keep you there if you hold that position.
One of the difficult questions a
leader or manager must ask is, “at what point in change and growth does
management have to change its characteristics, its structure, its behavior?”
Leaders are faced with preparing for change so they are ready, without
overloading the organization with functions and complexities it does not require
and cannot afford. The answers are
not easy. The reason so many people
resist change is because adapting can be difficult.
The keys, as written on the walls in Who
Moved My Cheese, consist of realizing change happens, preparing and
anticipating it, adapting to change quickly, changing as needed and enjoying
change rather than resisting it. And
of course, being ready to quickly change again and again.
Change can lead you to a new and better place, even when you are afraid of it initially. Most of us can look back at a significant change in our life that we dreaded or we were afraid of. At the time, we may have thought nothing could be worse: We would never get through it. Now, looking back, we realize without the change we would have missed out on many wonderful opportunities that developed and can not even imagine what life would have been like without the change.
Do not fear change, and do not hide from it.
It is inevitable, so embrace it, create it, make things better.
Do not settle for the status quo. Make
things happen for positive change and growth.
Invent a new and improved way. Change
is progress, and in business change can mean big dollars.
For certain, dealing with change is necessary for any success, so embrace
it.