One of the things that had a huge impact on my career was the existence of professional joy killerz.
(That was actually a typo but I thought what the hell and left it in!)
When I started as a railway engineer I was full of vim and verve. I was so excited and was determined to make my mark in the railway industry. I learned, worked hard and asked lots of questions.
“We don’t do it like that here.”
“Stop trying to reinvent the wheel”
“There’s a reason we do it that way”
As a licensed and competent engineer these were ways for the business (industry) to inoculate itself against change. They weren’t valid on an engineering or business basis.
With no desire to suck up to something I thought could be a lot better I eventually quit the industry
The joy killerz are still doing the same to all the fresh blood that comes in.
In a lot of my clients I find the same joy killerz.
There is ALWAYS A REASON NOT TO CHANGE
There is always a reason why things are the way they are.
They were often good reasons.
Brilliant reasons some times.
If you are talking to me though it’s pretty likely that your industry is in serious trouble (or you are a troublemaker) and you need to change.
So the first things that we do when working with a client is to start challenging some of those assumptions, to start ripping them open.
They need to be challenged, modified or discarded.
Business model innovation doesn’t give you a shiny coat of paint to the old company (that’s digital transformation)
Business model innovation changes your world first, then it lets you change the world.
It doesn’t mean that things stay the same!
I was talking to Louise Stigant, MD of Mondelez last year and she said ‘Denis, you think the world is changing fast? Right now it’s changing the slowest that it will for the rest of your life!”
Think on that for a minute. Then go back to the office and execute the joy killerz
Denis
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