Change Happens

"Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have—and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up."— James Belasco and Ralph Stayer Flight of the Buffalo (1994)

I’m a little behind in my reading. The stack of books has been returned to the bookshelf, leaving behind a few in the bedside drawer in hopes of a sleepless night or an afternoon without chores. But I sleep really well and I have a lengthy honey-do list at the moment.

Most of what gets read these days are articles:  marketing articles, financial trends in the A/E/C world, social media tips, and most them fall into the firm self-help category. The ones that profoundly resonate are terrific. Some of them minimally inspire and some of them repeat the obvious. Everything else simply fails.

The t.v. was on a food channel while doing chores last weekend. I took a break long enough to catch the jist. It was all about a guy who reinvents restaurants. He takes failing restaurants and revitalizes them. He watches their actions, interviews the customers, redoes their menus to reflect the best in their food, highlights their real costs, and gets the owners to actually do their jobs. He turns the whole operation around. The only result is success. Happy customers who want to come back.

We can learn from this approach and apply it to business. Ultimately, we are all trying for a similar goal. The difference isn’t one of intent. We all WANT to succeed.  The difference is in being able to change and get over bad, old habits. In this highly energized, faster paced world of today, the only way to truly succeed is to Nike-Up. Just do it. Change! There are a lot of self-help materials available or you can pay for a consultant to host an intervention (and maybe put it on a reality show).

Over the years a number of excuses have been hoisted up as to why change can’t happen. “You can’t turn an aircraft carrier on a dime.” Or, “We need to justify why and do a study before we can change that.” Well, the Navy came up with PT boats to deal with that aircraft carrier issue. Those boats were smaller, faster, and armed. And a study is just a study. One still needs to endorse change.

The key to all these self-help articles I’ve been reading comes down to a simple concept. One must change in order to be successful. If you are willing to unequivocally change now, all those articles, tips, and self-help lists have a chance to have a major impact for the good. Then one might not actually need an outsider to mess with the menu.