Change (5)
Now that my wife and I are done with all the yard work, I can’t help but think about how the work we did today mirrors a change process – in a grossly comparative way! We started the process with three goals in mind – (1) mow; (2) weed; and (3) prune. I grabbed the lawn mower and started the mowing process going clockwise around the house, while she grabbed her gloves and a lawn bag and headed counter clockwise doing the weeding. We crossed paths in the middle in the back, and then joined back together once the mowing and weeding were complete to compare notes, view the landscape and then decide what would be pruned. We then pruned together and sat back at the end and admired our handiwork.
Amazingly, changes in business aren’t a lot different than the process we just did for the area around our house. In business we mow and weed all the time, making sure we optimize our outward services and appearance and remove the “weeds” from our organization. At some point when the mowing and weeding are done in the business, we sit back and look at the landscape and decide what if anything needs to be pruned. We don’t really prune nearly enough, although sometimes things get so desperate that pruning becomes a mandate rather than an option. We ought to be pruning all the time, cutting off underperforming structures so that the focus and the investment of the organization can go to the higher performing assets thus guaranteeing the optimum long term growth.
At times, both in yards and in business, landscape and business architects may be needed to change the overall structure of the yard or business respectively. This may be needed when the environment changes so dramatically that the way things looked and worked before may not be appropriate for going forward. If it gets hotter and drier here at my home and drought conditions continue, it may be wise to move towards more natural grasses and landscaping rock and away from grass which requires significant watering. The same is true in business. When the environment changes or the resources we had before are not available going forward, then its time in business to do those dramatic changes too so we can optimize our business landscape for the market and for the resources available.
In my yard, I hate going more than a week without mowing, more than a month or so without weeding, and more than a quarter or so without pruning. Maybe we ought to look at a similar structure for change in business as well?