Don’t Be a ‘Dinosaur’
Organizations that can’t adapt to their environment are known as dinosaurs. They hate change, lack innovation, and find themselves way to comfortable in their skin. And we all know what eventually happens to dinosaurs – they go extinct.
Leaders of an organization should never be comfortable with their place in an industry, because as long as you’re in a competitive industry, someone else will be out gunning for your market share. If you take your foot off the pedal for even just a brief moment, it gives your competitors a chance to catch you – or even pass you. In today’s day and age, technology moves so fast that the environment is constantly changing; and at any given time, a competitor can make gigantic strides out of nowhere.
Ten to fifteen years ago, if I would have asked you your thoughts on Blockbuster or Kodak, I’m sure you would have had nothing but good things to say. Today, however, those companies are dead (or on life support). And not because their costs were out of line or their products subpar, but because their competition eventually beat them into submission through innovation. A Blockbuster analyst report from 1999 states that, “Investor concern over the threat of new technologies is overstated.” How about that? They didn’t even see the Netflix train coming. Blockbuster was so comfortable and so arrogant that they wrote off the opportunity to purchase Netflix for a measly $50 million – now, not only is Netflix is worth over $26 billion (with a “B”), but they would eventually become the reason Blockbuster went out of business.
How about Kodak? At it’s peak, the company captured about 90% of the U.S. film market. Kodak, like Blockbuster, failed because they were scared to change. Would you believe me if I told you that in 1975 Kodak actually developed the first digital camera? They sure did, but they chose to not market the product in fear of undermining their lucrative film business at the time. They saw themselves in the business of manufacturing film instead of being storytellers, and this allowed Sony and Canon to jump right into the deep end of their industry and force Kodak into chapter 11. Rather than adapting to the changing environment, Kodak was beaten into submission.
These are just two examples. I can go on and on with other examples like Circuit City, Radio Shack and Borders, but I don’t want to focus on the negative. The takeaway here should be that no organization is ever safe and that the desire to constantly be innovating is invaluable. It begins with the culture of the organization and should trickle all the way down through the execution of the business plan. Innovation needs to be in everyone’s blood. And if a company isn’t innovating, they’re slowly dying. Can you imagine if Amazon would have continued to only sell books? Or if Apple stuck to only selling computers? Or better yet, Google remained solely a search engine? I doubt they would still be around today if that were the case.
Don’t be a dinosaur. Think outside of the box. And don’t let your guard down, ever.
Enjoy some cartoons below.
