Does your company spend too much time celebrating past achievements? Does this distract from changes that need to be made now?
When I went to Junior High, I had to ride a bus to school. The trip was too long to walk or bike so the bus was the only option for my friends and I. The downside was that as one the first bus pickups in the morning, I’d be one of the last to get home after school. So I’d spend a lot of time on a bus.
One of my classmates from the neighborhood was a little older than the rest of us and that changed his commute considerably. He was 14 and that allowed him to drive a moped.
With his two wheels, he was no longer tethered to a bus or a parent’s car. He had independent transportation, which was a huge advantage.
That is until age 16, when all of us could drive a car. For the moped rider, the two year window of coolness would slam shut. Everyone knew that even the oldest used car was a huge step up from a moped.
A lot of companies act like they are perpetually age 14. They’ve had an advantage or an accomplishment that has separated them from the pack. But then something in the marketplace changes. Suddenly, they’re fat in a world where others are hungry to get to the top.
Celebrate things like setting a sales record four years ago. But don’t become so enamored with it that you stop looking for new ways to stay competitive. These are often the organizations are resistant to change or say, “That’s how we’ve always done it.”
Yes, it is more fun to stare at a dusty trophy but that won’t be enough to make you a champion tomorrow.
