In 1997, Andy Grove the CEO of Intel published a book that quickly became required reading for business leaders. It was called, "Only the Paranoid Survive" and it introduced the idea of strategic infection points - periods of massive change for businesses that shift their paradigm quickly, brutally and forever. He asserted: "A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation."
The problem he identified is that business success contains the seeds of its own destruction. Small businesses can quickly adapt to change, and drive yet more change.
Their small size means they can move fast. They change to survive and to find their niche. But with their success comes growth - they may get big, and slow, and process driven, and comfortable with their market position. And they lose focus.
One day the very start-up they used to be comes along and eats their lunch. A company that isn't forcing a pace of change, driving harder into competitive forces and shedding its skin, is a dying company.
As a leader in your business, driving change must be a priority - Faster, Simpler, Bigger, Cheaper. Whatever it is. Being comfortable is not an option. If your team is comfortable then you're doing something wrong, and trouble may be just around the corner. Even if everything is going well, don't stop - ask what you can do to change things for the better.
Never stop doing that.
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