The Only Thing We Can Count On

Remember Spencer Johnson’s wonderful little book, “Who Moved My Cheese“? It’s a simple allegory about 2 little mice and 2 little people in a maze who return to a certain station within the maze to eat cheese every day, until one day, the cheese is gone. The book tracks how each of them adapts and learns to follow their own paths – or not – to find a new stash. 

In life, and in business, we live in our own little mazes. We’ve gotten used to doing things, handling situations, and responding to things in a certain way. It’s comforting, non-threatening, and secure. Businesses, just like people fall into ruts.  We establish patterns of doing things, patterns of behavior, patterns for virtually everything in our lives.  It’s easy – so easy we do them by rote and hardly ever question them. We have an established status quo. But, when you consider that the only constant in our lives is change, you realize that maintaining the status quo – comforting as it is – nevers guarantee the future. As the ‘handwriting on the wall’ in the book tells us, “If You Do Not Change, You Can Become Extinct.”  You understand that, but somehow, it’s easier to keep things as they are, or, like Scarlett O’Hara, tell yourself, “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

But one day something happens.  Maybe our tried and true techniques and methodologies have stopped working, and we can’t figure out why, so we do it again, thinking that maybe we’re just having a bad day.  Do it again. Still no luck.

Boy, can’t count on anything, can you? A wise man once told me, ‘Certainty is for suckers,’ and he was absolutely right.  Certainty was yesterday. It’s old news.  The only thing that remains constant day in and day out is change. Our success lies in how resilient and adaptable we are in the face of it. Some have a knack of being able to predict and prepare for it, while others get blindsided.  A few have learned how to face change head on.  They’re the innovators.  They may fail in the process but they come back stronger, because they know staying put is stagnation, and the world isn’t going to wait for them. They embrace the challenge and it becomes empowering.  Peter Drucker said, “One cannot manage change, one can only be ahead of it.”

We can learn to stay ahead of it if we remember these things:

• Like it or not, change is the one thing we can depend on.
• We can learn to anticipate change by paying attention to our surroundings and learn to recognize the signals
• Be prepared before it hits.  Do you have a Plan B? Explore your options.
• Learn to adapt. Take that first step in a new direction.
• Let the change happen.  You’re prepared and resilient. Take a deep breath and savor it.
• Always keep a forward focus. Don’t get so comfortable in your new place that you forget to keep planning.
• Another change is just down the road.

Never be afraid to challenge ‘what is.’  Ask yourself what you’re doing today that could be done differently.  Solicit different perspectives, whether it’s asking a friend, mentor or simply doing a web search. Believe me, there is no one way of doing anything. Just remember, you’ll never change the status quo if you don’t move the cheese.