Adaptation or Stagnation The Choice Is Yours

Adaptation: (2) the act or process of adapting; (3) adjustment to environmental conditions

The fear of change is nothing new. It is a common trait for many people in both their personal and professional lives. When enough people in leadership share that fear, it can not only stifle a business’ ability to grow and improve, it can slow down an entire industry. This is true for the Workers’ Compensation industry generally as a whole. 

Insurance in general is one of the last industries to adopt change. Whether it is a new technology or concepts to mitigate losses, the industry has been resistant to change. That’s not to say that there is the occasional company that throws out a new process, methodology or tool that is rapidly adopted by the rest of the industry. The reality is though that that process or tool had probably been around for a few years before someone had the courage to take the leap and then introduce it to their colleagues. 

This has always puzzled me, perhaps it is my natural unwillingness to accept the status quo, but I am always looking to create new and more efficient ways to do things. That doesn’t mean I sit at my desk all day and say how can I get get an extra 5 minutes out of that process (that is my business partner that does that). It does mean that I make it a habit to ensure that a) we are minimally performing at and in accordance with industry standard, and then b) how can we as an organization improve upon that standard and differentiate ourselves from the rest. 

As leaders on both a micro and macro level we need to be aware of changes in not just our environment but those around our related industries. Perhaps that means the adoption of a new technology. Maybe it is the modification or even the elimination of a process that was valid decades ago but no longer relevant across the industry today.

Sounds simple enough right? It really can be it just requires to expand past the comfort we have with that which we are familiar with. There is a great danger in familiarity becoming unintentional complacency.  

If your thoughts immediately drift to responses to new ideas of “historically we have…” or are along the lines of “this is how it has always been done”, then my friend, I hate to break it to you, but you are stuck in a cycle of familiar complacency. (That’s my term. I’m officially coining it right now! You can borrow it but I royalties.). How can can we avoid this:

PAY ATTENTION TO THE INDUSTRY(IES)

Be aware of what is going on in your industry and those closely related to it. Look at things like technologies which can be adapted to new uses and applications. But most importantly watch for the evolution happening around you. The failure to do so can prove catastrophic to your business. Think of Toys R Us. They refused to see the value of online sales and could not fathom that it would ever replace a visit to a Toys R Us store in person. For me, it didn’t because Jeffrey was very much a part of my consumer culture and in some hidden part of my child brain, I hoped to see him with every visit. HOWEVER, I was not the majority of their market. So while they were appealing to me and others like me, who visited the store once or twice a year. They missed out on generations (yes plural) of consumers who should have been who they were gearing towards appealing to. This began their downfall and ultimate demise. 

DON’T BE OFFENDED BY CHANGE

The ability to modify or even eliminate a process should not be viewed as a personal offense. It can be equated to hating the person who changed their diet and started exercising while you stayed eating Twinkies three times a day. Finding a new way to do things and improve should be viewed as a positive. It does not mean that your old process was bad or ineffective. Simply it means that you or your team were aware enough to recognize that there was a more effective way to accomplish your goal. With new tools come new efficiencies. Embrace them.

FACE YOUR FEAR and/or GET OFF YOUR ***

“I don’t think that will work.”, “What if…”, “That a project…” - Ugh… All the phrases that jump in line right next to “Historically”. To quote DUNE, “Fear is the mind killer.” If you don’t try you will never know. Granted, I’m not promoting care free, throw caution to the wind decision making. What I am promoting is doing due diligence and truly exploring new and innovative options. Employers should in addition to working with their brokers be conducting their own research and evaluating the benefits and/or risks of implementing a new change. What is the immediate effort versus the long term gain. What should never happen in today’s world is completely ignoring potential improvement opportunities which can translate to increased efficiencies and improved revenue or other economic returns. The last objection to change is simply laziness. On more than one occasion, I have been with leaders who literally recognized the benefit of implementing a particular process or pieced of technology and they just didn’t want to put the effort into making the improvements. “It ain’t broke. Don’t fix it.” Well that mentality works for a while but when your process that took you 25 minutes to complete is being done by your competitor now in 3 minutes, then hate to tell you. Although your process works from a technical perspective, your business is still broken.

In the end the point of this is don’t fear change. Adaptation is a key to longevity. Embrace change or even better…facilitate it!