What has been your wake-up call? Why do improvements no longer help you? And what should you do to change?

Business activities are always subject to improvements. There is always something that could be done better. This is a process that can easily be managed. You can plan them as if they where day to day activities. It is a linear process where you can determine the result by some kind of extrapolation of the past. Improvements are best managed by action and less by thought; just continue your walk. If you stop and think too long you will destabilize the process. Everything was going alright.

To manage a change you first need a wake-up call. A nice example of such a call is present in the film American Beauty where Lester (Kevin Spacey) wakes by the call of a young cheerleader. If you have seen that movie you know that the young girl has done no harm. There was something wrong with Lesters life - before she entered the scene.

A wake-up call will help you to start thinking and stop doing. Imagine that you are walking in some kind of a direction and after a time you experience that rather approaching your target you are moving away from it. You find yourself in an area that you do not recognize and you feel that you might be lost. How long will you keep on walking? And when will you recognize that you are indeed lost? Many of us keep on walking (doing), where they should stop (and think). Am I lost? Or are we still on the right track?

When scared by a wake-up call, the first thing to do is to check what has been happened around you. It takes quite a while to construct a new building. It takes years to develop a big shopping-center where all the discounts are gathered. If you are managing the little shop around the corner you could have seen that they where coming. The question is; when did it wake you up?

2005 Hans Bool / Astor White