It still shocks us when we meet a church leader, nonprofit exec, school administrator, or business owner who really seems to believe they'll keep attracting members or clients or students or customers, year after year, even if they just keep doing things "the way we've always done them." But it shouldn't. There are leaders like this at work in every arena today. And they are leading their organizations into oblivion.
There is no forever for your business, no matter what your service or product happens to be. Take toilet paper, for example.
Can you imagine a product more essential to your average American or Canadian today? Can you imagine life without it?! No. But the reality is that toilet paper as we know it today is only about as old as your grandma. We were using corncobs, moss, and pages out of the Sears catalog before that. In the early 1900's a couple of brothers by the name of Scott invented something that looks a lot like the toilet paper we have come to think we can't live without but it was 10 years before they'd admit to having come up with the idea. Americans, you see, were so embarrassed by bodily functions they didn't want to have to ask for the product or be seen buying it. Finally in 1928 the Hoberg Paper Company introduced a brand called Charmin, which they marketed using a feminine logo featuring a beautiful woman (the babies, cub bears, and Mr. Whipple came later) so that they wouldn't have to talk about what the paper was actually for. Today it's hard to imagine a time without toilet paper. But the truth is that there are inventors, scientists, environmentalists, and entrepreneurs out there just itching to change that. Most of the world doesn't use toilet paper and can't afford it. Increasingly it seems clear that toilet paper is part of a larger waste system that is having a toxic effect on our environment. And there are lots of people looking for solutions. In Japan, for example, toilets that come equipped with a bidet and an air-blower are growing in popularity. Can you imagine life with toilet paper? You'd be silly not to.
It turns out not even toilet paper is forever.
The travel business got upended a decade ago by the internet. This year about a half a million Americans had their taxes done by young accountants in India (and probably didn't even know it). The number of people who are "unaffiliated" with any religious denomination continues to grow. And that Sears catalog is history.
What makes you think that you can just keep doing things "the way you've always done it before"?
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Want to use this article with your leaders? Here are some discussion questions you can use:
- Do you think what we offer will be important to people forever? Why or why not?
- Do you think the way we offer what we offer will be meaningful or relevant to people forever? Why or why not?
- What has changed about the way we "do business" over the years?
- What has changed about our context?
- What do you think needs to change about how we "do business" now? Why?
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For a quick read about the history of toilet paper click here for an article from the magazine Mental Floss that appeared at CNN.
For more in-depth analysis about our rapidly changing world, pick up a copy of Thomas Friedman's must-read book The World is Flat.
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