Dinosaur, dodo or phoenix: Which are you?

Change is the needed impetus to create and sustain momentum in any life or organization. Organizations don’t exist to change people. People exist to change organizations. For the organization to evolve, the leaders must evolve. Fish begins its rot from the head. If you must be on the cutting edge of leading and changing people and organizations, the process begins, not with your superior, your subordinate or your contemporaries. It begins with YOU!

Ever heard of the dinosaur and the dodo? Both creatures were said to have lived long ago. The dinosaur was said to have lived several millions of years ago and presumably before human existence. From its fossils, man has discovered that dinosaurs were very huge creatures. Unfortunately, the size of the dinosaur apparently was perhaps its undoing. According to paleontologists, an asteroid struck the earth 66 million years ago resulting in a series of volcanic eruptions that wiped out some species of animals. Their huge size notwithstanding, dinosaurs did not have the capacity to survive the crisis. They became extinct!

The dodo was a big bird said to be native to the island of Mauritius. It was named “dodo” (stupid or dumb) by Portuguese sailors because of its size and voracious appetite for food. The dodo was said to have fed so fat that it lost the capacity to fly or even run fast enough to escape being captured. Consequently, it could not be dispersed beyond its immediate milieu. Sailors and their pets who berthed on the island ate the dodo and its eggs into extinction.

Before they went belly up, Radio Shack, Circuit City, CompUSA were the biggest brands with the widest network of outlets for computers and electronics in the United States of America. In fact, the success story of Circuit City was one of those highlighted in “Good to Great”, Jim Collins’ classic on business evolution.  Nobody can successfully write the history of photography without adequate mention of Kodak, the biggest brand globally in photography at one time. That was before digital photography made it obsolete. Remember Blockbuster, the movie rentals chain that literally ruled the world of movie rentals before video streaming and the advent of Netflix, Hulu and other on-demand film streaming networks saw to its extinction?

These brands became so huge that they literally ruled the world in their sphere of specialization. But they refused to evolve. It is doubtful if any American under the age of 25 can remember any of these brands! How many Nigerians under the age of 30 would remember National Bank, or Cooperative Bank, or Commerce Bank? The first two, like the dinosaur, became huge, heavy-footed and maladjusted to crisis. Commerce Bank was so comfortable in its one office in Lagos where it grew but did not expand. Like the dodo, it was consumed by its predator founders and their acolytes. Indeed, borrowing from the title of a book written by Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel Corporation, only the paranoid do survive!

The swan only sings once in its lifetime – when it is about to die! “This is the way we have always done it and we cannot change that!” is the swan-song of a dying business. Executive inertia is the beginning of the end for any organization. This happens when the top-level people in the organization begin to think, feel and act like old monkeys who cannot learn new tricks. In that situation, people who should pilot change themselves become due for changing! When nothing is done to remedy the situation, overheads begin to outstrip income as the leadership’s focus is fixated on sustaining the process rather than the purpose of the organization’s existence.

Never be naïve enough to believe that the world has any moment to wait for you. It is evolving so incredibly fast. And it is not its fault. The Creator made it that way. No matter how much you resist or resent it, change is the only thing that is constant in life. In today’s world, no matter how dearly any newspaper organization treasures the tabloid, it has been effectively upstaged by the tablet as a reading format!

The market is part of a larger world that keeps evolving. In this world of robotic and artificial intelligence, ‘dinosaur’ enterprises don’t survive. The world did not see COVID-19 coming! Like the asteroid that saw to the extinction of dinosaurs, many companies who only survived on the brick-and-mortar model of operation or selling woke up to the rude epiphany that the train left the station before they could get a ticket!

Beyond the physical product, the customer is in the market for comfort and convenience. His allegiance naturally flows in the direction of anyone that facilitates or makes that possible. This is the reason for the current preference for online shopping and virtual operations!

Have you noticed that when a new store or restaurant opens its doors there is a flow of people into it as if there wasn’t a place that provided the same service before? What are they attracted to? The novelty of the experience of course! However, the deeper reality is that they are there to find out if there is something refreshingly and remarkably better and different from the place where they currently shop for the same service!

The phoenix is a bird in Greek mythology. Associated with longevity, it was said that as it approached the end of its life, the phoenix would get into its nest and set itself on fire with the nest. Then it would rise from the ashes to begin a new life that could last another five or more centuries.

Whenever structure or process becomes a burden that impedes expected outcomes, change beckons. The phoenix organization knows when its current status can no longer be sustained. So it simply commits ‘suicide’ with only one mission, renewal. Part of the lexicon in the Toyota Production System underpinned by “kaizen” or the philosophy of continuous improvement is the word “muda” which means wasteful. It is about deliberately identifying areas of waste in the system – it categorizes seven of such – and going ahead to eliminate them before they begin to sound the death-knell of the organization. Once identified, the phoenix organization is never afraid to literally set fire to such areas so that out of the ashes would emerge a leaner, stronger and nimbler and consequently more effective organization that can continue its growth trajectory for a further extended period! It is a tough but needed operation that entails the reviewing of status quo as well as systems reengineering that begins with the immolation of wasteful and irrelevant strategies, structures, systems and processes that have outlived their usefulness and are thus incapable of sustaining the new life that the organization intends to create. This is done with the intent of a reemergence of a new life sustained by new, relevant systems and processes that ensure that the organization remains on the field of play for a long time to come.

To thrive in today’s market and continue to be relevant in the heart of your customers, learn to operate on these words, “evaluate, innovate, reactivate or die”!

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!