Changing Values - 12 Sept 2002

Change is occurring more and more rapidly and it has become necessary to change more rapidly as a result. It is widely held that leading that change is critical to maintaining market position and value. The fact is, this is entirely backwards. Rapid change deprecates the future every bit as much as the past. Change requires expenditures and investments which need time to recoup, but rapid change increases future uncertainty and leads to earlier obsolence, lessening the likelihood of ever recapturing them.

These days, business is changing even faster than technology. Businesses are trying to adapt more rapidly and evolve more swiftly than their competition in the race for survival. However, the truth is the rapid adaptation phase is really quite short and many of the most successful species haven't evolved in ages. They merely keep doing what they have been doing better than any other in their niche. The problem with change is most of it is for the worse and more change is frequently more worse.

Businesses frequently undertake change for their own internal interests and justification rather than that of their customers. While customers may be fickle, they and their values change slowly if at all. Customers value efficiency, endurance, longevity, predictability, quality, reliability, stability, and substance, as much as design, fashion, and style. Give them the former and they will delight in the latter; deny them the former and they will avoid the latter. Rapid change ends up being more style than substance and even undermines the substance as the old is jettisoned to make way for the new. New and improved rarely is.