“All organisations need a discipline that makes them face up to reality” Peter Drucker
What got us to today’s success will not keep us here. No activity will remain effective for a long time without modifications. Eventually every activity becomes obsolete.
The ability to stop doing things that no longer serve is vital: in my life, in my business, in my family… everywhere that humans engage.
Peter Drucker says that the inability to stop doing anything is the central disease of government and a major reason why government is sick. Businesses are just as sentimental about the past as bureaucrats. Businesses are likely to respond to the underperformance of a product by increasing the activity around it. Organisations have a high regard for “precedent”: how have we dealt with this before?
My father told me a funny story about a blue book and a green book that goes to just how dangerous this inability to stop doing even things that are no longer necessary.
We Love Yesterday
We humans come with a built in yesterday-loving-complex. We will keep doing what we have always done unless we actively identify and stop no-longer-valid behaviours.
Economics eventually either close businesses that do not change or force them to let go of the past. Government is unrestrained. How about you?
What will you stop doing in 2015?