Out of the Mouths of Babes (and 18-Year-Olds) . . .
When my youngest son graduated from high school, I compared him to Arianna Huffington. It was kind of an abstract comparison, but it fit; we all have to find our way through a constantly-changing set of circumstances. The other day, that same young adult threw these words on Twitter:
I don’t even ask my mom if I can go to concerts anymore. I kind of just tell her
Forget that my son’s eighteen years old and of course doesn’t need “permission” for such things. Forget also that he posted that little statement about his independence in public, a practice that all of my kids follow way too often and often makes me cringe; after all, you never know who’s watching, and something as simple as a family video can come back to haunt you. Think instead about the not-merely-implied statement:
I’m my own man.
Being your own wo/man is what business change is all about.
Now sure, you need to take everyone else whose lives your actions touch into account, and there are politics to consider — something my kids have yet to get the hang of, and a key point in the older people/younger people/wisdom conversation I dredge up from time to time. But business change happens only when you look at your situation and decide to make it happen. And regardless of whether you talk about the business changes you create, you do need to create them; business change doesn’t “just happen”.
Sometimes business change is as simple as being willing to consider the use of emoticons in e-mail. Painful? Silly? Maybe, but smileys are real. Sometimes business change is more complicated than that. Talking again about some young people I know through my kids, take a look at the boys in Rabbit Troupe, on Kickstarter.
And sometimes business change lies somewhere right between easy and complex; computers are too hard, right?
Any way you look at it, though, business change only happens when you want it to and make it happen your way, or when it steamrolls you; then you become victim of someone else’s business change.
Business Change is what we do. Feel like talking?
