“This is the way it’s always been.”
“That’s not how we do that.”
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
These are the core tenets of corporate inertia.
These are the reasons Blockbuster failed, the reasons people stay with one bank when another is offering more competitive rates, and the reasons people don’t go to the doctor until they’re bleeding. Yet just like a yearly physical, assessing your business for inertia can save it from hefty costs – or failure – further down the line.
In most cases, what you perceive as overwhelming often isn’t. Going from considering to taking that first step seems like a huge gap - but it’s not. The work starts with recognising the signs of inertia, and in a start-up, it’s always both more obvious and more potentially deadly, simply because there are fewer people and less bureaucracy to mitigate the effects.
Read more: 5 questions to answer before you start your business
Recognising the signs of inertia
Ask yourself: if you could wave a magic wand and change anything in your business without stress or work, what would it be? Perhaps you’d change your website or logo or business card, or get a new accountant’s eyes on your ledgers, or remove certain staff members who just don’t fit with the others. Perhaps you’d wish for nothing more than that your emails were answered just five minutes faster.
It might seem like these things are not worth the effort, but they add up. Ironically, inertia tends to gain momentum when we don’t question it. When there is a lack of willingness to question what’s wrong and how to fix it, even if it’s something small, inertia builds an actual identity of resistance and helps forge a bias against change that is built into the company. A body at rest tends to stay at rest; it’s a law of motion.
If you had that magic wand and waved it, would anything change about your business? What about your business partner, your staff, your work experience intern, your favourite client – would you be willing to give them a magic wand to wave? What do you imagine they’d change?
Read more: The importance of knowing your own value
Gaining momentum
The first thing you need to do is not just imagine what needs to change, but speak the words out loud and write them down. While an idea is still in your head, it’s nebulous and abstract; when you have to actually say something or write it down, you’re forced to find the words to describe it. Articulating a problem may illuminate the solution right away.
Don’t be afraid to experiment as you start researching solutions. Start-ups have a fantastic quality that larger companies often don’t: agility. Fail fast and fail often is a start-up motto. The sooner you realise something doesn’t work, the sooner you can pivot and try something else. Read more here about the ‘lean start-up’ philosophy and how to experiment.
For trickier problems, you need to get the whole team together and encourage everyone to be honest. The best advice I ever received was to forget what your company does right now, and instead ask what you need to be doing. By starting with that, you’re able to develop a comparison between where you are and where you need to be, and chart a path that can bring you to that ideal middle way.
Read more: 5 trends that are disrupting the insurance industry
Finding a catalyst
So you know (or suspect) there is something in your business that you’d like to change. Even better, you’ve talked it over with your team and they don’t seem completely terrified of the idea. But how do you get from your comfortable but stagnant today, past the uncertain tomorrow, into that flourishing third day?
If you can’t make progress on researching solutions, consider outsourcing as much of it as possible - even if you choose just one part of your business. You don’t have to do everything at once. Buy that magic wand and get a broker, or a digital assistant, or a consultant, and ask them to present you with your options. The research is often the hardest part, because it involves critically analysing what exactly is wrong, what could fix it, and how best to implement the change. It might be new servers, or new coding; there might be staff issues; you might have a failing product.
More than likely, it’s not just one thing that needs changing, and it’s not just once that you need to make a change. In a study from Harvard Business Review about why good companies go bad, they suggest that companies tend to identify a winning strategy and then stick to it come hell or high water because they’ve seen that it brings success and they believe in it. But time marches on, and society changes.
If you’re a start-up in today’s hectic markets, you probably already know that there is no status quo, not for long. The passion for renewal has to be written into a start-up’s genetic structure.
Read more: How we all benefit by being more financially literate
Eliminating the inertia
Make a plan B. If your best option is to switch internet providers, the worst outcome is probably that the switch leaves you without internet for a period of time. Plan for that: a prepaid pocket modem could get you through a couple of days.
Once you’ve prepared yourself to make the transition, finally, all that’s left is that you actually have to wave the wand, press the button, do the thing.
It’s scary. There might be problems. (There will be problems!) Your solution might not work out. These are all great reasons not to do the thing and stay in your comfortable bubble of inertia, where things are working just fine the way you’ve always done them. After all, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
But what would happen if you did the thing?
The thought is in your head, and you won’t be able to shake it out. You’ve even done the legwork to get to this point. Why not just do the thing and see what happens?
Read more: What women want: a better way to get family day care insurance
Inertia is dangerous for start-ups. Success can lull you into a false sense of security while little problems erode away at your business from the core. Listen to your intuition, ask yourself what you’d do with a magic wand, and then do the thing. Just changing one thing can make your business feel renewed, clear out the cobwebs, and introduce a whole new can-do feeling into your office.
Remember those sayings from the beginning of the article? This is the way it’s always been. That’s not how we do that. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. These are the tenets of corporate inertia. These are the thoughts that kill your business’ forward momentum. Beat these thoughts to the punch and ensure your mindset not only welcomes change, but actively seeks it out, and you’ll continue to take your business to new heights well into the future.