Have You or Your Staff Become Boiling Frogs?
Posted on October 27, 2015 by Nick Mariniello, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.
Complacency or a false sense of security is especially dangerous when you are not even aware it's happening. Don't bury your head in the sand.
“The Boiling Frog” analogy has been a favorite of mine for years. If you are not familiar with it, it goes like this:
If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out. However, if you put a frog in a pot of cool water and then slowly heat it up to a boil, the frog will hang out and adjust to the temperature of the water, until it is too late. It will literally allow itself to be cooked to death.
In business, we often find companies that, even though their environment has drastically changed over time, they have grown to accept those changes and fail to react, until it is too late. Perhaps their products or services have not evolved enough to remain competitive or their office environment has slowly become toxic…stifling cooperation, creativity, or effectiveness.
Other times, success is the root of the problem. Success can breed complacency and complacency leads to irrelevance. Years ago, I had a manager that said to me, “Bull markets are bad for our business.” At first, I thought the guy was nuts. But then he went on to say, “In a bull market, we fool ourselves into believing that we are good stock pickers or asset managers. We convince ourselves that we are outstanding business developers because we raise more assets or get more referrals. The truth is that during a bull market our analytical skills become less important allowing competitors to easily enter the industry and our selling skills atrophy because the fish are jumping in the boat!”
It doesn’t matter what industry you are in. Change is the only constant and successful companies evolve with those changes. Unsuccessful companies bury their head in the sand and let the environment dictate their fate.
What’s the temperature of your pot of water? Do some critical thinking and determine how effective your company is at growing its top and bottom lines. How strong are your sales and marketing skills? How do your current performance habits compare to the way they were when you started your business? Are there realities that you are overlooking or ignoring?
Create some clarity around your current place in the world. Ask yourself the tough questions and accept what may be some harsh realities those questions may uncover. And then ACT! Create a plan of action and get to it.
Don’t let the water boil around you until its too late.