“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” If you’ve heard this Mike Tyson quote before, you know it’s never been more relevant. As business leaders, to some degree, we have been punched in the mouth recently.
In a situation like this, have you adjusted? Have you pivoted? Have you course-corrected?
From our experience, we had a plan for the upcoming quarter — but it had to be completely wiped and restructured. It was not in our plan to have 70 people working remotely or ceasing travel. The reality is that we had to make those pivots and adjustments.
The way and pace that you’re able to make pivots within your business is oftentimes what’s dictating your progress.
In response to changes like this, I’ve seen a lot of reservations from business leaders in the sense that, “If I change the plan, my team is going to be frustrated. It’s going to upset them, they’re going to rebel, and they’re not going to go with it.” This creates a situation where you’re not making decisions because you’re worried about how people are going to perceive them, instead of focusing on building your organization effectively.
If you’ve got a team that is able to pivot, adjust, and approach change as a good thing, then change equals progress. They are able to mobilize quickly without wasting too much time on complaining, on emotion, and on drama.
If you’ve ever read the book, Who Moved My Cheese, there were mice who came to a fountain every single day, and it was filled with bountiful cheese. Every single day, everyone would have wonderful cheese until the cheese stopped. They still kept coming to the fountain every single day, but there wasn’t any more cheese.
The book alludes to this: eventually, many of them starved. But some mice realized right away when the cheese stopped flowing, “We have to get out of here.” And they went to a new place that had not just bountiful cheese, but an all-new selection of cheeses.
Change is good. Change is progress.
When you’re facing a circumstance — let’s say, for example, your business wasn’t set up to go remote. Well, now is the perfect time to implement a cloud-based phone system. Is your case management platform relying too heavily on a server that wasn’t cloud-based? Now you make that change as well.
This is what’s helping you build your law firm of the future.
Embrace change. When all the smoke clears and passes, you’re going to be able to come to the starting line with a running start. You’re going to come out of this thing not with a beer gut, but with six pack abs.
Change is great.
If you agree or disagree with anything said here, I want to know about it. Text me at 404–531–7691 to tell me your thoughts.
