A preacher stood at his altar and made a statement that was, in itself, reasonably mundane. At best, it was vaguely memorable to the room full of worshipers. “Letting go is the right step in moving forward,” he said..His statement was prompted by the passing of one of the members of that community. It had the distinct familiarity of a condolence card from Hallmark; like something that needs to be said, but no one really fully takes the advice as given.His logic was that, if we hold onto the memory of a loved one for too long, some will often never find peace or the ability to live without their loved one; that not letting go can result in a person becoming “stuck” in one place as the world moves on around them. Like grains of sand underfoot on the seashore, if one does not move, one will sink further into the position that they are standing in. Others, however, will simply take a breather first, then move on. I can sense a collective nod, in confirmation, from anyone reading this already…What’s the point, you may ask? Well, if one was to really interrogate this thought process, one would find this is a profound statement that affects us on more occasions than the loss of a loved one. It applies to a myriad of situations in life.At Hotwire, we are in the business of helping organisations maintain their most mutually beneficial relationships, relationships that help them move forward. What we find, however, is that many, MANY organisations hang on to things that are toxic to their corporate relationships. Like hoarders, we see organisations hang onto toxic staff, toxic products, toxic mindsets, toxic brands, toxic logos and toxic strategies.The evidence of this is ever-present. Think of Kodak, Blackberry or Nokia – there are so many other brands that come to mind who have held onto past successes. Stuck in the beach sands of the proverbial Titanic belief that those organisations were too big to sink. Kodak was by far the number one image reproducer in the galaxy…today, we wager that some younger readers of The Happy Times do not know who Kodak was. They just held on too long to what they believed was a winner. And then there is Facebook, who is barely two decades old and yet is already being given a hard time by the likes of Tik Tok, a four-year-old baby!To not get stuck in the sands, Facebook must constantly reimagine itself…If there is so much evidence of a failure to change or letting go being such a risk, why then do organisations not evolve more? To answer this is to state the obvious: organisations are run by humans and we humans are eternally flawed when it comes to letting go. For starters, we are cursed by sentimental value. We hold onto things that have no feelings for us. That old pair of shoes you wore at your wedding. You keep them! (Yet they are never to be worn again). In corporate, a familiar feature is a product the business founder created in an organisation being kept in the same way as those old shoes.Humans fear the unknown. We fear the risk of needing something we throw away. What would happen if we threw away those old pots in the storeroom and then, just next week, someone asks for pots? It is like that old brand name. We keep it, even if it no longer excites people to come to your business, or maybe there has been a change in ownership, and yet we all want to hang on to the old name even when everything is now different. There are many reasons why we might need to change a name, yet we fear this the most. A curious thought is that when women get married, the change in name is celebrated and encouraged, with no fear that people will not know who they lady was, or that she has changed to someone we don’t know… same entity, different name is acceptable in this instance?We feel guilty to let go of products, brands and taglines developed by those before us, perhaps feeling guilty that the work from previous teams should not be so casually replaced. As a sign of respect, we then keep ‘cutting edge’ thinking from the 80s to avoid offending retirees. By not letting go of outdated thinking and processes we lose the opportunity to embrace new thinking that can provide us with a competitive advance today.It would appear that the biggest inhibitor to not letting go of the past in the corporate world and to change, is often chalked up as ‘too expensive’. A rebrand, a new positioning, a new product development drive - all costs money, without a doubt. The moment ‘expenses will rise’ is brought to the table the accountants bring out their calculators and the product dev teams roll up their sleeves for a long meeting. This setting is where great MD are separated from good MDs. The visionary MDs will seek the future while the ‘good’ MDs will see the current success and ask why fix what is not broken?Think of Apple, which is nearly five decades old now. What might the value of marketing and product development be there? In 2023, Apple declared profits of 28 billion USD, in the same year the company spent 28.7 billion on product development. That is an incredible investment into the future of Apple. This approach appears to be paying dividends to Apple who remain the world’s most valuable company today worth 2.9 trillion USD.If you think back to when the iPod came out, did anyone ever believe that Apple would stop making them within 10 years of their invention? Apple also famously let go of the Macintosh and the Apple Stylus; every year they announce a NEW iPhone, closing the chapter on an ‘old’ phone. Today we ready ourselves for Apple Phone 15 following 14 handset designs since the first Apple was introduced to the world in January 2007. Apple started out making computers, yet today they make more profit from iPhones. The point here is clear, actively seeking what is next can be a hugely profitable and sustainable mission.The difference between great sustainable businesses and the likes of Kodak is that progressive organisations fight boundaries and challenge being held in one place. They create room for the future by not holding onto relics of the past. They fully subscribe to the notion that past successes do not guarantee future successes; that by not creating space for new ideas, new thinking and entrepreneurial spirit, an organisation will slowly suffocate any chances of success in the future..Sometimes, you simply need to take a cue from Frozen’s Elsa and “Let it gooo!”
A preacher stood at his altar and made a statement that was, in itself, reasonably mundane. At best, it was vaguely memorable to the room full of worshipers. “Letting go is the right step in moving forward,” he said..His statement was prompted by the passing of one of the members of that community. It had the distinct familiarity of a condolence card from Hallmark; like something that needs to be said, but no one really fully takes the advice as given.His logic was that, if we hold onto the memory of a loved one for too long, some will often never find peace or the ability to live without their loved one; that not letting go can result in a person becoming “stuck” in one place as the world moves on around them. Like grains of sand underfoot on the seashore, if one does not move, one will sink further into the position that they are standing in. Others, however, will simply take a breather first, then move on. I can sense a collective nod, in confirmation, from anyone reading this already…What’s the point, you may ask? Well, if one was to really interrogate this thought process, one would find this is a profound statement that affects us on more occasions than the loss of a loved one. It applies to a myriad of situations in life.At Hotwire, we are in the business of helping organisations maintain their most mutually beneficial relationships, relationships that help them move forward. What we find, however, is that many, MANY organisations hang on to things that are toxic to their corporate relationships. Like hoarders, we see organisations hang onto toxic staff, toxic products, toxic mindsets, toxic brands, toxic logos and toxic strategies.The evidence of this is ever-present. Think of Kodak, Blackberry or Nokia – there are so many other brands that come to mind who have held onto past successes. Stuck in the beach sands of the proverbial Titanic belief that those organisations were too big to sink. Kodak was by far the number one image reproducer in the galaxy…today, we wager that some younger readers of The Happy Times do not know who Kodak was. They just held on too long to what they believed was a winner. And then there is Facebook, who is barely two decades old and yet is already being given a hard time by the likes of Tik Tok, a four-year-old baby!To not get stuck in the sands, Facebook must constantly reimagine itself…If there is so much evidence of a failure to change or letting go being such a risk, why then do organisations not evolve more? To answer this is to state the obvious: organisations are run by humans and we humans are eternally flawed when it comes to letting go. For starters, we are cursed by sentimental value. We hold onto things that have no feelings for us. That old pair of shoes you wore at your wedding. You keep them! (Yet they are never to be worn again). In corporate, a familiar feature is a product the business founder created in an organisation being kept in the same way as those old shoes.Humans fear the unknown. We fear the risk of needing something we throw away. What would happen if we threw away those old pots in the storeroom and then, just next week, someone asks for pots? It is like that old brand name. We keep it, even if it no longer excites people to come to your business, or maybe there has been a change in ownership, and yet we all want to hang on to the old name even when everything is now different. There are many reasons why we might need to change a name, yet we fear this the most. A curious thought is that when women get married, the change in name is celebrated and encouraged, with no fear that people will not know who they lady was, or that she has changed to someone we don’t know… same entity, different name is acceptable in this instance?We feel guilty to let go of products, brands and taglines developed by those before us, perhaps feeling guilty that the work from previous teams should not be so casually replaced. As a sign of respect, we then keep ‘cutting edge’ thinking from the 80s to avoid offending retirees. By not letting go of outdated thinking and processes we lose the opportunity to embrace new thinking that can provide us with a competitive advance today.It would appear that the biggest inhibitor to not letting go of the past in the corporate world and to change, is often chalked up as ‘too expensive’. A rebrand, a new positioning, a new product development drive - all costs money, without a doubt. The moment ‘expenses will rise’ is brought to the table the accountants bring out their calculators and the product dev teams roll up their sleeves for a long meeting. This setting is where great MD are separated from good MDs. The visionary MDs will seek the future while the ‘good’ MDs will see the current success and ask why fix what is not broken?Think of Apple, which is nearly five decades old now. What might the value of marketing and product development be there? In 2023, Apple declared profits of 28 billion USD, in the same year the company spent 28.7 billion on product development. That is an incredible investment into the future of Apple. This approach appears to be paying dividends to Apple who remain the world’s most valuable company today worth 2.9 trillion USD.If you think back to when the iPod came out, did anyone ever believe that Apple would stop making them within 10 years of their invention? Apple also famously let go of the Macintosh and the Apple Stylus; every year they announce a NEW iPhone, closing the chapter on an ‘old’ phone. Today we ready ourselves for Apple Phone 15 following 14 handset designs since the first Apple was introduced to the world in January 2007. Apple started out making computers, yet today they make more profit from iPhones. The point here is clear, actively seeking what is next can be a hugely profitable and sustainable mission.The difference between great sustainable businesses and the likes of Kodak is that progressive organisations fight boundaries and challenge being held in one place. They create room for the future by not holding onto relics of the past. They fully subscribe to the notion that past successes do not guarantee future successes; that by not creating space for new ideas, new thinking and entrepreneurial spirit, an organisation will slowly suffocate any chances of success in the future..Sometimes, you simply need to take a cue from Frozen’s Elsa and “Let it gooo!”
