A little over a week ago, CPI Corp shut it’s doors. CPI who, you say? You might not know the name, but I bet you’ve seen them taking family portraits with the babies and small kids squirming and crying in their studios housed in Sears, Walmart and Babies R Us. About 2,700 portrait studios in all–but no more–the company recently died and has left thousands of employees behind.
In 2006, the CEO at the time, Paul Rasmussen went to the board with suggestions and warnings about taking better care of their customers. The board didn’t listen–they were doing quite well, thank you. So, instead of changing anything, they kept right on doing what they had been doing–and then they died–not suddenly, but slowly over time.
The problem is that they are not unique, not by a stretch. We (companies or individuals) seem to have a preference for thinking and doing the same thing, over and over again. We become trapped by and in our thinking, choices and habits and we’re oblivious to that. We complain about this or that–and then keep the status quo alive and well.
Why? One reason is because we can. We seem to be doing okay–and the truth is that too many of us are content with Okay. We get lulled into a false sense of security and we don’t see the writing on the wall. We don’t want to even acknowledge there is a wall. Leaders do that, employees do that–and we routinely do that in our personal lives. I’ve been guilty of this and I bet you have too.
We haven’t died yet–at least not in the final sense. The problem is that when we refuse to change, a little bit of us dies on the inside–and we usually don’t even feel it. That’s true for a company or for a person. Life is about change, growth and transformation. Life is about going forward, not staying in the same place or slipping backwards. Life has a message for us–and a blunt one at that: Change or die.
Why do we resist change so much? Maybe because we think change is so unpleasant and so hard–we hear that message all the time. The truth is that it doesn’t have to be–we make it more difficult than it is. Change can happen right now. All it takes is a small change–thinking or doing something different that will take us in a better direction.
We might not want to think about changing jobs–so why not start with changing our resume and getting it up to date? We might find going back to college too much to think about right now–but we can handle enrolling in one class. We might think losing fifty pounds is impossible–but we can start taking a ten minute walk today.
Change or die.
Choose change.
Categorized in: Articles, Career Success, Self-Improvement
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