Daily Inspiration: “Your complacency will kill you!”

“Your complacency will kill you!” – #Futurist Jim Carroll

The first version of today’s quote said ‘might’ – and then, I changed it to ‘will.’ Because, it will.

Many people and organizations sleepwalk into the future. They know that they are at risk, and yet refuse to acknowledge what needs to be done to survive.

This is becoming a particular silly strategy in the era of acceleration. In my client base – agriculture, manufacturing, retail, logistics, healthcare, financial services – disruptors are coming fast, new competitors are appearing out of the ether, and technology is speeding everything up. There is no room or time to sit back and think ‘it won’t happen to me!’

I get a lot of calls from a lot of worried CEO’s and senior executives – ‘we need to prepare for these trends’ goes the clarion cry. ‘We need your insight to get us shaken up, to get us moving.’

And then a committee is struck, a decision tree kicks in, and the message comes back : “We don’t need to do it right now!” If you use that phrase in your organization, you are witnessing the kiss of death – in real time.

What does it mean when your organizations says ‘we don’t need to do it right now!’. It probably means you are in pretty big trouble!