Daily Inspiration: “You can defer your decisions, but you can’t defer your reality!”

“You can defer your decisions, but you can’t defer your reality!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Denial is a powerful drug – it fuels the disbelief that people and companies have about the future risk they face if they don’t change. It’s addictive, because it provides the easiest way out of confronting reality. It’s baffling, because you know that things are going to change – and yet, in that famous phrase on innovation, you keep on doing what you’ve done before.

Your business model is going to change. You know that is true.

There will continue to be a flood of new competitors. You’ve been watching them carefully every day. You know there are others lurking about that you aren’t even yet aware of.

The very nature of the product or service that you sell is going to continue to change. The folks in R&D are pleading with you to make the necessary investments to move forward.

You are going to find dramatic change to your distribution models. The Internet and e-commerce is wreaking havoc on your plans.

The skill set you have available today will be out of date tomorrow. You scream every time you find that you are short of necessary knowledge.

And yet, you don’t decide to make the critical decisions you should be in order to solve these problems.

Need I go on?

Give me your business, and I’ll give you an inventory of the challenges you face! I’ll put your future, based on your current reality, into stark contrast. I guarantee you it won’t be pretty.

And here’s the thing – in the face of those very challenges, it’s almost a certainty that you have a culture of deferral all around you.

A management team that won’t make deep, complex decisions. Staff who would rather wait before pulling a decisive plug for action.

Committees that drown in a sea of groupthink as the best method for coming to consensus.

You know that this is wrong.

Deep in your soul, you know that you should be decisive with the actions you need to take in light of your looming reality.

So — why don’t you?