What If The New Normal Is The Old Normal?

When business environments change, companies have an opportunity to reassess from top to bottom. There can be a temptation to conclude that everything in the future will be different and they should likewise change, well everything.

While improvements to ways of doing things are probably always possible, barring a permanent change in the business environment, incremental changes might be better.

So how do organizations assess what changes are temporary and those that might be more long lasting? We suggest asking the following basic questions:

• Is there reason to expect a change in the need for our products/services?
• Do we anticipate a significant change in the value of our products/services to our clients?
• If we do expect changes in demand and/or value, how will the passage of time likely affect these changes? In 6 months? In one year? In 5 years?

Our ability to respond to change presents both opportunity and risk. One risk might be responding too much to factors that are only temporary.