by Eddy Parham, SPHR

I was out running recently and spied a business shingle hanging below a mailbox, which was located close to the road. The shingle read “CB Repairs”. Now granted I currently live in a small town; however, even in this town I don’t see the citizen band radio repair business as “booming”. As I continued on my run I began thinking and reflecting on those organizations that never saw the changes within their industry coming and those who did and took action to keep from going under. My musings leaned more towards the types of people that lead these organizations and how or why they either see or are blinded by future change.

I realize that volumes could be and have been written on this subject so this is not intended to cover all the nuances in leading change initiatives. Instead I am going to focus on just a few bullet points – I was only running 6 miles that morning so my mind couldn’t drift but so far.

There are several types of people in the world when it comes to recognizing the need for change –

•       Visionaries – these are those people who see “The Next Big Thing” long before their contemporaries

•       Early Adopters – they catch the wave as it is forming and are able to get a good long ride out of it

•       Late Adopters – they wait to make sure that the wave is truly forming before they try to catch it. They are able to get a good ride but the ride is not as great or as long as it could have been.

•       Accepters – they see that the wave has formed and is about to break on top of them. The ride they get will be rough at best. These are the folks that usually are picking the sand out of their teeth after having wiped out.

•       Spectators – these are the folks who would love to ride a wave, but they aren’t too certain a wave will actually form and if it does they aren’t sure if they have the right equipment, skill set, or personnel to ride it. Spectators can usually be found lying around on the beach.

Now the CB repairman was probably either an Early or Late Adopter 40 years ago but somehow I think he has now become a spectator.