Even change requires a discerning, selective eye.
We’ve discussed before our need to make room for both innovation AND improvement when it comes to creating more social businesses.
I’ll grant you that innovation is the word that scares a lot of people, because it’s loaded. That’s why it gets a lot of airtime. It implies big change, big differences, unfamiliar things, learning stuff all over again. Big change is scary, and it’s naturally understood why we’d resist it, so it offers easy points for discussion and commiseration.
But what many businesses are also struggling with as they adopt social business ideals – more than you think – is the process of renovation, of improving upon what they already do.
It’s a bit like buying a beautiful, historic house that needs some updating. It’s got good bones, but needs desperately to be made habitable again and brought up to the codes and living standards of the day. Some of those updates are going to be cosmetic – paint and floors and windows and stuff. Some might be scarier and more substantial, like fixing a cracked foundation or knocking out a few walls and replacing old wiring.
The difficult part is that building and evolving from an existing structure is painstaking work. It’s sometimes expensive work. It’s often meticulous, requiring immaculate attention to detail in order to bring something up to modern standards without disturbing the history or tradition or character. It can be heartbreaking, like thinking you have a handle on the problem, only to open up the walls and realize that you were completely unprepared for the full extent of the work that needed to be done.
Social business can be as much evolution as revolution. There are many throughlines – culture, relationships, communication – that may require reinterpretation, but not necessarily demolition. Sometimes preservation is important, too.
Innovation! can become a manic battle cry just as badly as the way we’ve always done it! because it can actually be an easier choice than fixing what’s broken. Become desperate enough or overwhelmed enough by the extent of the renovation you need to do, and sometimes knocking it all down and starting fresh can indeed feel like the simpler, cleaner path to take.
But we truly do need both in order to capitalize on this significant business shift. We have to be willing to get intimate with our own businesses once more – to run our hands across the cracked plaster of familiar and sometimes forgotten walls – so that we can make smart decisions about the valuable legacies that deserve their refreshed place in our future, and where new blueprints need to be drawn.
They both have value. Neither one is very easy. But when woven together, they just may allow the best of our history to help become the foundation for our own brilliant future.
This is a great model for the current education system as well. We need to build and fix what we already do, but in some aspects we need to be brave enough to start anew.
Amber, this post is so “spot on” for most of my clients. While often realize they need help, they are rarely prepared for the “full extent of the work that needs to be done”. And while they are in denial that there are issues in their core business they have no idea of their needs on the web and in social media. Thank you for saying this so well.
This is a very well written post. Big changes are indeed scary especially if we are not used to it. A good way to overcome the fear is a positive mindset. We must set our goals clearly and be positive along the way. Innovation is never a walk in a park. We must be cautious and give our full effort to avoid risking a big part of our business.
Scott Hallman, a marketing genius I’ve learned a ton from has a philosophy of coming into a new business and helping them optimize everything they’re doing good at, thus boosting cash flow with these activities, bringing in money in which to innovate with new marketing channels.
I agree with this and what you’re talking about here Amber.
Both of these words can work synergy mojo with each other and bring about a greater outcome than only one could by itself.