Reinvention name of game

There are a lot of books written that compare sports to business because there is a belief in many quarters that success on the sports field can mirror success in business. This is partly due to the fact that both require the co-ordination of resources (especially human) towards the achievement of a goal.

As many of you will know, one team that dominates my attention is Liverpool Football Club.

Their most successful manager was a man by the name of Bob Paisley. An unassuming man on the face of it, Paisley was the product of an organisational structure which became a tradition but more importantly laid the foundations for decades of success.

I remember as a young boy reading about the great deeds of the club. Once Paisley was interviewed a day or so after another Liverpool team had won the Championship and he said "you get nothing today for what you did yesterday".

This small quote has resonated for me down through the years more than any other and I think that it was at the heart of Liverpool's success as a football team back in the day and should also be for successful ventures today.

Truly successful businesses are constantly reinventing or tweaking their products or services because they recognise that times change and markets change. The paradigms that existed even 24 hours ago no longer hold because the world has moved on.

As paradoxical as it may sound "change is a constant" so we need to embrace it, but even more than this we must look to the future and amend our approach - even when it may seem to us that it is difficult or even impossible.

The experts call this state "beta" and this is particularly prevalent for the IT and software industry. I call it life. But all around us there are people who don't believe in the reality.

Now, if they are your competitors this is good news. Competitors who are stuck in the past are easily bested because you can analyse what they are doing and raise your game above theirs knowing that they aren't going to change.

If they are your staff you need to introduce them to the reality of change, because the service and quality levels of the past are not going to be successful in the future - training and development is the best investment here.

Where a lack of recognition of change is most dangerous is when you have advisors who don't accept change or move with the times. What you need from advisors is advice which comes from their understanding of the changing environment.

An advisor who is going through the motions is as dangerous as the captain guiding the boat towards the rocks. And trust your gut on this, if you have a feeling that you're not getting the best service you are probably right.

Bob Paisley didn't live in the past and the success he enjoyed hasn't been repeated. An interesting aspect of being a Liverpool fan, if we are honest, is that we focus too much on the club's past successes - and we haven't been League Champions for over 21 years. Not hard to wonder why.

Zenith Solutions is a Wanganui-based management consulting practice. It specialises in providing strategic planning, business process improvement and financial management services. Contact russell@zenith-solutions.co.nz or phone 021-244-2421.