Managing Inertia

Photo by Karen Lau

Inertia is a thing. 

It’s a driving force in and of itself (as paradoxical as that sounds). 

When you reach a particular level of scale and success, you can be carried along by currents that are beyond simply your ability to be current. Your past successes, the goodwill and trust you’ve built up over the years will carry you forward. 

Of course, there’s also a community of consumers out there that want certainty and comfort in their choices and what better choice to make than a product from an established organization?  

This is why so many major brands continue to flourish even when their products are no longer innovative, or at the cutting edge of where markets and tastes are clearly moving. And when they do figure it out, it’s usually too late. 

So what does this mean? 

What it means is that, as enticing as inertia might be, brands must remain alert and, frankly, never accept the status quo. 

This suggests a few actions:

It means staying alert to market signals about what problems our offerings are not solving. 

It means being vigilant to emerging options and choices - who and what are we competing against?

It means being clear about what our underlying goal or mission is. 

This last point is critical. If there is anything we need to be crystal clear about, it is that we can NEVER about offering a specific product or service. We need to be about solving an underlying problem. 

This approach distances us from the ”tangible” and forces us to think about how we solve for the issue. It forces us to think beyond the constraints of what we offer today and more towards what we should be offering. This attitude allows us to change, as and when needed. 

Of course, this isn’t always easy. Change never is. 

But better to act when times are good and when we have the wherewithal, than to have to do so as a reactive measure.