Daily Lab: The sign that you need to change
Pay attention to the edges of your industry
When I see business owners casually dismiss new technology, like AI, I worry they think somebody’s going to tell them when it’s time to adapt.
Maybe they think, sure, AI seems like it could be a big thing, but I don’t have to worry about it until it’s more clearly established.
But as Rita McGrath wrote in Seeing Around Corners, we need to remember that “Snow melts from the edges.”
She continues, “The changes that are going to fundamentally influence the future of your business are brewing on the periphery. To avoid being taken by surprise by an inflection point, you need to be exposed to what is happening at the edges.”
Which means, no one’s going to come tell us when it’s time to change—because it’s already time to change.
It’s always time to change, because the edge is always changing.
What’s happening at the edges of your industry? Where are customers getting fed up? Where are they getting what they really want? And from whom?
If we know that some potential customers are using AI tools instead of coming to us, that’s the sign. That’s the warning.
The snow has already begun to melt.
So, let’s think about why it’s melting, and what’s causing it.
And where our value can be reasserted, reenergized, and revitalized based on the change, not based on our resistance to it.
Industries rarely die, but procedures and business models do—all the time.
And they melt from the edges.
So that’s where we want to pay attention.
Because the time to change—and the sign to change—is right here, right now.
