Skip to main content

Is it Better for a Business to Make Radical Change? Or Evolve?

Learn from evolution and copy and replicate
rather than create new processes.
There are times when a business owner decides that their current model just isn't working as they hoped it would, particularly in the early months and years.  The question becomes, should the entrepreneur just dump what they're doing now?  Or make incremental changes with an end goal in mind?

Research by a University of Hertfordshire Professor of Business Studies published in 2010 states that solutions for many of today's business challenges can be found in evolutionary processes.

According to Professor Geoffrey Hodgson at the University's Business School, businesses which are considering major change at the moment should proceed with caution; they could do better to learn from evolution and copy and replicate rather than create new processes.

"Change needs to be experimental and cautious," said Professor Hodgson. "We have to understand the cost of change. If we look to nature, we can find answers in the way in which biological evolution preserves information over a period. This helps to explain why many successful firms, when setting up new plants, try to copy exactly everything about the make-up and routines of the existing plants."
*  *  *  *  *
So there you have it: You're better off to make an incremental change, evaluate then consider your next step as you work toward an end goal.  I guess it's another way of saying, when making a change, don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Suggested reading ~



Story Source:  Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Thorbjørn Knudsen. Generative replication and the evolution of complexity. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2010
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lucrezia Borgia, Entrepreneur

W ho was Lucrezia Borgia?  Tradition has it that she may have poisoned her second husband, Giovanni Sforza.  Rumor of the day had it that Lucretia had incestuous relations with both her father, Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, and her brother, Cesare Borgia.   What is know for certain is that Lucretia was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo, then a cardinal of the Catholic Church, and his mistress,  Vannozza dei Cattanei.  It is known that she was married three times, the first being annulled as never being consummated (despite her giving birth a few months after the annulment).  The second marriage ended in the death of her husband, Giovanni, and her third to  Alfonso d'Este, son of the powerful Duke of Ferrera.  This was also to be Alfonso's third marriage, which ended when Lucrezia dies ten days after she gave birth to a stillborn daughter.  She also had affairs (as did her husbands) with several political figures of the day, and even gave birth to the
Post a Comment
Read more

The Seven Characteristics of the Creative Employee.

How to Find Good Employees : On my post of February 18th of this year, we talked about the role of managing stupidity in the success of any organization.  "Stupidity Management" refers to the real need of a business to know the difference between routine tasks that must be completed by rote and those tasks that require innovation and fresh thinking.   Every business has a need for discipline in tasks that must be performed the same way, each and every time. Every business has a need to creative thinking and fresh ideas on certain other tasks or problems, just not every task of problem.   The Hunt for the Creative Individual There are certain jobs in every organization where you, the owner, need original thinking.  Or perhaps you're running a business that lives off original thinkers.  An advertising agency is a business where the company's assets walk out the door every day at five (ish). Professor Øyvind L. Martinsen at BI Norwegian Business School has co
5 comments
Read more

Business should embrace 'boomerang employees'

Source:  themajors.net What should you do when an employee leaves. . . and later asks to return? It may be an emotional instinct to react by rejecting their request to return. But why?  If you take it as a personal rejection when an employee leaves, you may be cutting off your own nose to spite your own face. As these studies from the University of Illinois point out employees leaving then asking to return may just be offering you a big compliment to the way you do things.  Perhaps they thought they'd be better off elsewhere only to find they were well off where they started.  Not a bad message for other employees to hear if nothing else. Boomerang Employees   Organizations of all types are beginning to recognize and embrace the value of recruiting and welcoming back former or boomerang employees. From infantry soldiers to chief executives, accountants and professional basketball players, many organizations proactively recruit and rehire former employees as a way t
3 comments
Read more