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

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 ...
5 comments
Read more

More Attractive Real Estate Agents Mean Higher Prices and Profits

 " attractiveness is not the 'be all, end all' -- it just helps to tip the scales when competitors are otherwise equally talented or skilled ." At least for real estate agents, it turns out that beauty is indeed more than skin deep. A recent study of physical attractiveness and how it impacts real estate brokers' pay and productivity shows that the more attractive the real estate agent, the higher the listing price of the home for sale.   Those higher listings lead to higher sales prices, meaning that beauty enhances an agent's wage, said the report by Frank Mixon, professor of economics at Columbus State University's Turner College of Business.   He collaborated on the article, "Broker beauty and boon: a study of physical attractiveness and its effect on real estate brokers' income and productivity." with Sean P. Salter, from the Jennings A. Jones College of Business at Middle Tennessee State University and Ernest W. King from...
6 comments
Read more

Earning a Living with Your Music II

Amanda  Plays a Mean Blues Harp When Amanda Grzadzielewski was four years old, her parents purchased her a piano and paid for piano lessons.    Three years later she was with her parents visiting Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market when she heard two musicians playing and talking with a crowd of listeners that surrounded them.   Her reaction was to say to herself, “I want to do that.” Fast forward to 2012, and Amanda and parents have moved permanently to Poulsbo near Seattle and the University of Washington where her father studied mathematics.   True to her dream, she’s busking for passersby at Pike Street Market to earn an income, to find performance opportunities and to find students in her three instruments of choice, piano, guitar (since age 14) and harp (the past three years). Arriving in Poulsbo just this past June, she went to work introducing herself to business owners and civic associations, printing up a business card then dropping by...
4 comments
Read more