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

Seizing Opportunity: Gerber Legendary Blades

A set of Gerber-12 steak knives circa 1950.   Source:   houseinprogress Y ou might think this is the story of a struggling knife maker making it big through sheer dint of effort.  The story of Gerber Legendary Blades is one of serendipity and the Christmas of 1939.  The name Gerber in hometown Portland, Oregon, is often associated with the regional advertising agency started by Joseph Gerber in 1910.  The agency dealt in advertising, which in those days required the agency have their own printing presses in addition to the standard staff of writers, artists and account managers.  By 1939, Gerber Advertising was one of three large agencies in Portland, with a staff of around thirty employees. As a present to the agency's clients, Joseph Gerber, commissioned a knife maker to create 25 sets of steak knives which were delivered at Christmas that year.  The knives were such a hit that catalog retailer Abercrombie & Fitch made a big o...
Post a Comment
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