Change contains risk, but so does the status quo

If you view a chainsaw as a redesigned axe you will fail to see its value. Any technology that applies a radically different solution to a familiar problem faces this issue. It is difficult to understand the implications of a technology you’ve never seen before. Yet you cannot succeed by indefinitely doing tomorrow the same thing you did today. Business must evolve to survive.

The utility of a chainsaw is undeniable. The efficiency and productivity you can achieve with a chainsaw is orders of magnitude beyond an axe. Yet if presented as a new solution to a lumberjack with decades of experience it would be rejected outright. If viewed from the paradigm of an axe the chainsaw appears completely useless; it doesn’t have a handle from which to swing it, it is heavy and unwieldy, the teeth of the chain are sharp but seem more suited to cutting your finger than heavy timber, and if you are unfamiliar with small engines the mechanics are as mysterious and pointless as flying pigs. The chainsaw revolutionized the timber industry, but I wouldn’t have wanted to try sell the first one.

The spreadsheet was invented in the early 80’s. Excel is a good tool - it has become the glue that holds many industries together. The duct tape of every other business process. The basic spreadsheet concept hasn’t changed substantially in the 40 years they have been around.

Many industries, like restaurants (and I’m surprised to learn, movie production), are filled with organizations isolated from one another - all independently solving the same set of problems. We fall in love with the solutions we create, they are our children and we love them because we are their creators and we appreciate their uniqueness. Spreadsheets are easy to understand and use, just like bladed tools, and therefore the solutions industry creates are often Excel spreadsheets. Oh, how we become invested in our spreadsheets.

“We’ve been doing this for decades”, is a common objection to a new solution. For those of us bent on improving on what we did yesterday the argument being used to reject change is the very reason to pursue it. Solutions age like milk, not fine wine, and from time to time you need to swap out the old for the new.

Organizations have different tolerance to risk, and change always contains some risk, but so does the status quo. Cloud based data driven software are chainsaws to the spreadsheet. Technology is not automatically a good thing, but neither is stubbornly sticking with something because that’s the only way you know. Be open to a new approach, or go to the grave swinging that axe.