Opportunity to Adapt

I was recently talking with a business owner who had a very bleak outlook on the future. He started the conversation by saying, "I hate technology!" Not the typical mindset of a Gen Xer.  He owns a chauffeur company and shared that he is worried that autonomous vehicles are going to put him out of business.  - Good Point, I thought - and then I remembered the history books I was forced to read in grade school. (Apparently you do use this stuff when you're older.)

I told him that this is an opportunity to adapt. You see, history is littered with train companies that went from world dominance, into steady decline, to bankruptcy from 1920-1970. This happened because new technologies superseded their core business. They saw themselves as 'train companies' and kept trying to make the trains more attractive. They should have seen themselves as 'transportation companies' and worked to improve transportation, including automobiles and jetliners, embracing the very technologies that were the cause of their ultimate demise.

I told him that if he foresees the future filled with robotic cars, embrace it. He should stop thinking of his business as a human powered driver business, and start thinking of it as a luxury people moving business. It will require different thinking, but the opportunity to adapt is there.

Far too often, we get stuck in a way of thinking about the world, and believe that we are helpless victims of our circumstances. But I want to remind you that if you can see the problem, you are well along the path to creating a solution.

Be the good.