Which is one of the most fascinating & powerful words as per you? 

It is CHANGE, right? 

Lords learning

A few weeks back, like me, most of you would have watched (highlights) & enjoyed the dramatic test match win by India against England at the Mecca of cricket. The kind of drama & the entertainment produced between 22 yards, how the Men in Blue crossed the line over England to taste the victory @ Lords is incredible. 

We can quote this match as the best example for the word CHANGE. The amount of learnings we can take out from this match is immense. The way our CHANGE (be it individual or team) can conquer the consequences in their favor was witnessed in this match. I would say a lot of off-field lessons can be learned through this match if we observe this closely again for the success of individuals & teams.

CHANGE

As the world keeps evolving after the pandemic lot CHANGED from the past. So it’s time for us to understand the present reality & CHANGE ourselves to accommodate the new normal. Else our existence and survival will be a big question mark. 

Am sure you will all agree with me on this! 

Here we are talking about the fundamental CHANGE in approach, not the simple CHANGE. To succeed you need to be open enough to accept the CHANGE and constantly adapt to the same with positivity which is the first step towards success. Most of us have the tendency of showing resistance to CHANGE & fear about the same. In the present world if we are not understanding the below “CHANGE does not CHANGE one thing” 

Continue to accommodate ourselves to the CHANGE or else we will get CHANGED (replaced) by someone else which we should be aware of and prepared for.

So it is very clear & evident that due to constant CHANGES with the special challenges in new normal our routine & normal efforts alone will not be sufficient. Instead, stretched efforts only can help enable us to keep moving forward.

Story about CHANGE

Am sure most of you know this inspirational story of an eagle……

Eagle story 

The Eagle has the longest lifespan of its species, it can live up to 70 years. But to reach this age, the eagle must make a hard decision. In its 40th year, its long and flexible talons can no longer grab prey that serves as food. Its long and sharp beak becomes bent. Its old-aged and heavy wings, due to their thick feathers, stick to its chest & make it difficult to fly. Then, the eagle is left with only two options: DIE or go through a painful process of CHANGE which lasts 150 days. The process requires that the eagle fly to a mountain top and sit on its nest. There the eagle knocks its beak against a rock until it plucks it out.

Then the eagle has to wait for a new beak to grow back and then it will pluck out its talons. When its new talons grow back, the eagle starts plucking its old-aged feathers. And after 5 months, the eagle takes its famous flight of rebirth and lives for 30 more years. 

Why is CHANGE needed?

Many times, to survive we have to start a CHANGE process. 

Below is the video link to this story.

Yard to Meter

As we belong to the textile/apparel ecosystem above 2 names do not require any special introduction in detail and we deal with & use these words day in and day out for various reasons. 

Yard = 91.44 cm

Meter= 100 cm 

All this while most of our life got moved with our normal approach, with that still we could manage our shows better & few lucky chaps could succeed in their journey with semi and half efforts as well. In other words, we can say till now around 90 percent of efforts (Yard) have yielded the results and favored most in our industry.  

People can run their show with the effort to the level of Yard so for. 

As the competition grows and the drastic challenges continue to trouble the industry in a big way the so-called 90 percent efforts (yard) would not be sufficient, rather we would require a stretched effort of 100 percent ( Meter)to manage & succeed in new normal. 

So it’s time to CHANGE from Yard (around 90) to Meter (around 100) in our approach which is what the paradigm shift (fundamental CHANGE in approach) we are talking about here.

Examples of CHANGE

All this while, we spoke about CHANGE at length, I felt it is imperative to share an example for easy understanding of everyone about Yard to Meter CHANGE we are talking about….

Students - CHANGE the way of approaching internship opportunities: choose it as an entry to the industry, instead of doing an internship as a formality.

Institutions - changing the way of educating students; from merely covering defined syllabus to teaching the students about industry requirements.

Manufacturer/vendors - CHANGE their manufacturing behavior; from expecting buyers to place the orders on what they are capable of manufacturing to manufacture what their buyers are looking for.

Exporters - CHANGE from offering product solutions to the buyer as per their needs to gain orders from buyers by showcasing their product development capabilities with the focus of few steps towards creativity.

Retailers - changing as per consumer behaviors and needs instead of offering comfortable solutions to market and expect them to buy & support for business success.

Employers - CHANGE the way of measuring the success of employees only based on performance to value additions and contributions to the companies growth.

Employees - open enough to accept the CHANGEs and challenges companies throw and take a step towards aligning to company goals indefinitely.

Consumers - CHANGE in buying behaviors from taking regular products to sustainable products so that we all can care for nature as well as for the future of our dear ones.  

To wind up 

People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve their lives instead of doing the simplest and easiest thing - which is CHANGE. 

You take the examples of Lord's test match or even the eagle story both emphasize very clearly the importance of CHANGE. 

In a nutshell, if we can CHANGE the way we think, then we can definitely CHANGE the way we live.

It’s time to take a step towards CHANGE in behavior and approach to manage & survive in the new era. So let’s move forward few more steps from the yard (90) to meter (100) so that our additional few steps of CHANGE can bring success in our journey in case of both personal & professional life at an individual level as well as to entire environment……

Do share your views & thoughts in the comments section; together we can impose a CHANGE for the future….

RELATED TOPICS:#Apparel,Ramesh Gunasekaran