Circumstances do change
Every day, leaders need to make decisions. One may assume that once a decision is made, it should stay as it is. But does it?
Kutol is a company that established itself in 1912 as a wallpaper cleaner manufacturer. Their primary product served families who regularly needed to clean their wallpaper. However, when people started to move away from heating with coal to cleaner solutions like oil, gas, and electricity, circumstances started to change. The need to remove sooty buildup on walls slowly reduced itself, impacting Kutol’s business.
Where the business model was sound in its beginning, as circumstances started to change, the company needed to pivot. A bit of luck and creativity led to slightly changing some ingredients of the product. It could then be used to model objects, and more specifically, let kids use it. The result was the creation of Play-Doh.
One can look at this story through a lens of innovation, but in this article, I suggest looking at it from a point of view of changing circumstances. Even if the upcoming change could have been foreseen in 1912, it is not really relevant as Kutol did serve the market until the 1950s. It made sense to create their product and build a business around it.
Heating systems and their evolution was information available to Kutol. Observing their market, they understood how relevant the change was to them, and they started to reflect on their business model.
They could have denied the change, but they didn’t; they embraced it.
We cannot predict the future, but we can pay attention to those events happening in the present that have an impact on our situation. In accepting them we enable ourselves to change and be proactive about it.
It may not work, and one may not perceive everything as needed, but staying aware of the fact that circumstances change allows one to regularly revisit one’s project and question it.
It takes energy to do so. However, it reduces the necessity to react and provides the time needed to prepare and adapt to the existing change.
To develop such a mindset, it may help to see oneself as a cog in the machine! It creates enough humility to accept events as they occur.
