I found this membership card whilst sorting through a box of ‘stuff’ the other day, and it reminded me of the very real risk of failing to recognise, internalise and act on change.

For the international community a brief background…Blockbuster was THE video rental store during the 90’s in the UK that failed to adequately address the challenge of online video rental, download and viewing. It went bust.

I’m astonished that still with such obvious reminders of the risks of ignoring the bigger picture, and by that I mean shifts in technology, customer adoption/consumption etc., companies and businesses are still failing to adopt and adapt to change.

I’ve been thinking on this for a while and have surmised that apart from the obvious it’s a people thing, it is almost uniquely a senior management issue. Their fear of failure/ ego/lack of understanding/or plain arrogance is likely to at best result in losing ground to competitors, at worst strangle the business.

For these people I’d argue it’s too late for them to change. They need to either recruit and then trust someone with the skills to take the business forward and compete in the digital space, or resign and allow the business to find a 21st century leader prepared to run the company.