In reviewing my past five columns in TAS Trader I see a trend in what I’ve written. I can best summarize this theme as embracing change. Indeed I wrote about looking forward to the new year, re-envisioning ourselves as information processors, asking is our industry shrinking, looking at our changing industry, and pursuing a niche strategy. That’s a lot of words about change, all because we are confronted with a pressing need to change.
While certainly a concern, change is nothing new to our industry. Change has always been a part of the telephone answering service landscape, especially since the introduction of computerized answering systems, circa 1980.
We’ve always had things to worry about, transitions to navigate, and technology to master. Change permeates our thoughts, our informal discussions, our industry meetings, and the things we write about.
We can have two responses to these ever-present changes.
One approach is to resist them. We can seek to maintain the status quo. We can lament about the good old days. We can even try to convince ourselves that things will get better if we just stay the course.
The other approach is to embrace change. We can see change as an opportunity. As technology evolves our prospects for growth and improvement follow closely along. The opening is there for us if we will but take it.
The challenge is to see change as an opportunity in disguise and then figure out a way to grab hold of it to seize the potential that it presents.
Change is normal; so embrace it.
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Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, has spent his career in and around the answering service industry. He’s owned, managed, bought, sold, and merged answering service businesses as well as consulted, written, and programmed for the answering service industry. Learn more at PeterLyleDeHaan.com.
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