CEO and Founder of Vanderbloemen, William Vanderbloemen, discusses with Forbes about how flexibitily is the secret to success.
Several years back, as a modest jogger, I realized I was at an age when regular stretching was necessary for me to prevent injury. I started trying a regular stretching routine after my run. Honestly, the stretching proved to be more of a challenge than the run itself.
One day, as I was stretching after a long run. Turns out, touching my toes was harder than logging six miles. As I was struggling to stretch, my three-year-old walked in the room. She stood and watched me, walked up beside me, and smiled. As only a toddler can do, she sat down and stretched beside me, basically tying herself into a human pretzel. She got up, looked at me continuing to struggle, laughed at me, and left the room.
Only a kid can stretch that way. And I’m no kid. Once the embarrassment faded away, a simple truth dawned on me:
Every day I’m alive, I get less flexible. That is a biological fact.
But it’s also a psychological fact. And an organizational truth. The longer people are alive, the less they can bend and flex. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” right? The longer your company is around, the less adaptable to change it becomes. And the more your team has longevity, the less likely you are to be able to adapt.
Read the entire post here.