Why Past Success Won’t Bring You Future Success

Posted by Chuck Kocher
On January 10, 2020

Future success from a professional business coach

Problems of Past Success Paths To Determine Future Success

The business landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years. Disruptive forces in the marketplace are the new norm. Some “tried-and-true” methods no longer bring the results they once did.  What brought you past success won’t bring you future success.

You Can’t Get There from Here

It’s a little bit like trying to drive cross country using a map from 1950. Some of the roads may still be there. Others have disappeared. Even the roads that are still in place aren’t ideal for getting where you want to go. In many cases, it takes too long to get where you want to go (which isn’t good for business), or the old roads lead to places where businesses used to be—not where they are today. You can’t get there from here—at least not with the efficiency and reliability that today’s business world requires.

The Problem with Past Success

We all want to succeed in business. We tend to be proud of our accomplishments. But success can make us comfortable or complacent. As an executive business coach, I’ve seen many instances when a leader’s past success made it difficult for him or her to adapt to changing circumstances. In his best-selling book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Marshall Goldsmith devotes a whole chapter to what he calls, “The Success Delusion, or Why We Resist Change.”

If you’re content with the level of business you’re conducting, you can keep doing the same thing—for a while. If, however, you’re looking to transform your business and scale it up to achieve new heights, you can’t rest on your laurels or rely on the same strategies and methods that brought you past success. Transformation isn’t static. There is no finish line!

Don’t get me wrong; you should take pride in your hard work and in efforts to achieve success. But if you want to scale up your business and experience high growth in today’s business environment, you’ve got to adapt. And that requires more than a few small changes. It requires the transformation of yourself, your leadership, your strategy, your execution, your culture, and even the way you handle your cash.

That’s why I’m committed to offering transformational programs to business leaders and their teams who want to build a transformational organization that will stand up to the continual tests of competition and accelerating change. It’s not enough to talk or think about doing things differently in your business. You need to take specific steps to ensure that you, your leadership, and the rest of your company are equipped to handle the demands of an ever-changing marketplace.

Are you ready to scale up your business? Are there things that need to change before you can do that? If your business isn’t growing the way you want it to, I’d invite you to click on the button below to take a 5-minute assessment that can provide insights into what needs to be transformed within your business in order to scale up.

business growth for future success