Trumpism is a product of
our longing to relive the past. But your business can’t thrive in
yesterday.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V
AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1
NOV 19, 2024
Every day, people ask me: How did we
get here? It’s complicated, but let’s start by stating that too many of us were
too comfortable, fell asleep at the switch, and stopped paying attention.
Millions of people of all political persuasions were looking for simple,
black-and-white solutions to complicated, persistent, and systemic problems.
Those kinds of answers simply don’t exist; even more important, they never did.
In times of stress, anxiety, and
confusion, it’s so easy to fall into the nostalgia trap: people imagine and
pretend to recall the way we never were.
And, of course, no one ever exploited this angst and unhappiness better than
the Orange Monster. Fed-up and frightened folks desperately want to stop
progress in its tracks because they’re threatened by it. They don’t trust the
present, they hate the prospect of change, and they fear what the uncertain
future holds for them and their children.
The imagined past looks so much better
in the rearview mirror.
We find ourselves longing for, and
trying to return, to the old and familiar ways because our daily lives have
become too complicated, and we’re constantly confronted with too many choices,
alternatives, and offerings with no guarantees. This isn’t just a matter of
decision fatigue or analysis paralysis or of some kind of FOMO; it’s more a
process of denial, blame shifting, and conscious avoidance of the harsh
realities of our lives today. Al Gore long ago called these “inconvenient
truths” and, if anything, they’ve only multiplied over the past few decades.
Nostalgia can be a very powerful narcotic and a way to put a shiny and
seductive gloss on the tough times of the past. Nostalgia is like a grammar
lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect!
It doesn’t really matter what
particular evil you care to blame: technology, social media, “woke” colleges
and universities, helicopter parents, guns, corrupt billionaires, crooked
politicians, or that always reliable villain: constant change. The fact is that
millions of us – leaders, managers, politicians and entrepreneurs – simply
stopped listening. We were fat, happy, and contented, willing to blame all the
ills of society on someone else. And our basic business strategies, especially
after the torment and terror of the pandemic, were to cling to the past,
rely on our brands, reputation and history with clients, and seize on custom
and tradition as excuses to avoid change. No one was excited about moving
forward; we just wanted to get back to the pre-pandemic times. Forget it.
You can never catch up with the past. And no one is successful in the past.
Old standbys are just old, and the
fact that your customers are familiar with you and your products and services
has offered a very shallow moat and little long-term protection. If you simply
keep coasting and pretending that business as usual is good enough to have
customers coming back for more, you don’t understand that we’re facing an
upheaval not simply in the political arena but in all our businesses. This
upheaval will require all of us to act quickly and dramatically to respond to
the new challenges. There is no room for incrementalism.
For too many years, we’ve heard and
religiously repeated the tired cliche that “familiarity breeds contempt.” But
the way in which we have always understood this expression was incomplete and
missing a few essential words. The more accurate and complete reading is that
“familiarity first breeds comfort and then eventually, and often abruptly,
contempt.” The only ultimate cure for the accumulating anger and mounting
despair that threatens to pull the rug out from under your foundation and your
future is to get ahead of the curve and change your approach and your behavior
before you have to – before it’s too late. This is a lesson that the Democrats
unfortunately and painfully learned in spades this year.
For decades in our state and federal
governance, we have settled for a bad trade. We held our noses, closed our
eyes, ignored obvious and unavoidable signs, and bet on a bunch of old and
tired blowhards, do-nothings, and bozos in Washington, D.C., basically because
they were familiar, because we were comfortable, and because we thought we knew
what we were getting by placing our country and our democracy in their grubby
and incompetent little hands. That contentment has now curdled, as it always
does, on both sides of the political aisle and more broadly across the whole
country into unhappiness and disgust.
When I look at the sorry state of the
antiquated and awful leadership of our political parties, it’s hard to feel
much of anything but shame for the shambles that their inaction, ineptitude,
and studied ignorance have now left us in. We were repeatedly warned even by
the head MAGAt himself. We were well aware of the likely prospects, and we also
knew that we’d never ourselves hire any of the incompetent and sorrowful
“stewards” we had placed in charge of our democracy to work in our own
businesses.
So, you could say that we’re only
beginning to get what our apathy and passivity have brought about and that the
unfortunate fact is that we largely deserve it. We waited too long to wake up
and now our country is about to pay the price. Don’t delude yourself into
thinking that this new attitude and consumer activism is going to be bound by
the borders of the political arena. Time’s up and it’s coming for you and your
business as well. Time has an ugly way of turning your assets into liabilities
and it’s relentless. As David Bowie said: “Time may change me, but I can’t
trace time.” Translation: If you don’t get started on the critical changes now,
you’re in for a rude awakening and a rough ride.
The Democratic election debacle may be
bad news for our country, but at least it provides some object lessons and some
important guidance for the rest of us in what not to do and how not to act if
you want your company to succeed.
1.
Look and listen to what the world is telling you. Don’t
ignore the bad news.
2.
Don’t try to please everybody – it’s not possible and it’s
a waste of time and money.
3.
Don’t take your customers or your partners for granted.
Reassure and reward them.
4.
Change for the better before you have no choice.
5.
Change is expensive, but not changing is a choice you can’t
afford.
6.
Don’t try to do cheaply what you shouldn’t do at all.
Today’s consumers and customers know the difference.
