How Fast Should Your Agency Change?
There’s an interesting little fish study that says a lot about how we should think during times of change.
If you take a group of baby fish and raise half in cold water and the other half in warm water, something curious happens: the cold water fish grow slower than normal, warm water fish grow unusually fast.
Then, if you put all the fish back into regular temperature water they’ll converge to their normal size as adults.
But here’s where it gets really interesting according to research from the University of Glasgow.
The cold water fish (slow-growing at first) go on to live 30% longer than average. The warm water fish (fast-growing at first) end up dying 15% earlier than average.
Writer Morgan Housel talks about why:
The cause isn’t complicated. Super-charged growth can cause permanent tissue damage and “may only be achieved by diversion of resources away from maintenance and repair of damaged biomolecules.” Slowed-down growth does the opposite, “allowing an increased allocation to maintenance and repair.”
“You might well expect a machine built in haste to fail quicker than one put together carefully and methodically, and our study suggests that this may be true for bodies too,” one of the researchers wrote.
Of course, this is really a story about change. And more importantly, the pace of change.
I like this study because it starts with growing fish who are going to change. Which is key for our purposes because as an agency leader the wrong question to ask is if you should change. The right one is how fast.
I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to suggest that the world wants you to change right now. Everything you see or read is about the new thing you should be doing or how quickly your current way is going out of date. And that has a very real impact.
Why?
Because when there’s novelty, people want to be a part of it. And when people want to be a part of it, that generates even more attention. Attention leads to talent and capital.
The hard decision for an agency owner right now is deciding whether they are going to be a cold-water fish or a warm-water fish. How quickly will they change?
Not Every Fish Swims in the Same Tank
I’ve worked with many firms who have been run by the same leadership for over 15 years. These leaders always acknowledge that the agency they’re running today is a different company than the one they managed over a decade ago. But in most cases they’ve innovated at the pace of their company - optimizing for business sustainability, not headlines.
To be sure, some agencies are being forced to adapt faster than others. Not because they’re chasing shiny objects, but because their category is shifting underneath them. Software development firms come to mind. Sometimes, we don’t have the luxury of slow transitions. But the question “Should we change?” It’s:
How exposed are we?
How fast do we need to move?
Only you can answer those questions - and it’s a mistake to let someone else’s pace set yours. There’s nothing wrong with unsexy, profitable work. There’s nothing wrong with letting The Beast drive your business.
Give equal weight to rapid change and controlled transformation. But if you have the luxury of being a cold-water fish, building carefully and methodically, I don’t think you’ll regret it.
