Necessity is the mother of all "change"

“Necessity is the mother of all invention”—Plato

I will expand on that quote and replace invention with “change”. The quote is absolutely true regarding invention but Necessity also breeds and produces all change, invention or not. Now you are probably thinking to yourself, “No shit”. But up until two weeks ago that quote didn’t hit home…until Necessity came banging on my door.

We were all set to have production run as usual. Everything had been ordered, our facility had been reserved, the employees were ready, and then an email popped in. “Just confirming the following PO’s”. PO(s) as in plural? We looked through our previous emails and found, to our shock, that one of the PO’s had been unaccounted for. A PO for 13,000 bottles had slipped through the cracks.

What do you do in that situation? Email back and say “sorry, we fucked up and we cant deliver.” Umm, FUCK NO. You put on your hard hat, pack a ham sandwich, and prepare to GET IT ON.

The “change” came when we all sat down to plan this triple order that we didn’t know existed. Up until that point, only one person had a pulse on our production and the rest of us relied on him for all information, results, and issues. We were now forced to own it; ALL OF US. We ALL had to figure out how to make it happen. And in the process, we all had to make MAJOR change happen. And we did. We figured out that we needed a larger space. We figured out we needed more people. We figured out we needed better equipment. And most importantly, we REALIZED that one person cannot own a department without any intervention from others. Everyone has to have SOME pulse on what’s going on with everyone else. You cant put people on an island and expect it to run perfectly. You have to take time and “get in its guts”. Only then, can you move forward. Only then can you create change. And when that change finally happens (from necessity) it will accelerate your personal and professional evolution TEN FOLD.

That experience changed my life and it made me realize that when one door closes another one opens (and the second door is always better).