THE most dangerous assumption in business is things will stay the same. Your customers will stay the same; they won't outgrow you. Your clients will stay the same; they won't move on without you. Your competitors will stay the same; they will march in place while you move forward.
Effective managers and entrepreneurs know this is not true. They know that recognising change and reacting to it quickly is the key to success, especially in the 1990s when supersonic change is the only certainty.
Obvious as this may be, I'm always struck by how people forget the factor of change when it comes to making decisions. The same people who know they must adapt constantly in order to keep pace with their customers and rivals somehow suspend that judgement when it comes to making informed decisions.
They will dismiss an idea, saying: ''We tried that five years ago and it was a disaster.'' For the purposes of making a decision, they assume everything remains the same. They forget the circumstances which may have made the idea ''ahead of its time'' five years ago may have altered so the idea is now ''timely''.
Conversely, they will move forward with an idea, contending that ''it worked five years ago, it should work again.'' Again, they assume the world stands still. Tried and true ideas usually end up as tired and dead ideas if you make that false assumption.
I was reminded of this the other day by Julian Bach, the head of our IMG Bach Literary Agency, who told me this story when he was a young reporter at Life magazine after World War II.