Willingness to change

Many people are afraid to change, because the change may go wrong. The fear the consequence of a mistake - that they may lose a well paying job.

Here are my views. We have to make many changes, in the hope that some will succeed and that the benefit of success will outweigh the cost of the failures. Usually, it is not possible for us to know if a change will succeed or fail, unless we are willing to try it. We only need to make sure that the cost of the failure is small and is affordable.

Sometimes, we need to fail the first time, in order to succeed the second time. The lessons of the first failure can be a great way to learn what the real world situation is like. If we never try, we will never know.

I wish to share this interesting personal experience. In the early 1980s, I headed an insurance company that launched, for the first time, the life annuity product. We did a great deal of planning, preparation and training of the agents and employees. We also advertised the product on a modest budget. It failed. The consumers do not accept a product where they can lose their capital on early death.

Three years later, we launched a modified life annuity product that provided a guaranteed payment for 15 years but gave a smaller payout. It was a roaring success and established a domiant market share for the insurance company. The lessons from the first failure was the trigger for the changes that led to the success of the second attempt.

I wish to encourage people, especially the younger ones, to be willing to try and to change. It will be fun to experience the succeess, failures and to learn from the results.

Tan Kin Lian