Message from the President, Nick Riggio
Heraclitus is a Greek philosopher who once said “change is the only constant in life.” It’s a hard concept to wrap our minds around when times are normal, but it has been extra challenging as everything in the world seemed to change simultaneously in the past few months: some manufacturers are uncertain about what the future will bring and are cutting capital budgets; upgrades and migrations are being delayed; travel and social distancing requirements are making onsite service difficult. It’s enough to make you ask, “what’s next?”
I may not be able to answer that question with any certainty (who can?), but I think I can offer some advice on how you can change the question itself. You see, if you can stop anticipating that every change will be negative, you can start to seek out those parts of change that are positive. Think about young children. They don’t have years of negative experiences to make them dread the next corner. Instead, they look forward to each new experience being a possible adventure. They don’t ask, “what’s next?” They ask, “what’s next!”
Every success story starts with a challenge.
Think about that for a moment. Without adversity, you could never really succeed. The issues I listed above aren’t just problems. They’re really opportunities for us to help author new success stories, either for someone else or for ourselves (ideally, both).
Adopting this mindset is easier than it seems. You really just need to focus on two things: listening and imagination. Start by listening to those facing the challenge, taking care not to confuse facts with problems. Then use your imagination to look at those facts in a new way.
LSI has a customer in the food industry where consumption has gone down considerably. Rather than getting caught up in the problems, they identified the opportunities presented by the equipment they already owned. They did some listening and discovered that their excess raw material could be used to manufacture a product that was still in demand. Then they used their imagination to ask, “why can’t we just use our equipment to make that instead?” And they did. Talk about a successful pivot.
As systems integrators, LSI has made a living over the past 35 years by listening. We listen to our customers. We listen to our partners. We listen to the market. We listen to innovators. Then we use all of that information to integrate solutions – solutions, I might add, that don’t always include spending capital on new equipment. Instead of looking at your facility and focusing on what it can’t do, why not let our team look at your facility and tell you what it can do.
You might be surprised to learn that a little change is just what you needed.
Let us listen to your challenges today. I think you’ll be glad you did.