The same bad habit that stalls huge companies for years can sabotage your career

pulse

October 9, 2017 2:26 PM

Resisting change will destroy your career — just like it hurts companies who stick to the status quo, says Scott Galloway, author of "The Four."

Resistance to change is the "Achilles heel of big firms and sepsis for careers."

So says Scott Galloway, a clinical professor of marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business, the founder of the digital intelligence firm L2, and the author of the new book "The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google."

Most of the book explores the factors that have made Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook so powerful — but Galloway also takes a chapter to explore the factors that will make today's professionals wildly successful.

Interestingly, Galloway says that individuals can take a tip from The Four: Be curious and be open to change.

Amazon, for example, is constantly running experiments — from the failed Fire Phone to a floating warehouse — to see what will pan out.

Zara is similar in its chameleon-like approach to business. Neil Saunders, CEO of retail consulting firm Conlumino, previously told Business Insider,

(Galloway also writes that Zara, like The Four, is known for being agile.)

Galloway tells readers, "Trying to resist this tide of change will drown you. Successful people in the digital age are those who go to work every day, not dreading the net change, but asking: 'What if we did it this way?'"

When he visited the Business Insider office in October, Galloway said:

"You should spend a certain amount of your time — if you're at any job — trying to question the status quo and challenge people. I think you might ruffle some feathers initially, but at the end of the day, people want that person. They want that rebel gene in their organization."

That willingness to "ruffle some feathers" may be key. Author Malcolm Gladwell has argued that entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Ingvar Kamprad, the billionaire founder of IKEA, are not only smart and hardworking — they're also not concerned about what other people think of them.

Bottom line: Yielding to tradition and keeping your ideas to yourself is rarely a recipe for success. Shake things up.

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