I remember looking at a house that was for sale. At first glance it looked like a nicely remodelled home. But upon closer inspection, it was a house being flipped with shoddy workmanship everywhere. It was missing baseboards behind the toilet. Hardwood was placed on top of the old floor and ended at the entrance to the closets. Electrical sockets didn’t match. And, the kitchen cabinets were dated and looked liked they were painted over with wall paint.

It didn’t take long to realize the house was rushed to market and would take considerable amounts of money to remodel after purchase. In an attempt to look good, a lot of the goodness was compromised, and the seller would have been better off selling it as-is rather than poorly attempting to update the cosmetics, without really addressing the challenges.

I often wonder about people who only worry about looking good. The question arises, what are they trying to hide? What are they sacrificing in order to worry about appearances? What are they losing out on because change is risky?

Are they learning from their mistakes or hiding them? Are they growing or are they stagnating at a point that looked good? Organizations can be the same. There are countless stories about companies not seeing the opportunities of the future because they are stuck in the past. Like Blockbuster not buying Netflix when they had the chance.

What would people say? That’s not what we do? What if the change reflects poorly on us?

How many opportunities are lost because it was more important to keep up appearances, to look good, rather than to make a few mistakes along the way of finding a new and better path?