September 27, (THEWILL) – My late father used to say, in the Ogori language spoken where I come from in Kogi State, that a dancer takes their rhythm from the beat of the drum. A dancer who ignores a change in the beat may still move with great confidence but soon looks as though they and the drummer came to different celebrations.
I sometimes think of his words on the golf course. I can arrive at a familiar hole knowing the shot I want to play, only to find the wind threatening to carry my ball into a bunker that was barely a concern on my last visit. If you have been following this column, you will know by now that a bunker is a sand-filled hollow that complicates the next shot. I may even have brought the club that worked perfectly before. The wind, unfortunately, has made no promise to play its part again. Experience still matters, but only if I notice what today’s conditions require.
Last week, in Commit to the Shot, I argued that a considered decision deserves conviction. That remains true. Yet conviction is useful only after we have read the situation honestly. If the wind changes before I take my stance, choosing another club is good judgement. Once I have made that choice, I still need to commit to the shot.
A plan gives a golfer a starting point; it cannot play the round. You may study the scorecard and decide how to approach each hole, then discover that firmer ground, a difficult lie or a shifting wind has changed the question. The objective remains, but the route to it may need to change.
Business presents a similar challenge. Decisions are made with the information available at the time. Then costs change, customers alter their behaviour, technology opens new possibilities or competitors make an unexpected move. Leaders may feel obliged to defend a plan because considerable thought went into it. Without care, commitment becomes rigidity.
I first read Clayton Christensen when a mentor recommended How Will You Measure Your Life? Its questions about the choices that shape a life stayed with me. I later encountered Christensen’s seminal work, The Innovator’s Dilemma, which examines a difficulty that can accompany success. The practices that help an organisation serve its established customers exceptionally well may make it harder to recognise what a different group needs.
Experience remains an asset, provided it does not become the only lens through which we see a changing market.
For close to two decades, I have had the privilege of a front-row seat watching Remita serve corporate clients, building its reputation around the demands of institutional payments. This week, it launched its all-in-one super app, with a stronger focus on retail solutions as part of its wider brand-positioning to extend service to individual customers. The shift does not diminish what the company has built. It asks how those strengths can serve people whose needs and expectations are different.
The significance of that transition becomes clearest in the customer relationship. For individuals managing everyday payments, including payments across African borders, convenience, frequency of use and the experience of each transaction take on greater significance. Remita is drawing on two decades of experience while adapting that knowledge to the needs of the customers it now seeks to serve.
Adaptation can feel uncomfortable because we sometimes erroneously treat it as an admission that the original strategy failed. But circumstances can change even when the original decision was sound. The question is whether we can distinguish what still works from what needs to change.
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During a major technology integration a while back, I learnt that a change could look compelling on paper and feel quite different to the people asked to live with it. A new system may promise greater efficiency, but it also asks people to set aside familiar routines and risk feeling less capable while they learn new ones. My subsequent executive education in Change Management at Colorado State University helped me understand that human dimension more deeply.
Announcing a new direction begins the change; explaining it, listening to concerns and supporting people through it determine whether it takes hold. Leaders must remain attentive after a change is under way. The first plan for putting a new strategy into practice may need adjustment as people begin to use it and unexpected difficulties emerge. Choosing a different shot is one decision; playing the rest of the hole well still requires attention. This matters particularly when a leader has publicly committed to a course of action. Changing direction may seem to invite questions about judgement. Yet people are more likely to trust someone who can explain what has changed and why a new response is warranted than someone who asks them to ignore what they can plainly see. Credibility grows when conviction is matched by attentiveness.
The principle reaches beyond organisations. A career choice, family arrangement or personal ambition may have been right for the life we were living when we made it. Years later, responsibilities and opportunities may have changed. We owe those decisions an honest review, especially when the reasons that supported them no longer hold.
Of course, changing course whenever progress becomes difficult is no wiser than refusing to change at all. A business cannot rewrite its strategy after every disappointing quarter. A golfer who rebuilds his swing after every missed putt will struggle to learn from either the good strokes or the bad ones. Adaptation requires a reason: a meaningful change in conditions that calls for a considered response. Playing the course you have means bringing both preparation and attention to the first tee. Experience tells you what is possible; judgement helps you decide what fits the day. You cannot choose the wind or where the ball comes to rest, but you can choose to see the conditions clearly before making your next decision.
My father’s dancer could not ask the drummer to return to the old beat. The golf course has never shown much interest in my carefully prepared strategy, either. We have to listen, choose the shot the conditions call for and then play it with conviction. Next week, I will look at companies that failed to adapt and paid dearly for it, and ask what remains possible after the wrong shot has been played.
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The author, Meka Niyi Olowola (FSPIN, FIMC), is a seasoned business leader, entrepreneur and avid golfer.
