Is It Time to Restyle?

Dressed for work, I’m walking into the den to kiss CeCe bye this morning.  I get two steps into the room and hear, “Ha! You changed your hair!” CeCe, as you might have noticed in previous blogs, is the most observant person I have ever been around and that includes my Mom, who always knew when we were up to no good. 

“Yes, I have been experimenting with it for several days and I decided to go with it today. What do you think?” “I like it, you need to smooth it out some in the back, but I think it works.” While I am trying to smooth out my hair with my fingers, she continues, “You haven’t been experimenting with it, you combed it back because I mentioned that guy last night on TV looked good and his hair was styled the same way.” 

“That’s crap, I didn’t even notice how he styled his hair.”  The truth is that I really have been experimenting as my old hairstyle wasn’t working with my continued hair loss. Either the loss of hair or my forehead is suddenly in a growth spurt. Ha! Regardless, I felt like I needed a change.  I’m also hoping that it will slow down the jokes, texts and calls where my friends are having a blast comparing me to Congressman Doug Collins when he appears on TV which according to my text messages is pretty frequently.  “Hey Joey, I’m watching you on TV again this morning.” 

I thought CeCe’s story of WHY I have a new hairstyle was dead and between us until tonight.  We are at dinner with two of our best friends and they were kind enough to notice the hairstyle change and were very complimentary.  As I thanked them and shared how I had been experimenting with it due to my old style not working with my hair loss, CeCe pipes in, “That’s not why he changed his hair, we were watching TV and I pointed out a good looking man on the show who had his hair combed back and styled like this. Lo and behold, Joey comes out of the bedroom the very next morning with a new look.” All eyes in the restaurant are now on our table as everyone is laughing hysterically and I am getting nowhere with sharing the truth. 

I can only hope we have an easier transition moving to changing business models, new services and client-focused brands than I’m having with my new hairstyle.  We know for our firms to be distinctive in an ever-changing and competitive growing market, our present brands built around historians and accountants will not provide us growth in the future.

What will our new image look like? Have we been experimenting enough? Has anyone noticed a change in who we are? I do believe conducting smaller experiments helps us find our way and courage. New competition will help us find urgency but it is so risky to wait. 

In closing, I didn’t say that CeCe’s comment about the "good looking" guy had NO effect on my bringing the new hairstyle out. Today, we don’t want to wait until our clients are noticing a better brand before we start restyling our firms.