Remember Lotus 1-2-3?
If you’re of a certain age, you do. It was the spreadsheet. The standard. Then one day it wasn’t. Today you think Excel or Google Sheets. Lotus is a museum piece.
But here’s the thing—Excel didn’t kill Lotus. A perspective shift did.
We love to credit tools with changing history. The printing press. The automobile. The smartphone. But tools don’t change anything by themselves. They just sit there, waiting.
What comes first is always perspective.
Gutenberg didn’t just build a machine. He saw something others didn’t—that knowledge didn’t have to stay locked in monasteries. The press was just the artifact of a shift that had already happened in his mind. Then everyone else’s perspective had to catch up before it mattered.
The tool was ready long before the world was.
I’ve seen this play out in organizations my whole career. A new tool shows up—something that could genuinely change things—and people sort themselves into groups:
“Let’s do it.” Their perspective already shifted. They’re not early adopters because they love technology. They’re early because they already see what others don’t.
“Wait and see.” They sense something’s changing but need proof. They watch, measure, then follow fast. Smart, but always one step behind.
“The herd.” They move when it feels safe. When not changing feels riskier than changing.
“No way.” Still defending Lotus 1-2-3 while the world moved on. Eventually they’re not competition—they’re cautionary tales.
And in most organizations? All four are sitting in the same meeting.
There’s an old saying: by the time you see the bandwagon, it’s too late to jump on. But that misses the point. You’re not late to the tool. You’re late to the thinking.
Right now, tools exist that can tell you exactly how many buying groups walk into your store, how long your team engages with each one, and why your busiest days often produce your worst conversion rates.
The tools are ready here. And we keep making it better.
The only question is whether your perspective has shifted enough to see what you’re missing.
History doesn’t change when tools change. It changes when perspective does.
