"Nothing's Changed"

It's funny the streaks that we run into with clients. This week we kept encountering ones told by their supplier(s) that nothing had changed: the input material was the same (still meeting the same incoming and outgoing specs), the supplier had processed it the same as always and yet the client was noticing big changes in the product.

Our only logical conclusion was the the laws of chemistry and physics had changed this week and nobody informed us (or our clients).

All kidding aside, I've heard the same comments - "nothing's changed" - everywhere I've worked and it is a serious issue as something has changed. It just means you need to look a little further into what's going on.

What really should be said instead of "nothing's changed" is this:

"Everything that we are keeping an eye on has not changed; something that we are not keeping an eye on has changed and it is ruining everything."

And that's totally different from "nothing's changed". Knowing that, the whole mindset quickly changes and people start thinking more freely.