Build organizations that are fit for the future
For companies to survive and strive in today’s competitive environment, they will need to change quickly and successfully. Managing change is now a core competence that can no longer be considered a discretionary “nice to have”.
The accelerating pace of change coupled with increasing uncertainty and complexity has pushed up this skills gap to what is now a major area of concern.
No organization is exempt from a daunting array of challenges:
- In a world where exponential change is the new normal, how do you build a company that can change as fast as change itself?
- In a world where no organization is protected from intense, unpredictable, disruptive competition, how do you make innovation everybody’s job, every day?
- In a world where knowledge itself is becoming a commodity, how do you cultivate an environment that engages and unleashes the gifts of each person’s imagination, initiative, and passion?
- In a world of increasingly limited resources, how do we rethink what it means to win so that profit comes not from gaming the system but from changing the game for everyone?
As Gary Hamel argues in the video “Reinventing the Technology of Human Accomplishment”, you can’t tackle those mega-challenges if you’re not willing to do three things:
- Aim high – Don’t rest until you’ve done everything you can do to make your organization as resilient, inventive, inspiring, and accountable as it can be
- Challenge the status quo – Most of us work in organizations governed by principles invented before 1920 – and by individuals born in the 19th century. You have to be a relentless contrarian to peel away the operating assumptions and built-in beliefs that surround us like wallpaper
- Explore the fringe – The future doesn’t happen in the corner office or the conference room. It starts out there, on the edges, around the bend. You have to be willing to get out of your comfort zone and venture into unlikely realms if you want to keep yourself and your organization changing ahead of the times.
Hamel paints a vivid picture of what it means to build organizations that are fundamentally fit for the future – resilient, inventive, inspiring and accountable. “Modern” management is one of humanity’s most important inventions, Hamel argues. But it was developed more than a century ago to maximize standardization, specialization, hierarchy, control, and shareholder interests. While that model delivered an immense contribution to global prosperity, the values driving our most powerful institutions are fundamentally at odds with those of this age-zero-sum thinking, profit-obsession, power, conformance, control, hierarchy, and obedience don’t stand a chance against community, interdependence, freedom, flexibility, transparency, meritocracy and self-determination. It’s time to radically rethink how we mobilize people and organize resources to productive ends.
Business history is punctuated by seismic shifts that alter the competitive landscape. These mega trends create inescapable threats and game-changing opportunities. They require businesses to adapt and innovate or be swept aside. Managing change in today’s organizations is not getting any easier. However, doing it well is the new imperative.
Short URL & Title:
Build organizations that are fit for the future — http://www.torbenrick.eu/t/r/tma
