Constant turbulence and disruption
Many business leaders face a challenge to keep their companies competitive amid constant turbulence and disruption. Companies such as Borders, Blockbuster, Kodak, Neckermann and Schlecker have recognized the need for strategic change, but couldn’t drive the organizational change needed to sustain business success.
It often plays out the same: an organization, facing a real threat or eyeing a new opportunity, tries-and fails-to cram through a major transformation using a change process that worked in the past.
Increasing competition, globalization, technological changes, financial upheaval, political uncertainty, changing workforce demographics, and other factors are forcing organizations to change faster. Unfortunately to many companies are stuck in the jar – Not being able to let go of the past, of the past success, of clinging on to it, almost always creates Win-Lose situations. It is blocking the opportunity to develop and grow.
The convulsions of the past years have left many business people asking the most fundamental questions about their companies:
- Will our strategy work in this environment?
- What must we change, and what must we not change?
- Do we need a new business model?
The time has come to rethink strategy:
- What is our core?
- How is today’s unprecedented environment changing our customers and their behavior?
- Is our industry being deeply restructured, and if so, how will it affect us?
Companies most likely to be successful in making change work to their advantage are the ones that no longer view change as a discrete event to be managed, but as a constant opportunity to evolve the business:
- Change awareness – Your company’s ability to redefine itself as necessary. Does your company have people responsible for regularly assessing the market for new opportunities and market changes? Does your company proactively search for opportunities for brand renewal and product innovation?
- Change agility - Your company’s ability to engage people in pending changes. How agile is your company? How effective are your managers at engaging and delivering the changes envisioned by your decision makers? How well does your company actually facilitate and execute on change when it is needed?
- Change reaction - Your company’s ability to appropriately analyze problems, assess risks, and manage the reactions of employees. How effectively do you and other leaders at your company assess risk and manage unplanned change? How well does your organization react and respond to crisis?
Has change readiness become the new change management?
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Constant turbulence and disruption — http://www.torbenrick.eu/t/r/rnm
@torbenrick
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Good blog, Rick.
It’s a theme I constantly return to when writing about change, and an article I’ve recently published talks about the need for a culture which accepts change as normal, leading to a need for the kind of approach which reacts to disruption appropriately because it’s geared to do just that.