The Secret to Creating a Change-Nimble Organization Culture
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Introduction
Technological advance has been accelerating change at a furious pace in the past decade and things are only going to accelerate exponentially in the coming decade.
Disruptors and disruption are both inevitable and gaining acceptance as a business reality today. There is a radical shift across customer needs, buying behaviors, consumption patterns, cost structure, competition, and many other business dimensions. In today’s world, disruptors attack an incumbent’s competitive advantage and neutralize it and leave them in a reactive posture with limited alternatives other than rapid response, change and adaptation.
The last decade has ushered an era of disruption with industries (hotels, taxis, print media, music etc.) coming under value eroding attacks from new players and many iconic brands from the last century now laid to rest through bankruptcies, acquisitions etc. It is now widely accepted that rapid change, adaptability, and proactive change is an essential corporate survival and growth skill.
This is however not easy due the pre-existing forces rooted in the structure and culture of organizations, which rise to resist change. This resistance manifests itself in the form of certain behaviors which we term as “cultural antibodies.”
Just as the immune system in a human body is designed to produce antibodies to fight off disease, many corporations seem wired to guard against change. Like an overactive immune system that attacks healthy tissue, forces deep within these organizations tend to rise to fend off any threat to the status quo. Unfortunately, this dynamic is all too common, and that is why most change initiatives fail to deliver their intended return on investment: this despite the proliferation of change methodologies and the recognition of change management as a necessary management discipline.
The popular change methodologies have much to teach us, but none on its own offers the entire cure. Rather, leaders need to be alchemists, extracting and blending from each the solutions that will treat the ailments unique to their organizations. First, however, they must arrive at the right diagnosis.
