CHANGE IS THE NEW NORMAL

A lot of organizations still think that change is an exception to the normal situation. They think that the goal is to return to the status quo as soon as possible.

 

In the IT industry I was used to having two major reorganizations/changes per year and some smaller ones during the year as well. However when I moved to the airline industry they were used to one major change every three or four years. This means that they see change as the exception, even as something that you should minimize. The people in those organizations are thus stimulated not to change and to maintain their current work practices. There was an employee who told me quite frankly that he did the same type of work for almost ten years, even though he had experienced minimal three major changes. He just changed the name of his department, but kept doing exactly the same work. And this is one of the reasons why only one in three change programs succeeds.

 

This situation occurs quite frequently:

  1. Change is seen as an exception
  2. When change is implemented, there is no change in the behavior of the people.

 

In the current economic and financial crisis many people think in the same way. That we are now facing some serious challenges, but that ‘things’ will get better and we then will return back to ‘normal’ again. We just have to cut a lot of costs, lay off some people and be careful. And when the market changes we just continue as if nothing has happened.

But this is a major mistake!

 

The market is changing structurally. Globalization is now really working as it was envisioned many years ago. Technology is facilitating this and technology will continue to change the way work is done. On the management side, people are no longer accepting the greed of their leaders for financial incentives. People also want to be treated as human beings and not as spare parts in a machine. The entire financial system is also changing structurally. The environmental challenges are not temporary setbacks.

 

All of these challenges require an adequate response. In order to respond adequately you have to understand that:

  1. Change is the new normal
  2. Change implementation will only be successful when people change their behaviors.

 

This requires a new perspective (there will no longer be a status quo for a long period) and a new mindset (people are the only real differentiator of any organization).

 

Which leaders are prepared to step out of their comfort zone and instill this new culture of change and innovation??

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10 most common leadership shortcomings and how to resolve them

After scrutinizing 360-degree feedback data on over 11,000 leaders and evaluating the 10% considered the least effective, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman found the 10 most common leadership shortcomings . These are ranked according to the size of the difference between successful and unsuccessful leaders' scores; successful and failed leaders differed most significantly in their energy and enthusiasm.  Please find the listing below as well my suggestions on how to change them.   1.     Lack of energy and enthusiasm If you do your job just because you have to, if it feels like it is something you should do (rather than would like to do), then it drains your energy. If you are a leader mainly because you are attracted to the status, the power and the money, then you will lack the necessary enthusiasm. Your heart is not connected, so it just is an economic and rational activity. This activity is not fuelled by your enthusiasm. If you do work, which you love to do, if you foll
Read more

Do you feel like you’re running around in a straitjacket?

Image
  If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life.  ~ Abraham Maslow Do you feel like you’re running around in a straitjacket? Or swimming in ice hockey gear? You probably think this sounds ridiculous. Still, that is what we all do, most of the time. We let beliefs limit us.  We believe that we are not good enough. We believe that we cannot change or grow. We believe everything that mass-media tells us. Most of the time, fear is driving our behavior . And fear definitely makes us risk-averse. When I ask people whether they are using their full potential, they look at me in a sad way. They immediately feel the pain of not living up to their own capabilities. Many people are suffering because they feel not seen and not good enough. As a consequence, they lack self-confidence and experience stress, burnout, depression or worse.  Why is this the case?  It is crucial to understand that parents, teach
Read more

AMAZON’S Backlog in Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company

Image
Last week I did read an article in TechCrunch that Amazon now accepts American Express membership rewards points for purchases on Amazon.com. Well this is good news, I thought, as I have quite some points to use. So, I logged into the specific page on Amazon to link both accounts. I just had to fill in a few details regarding my American Express account and then hit the last button ‘Link rewards account’. But........ nothing happened, I expected a confirmation page which tells me that everything is linked now, but no reaction at all. I could only see that my cursor was back at the place where I first provided my details. So, I tried again and again, but every time no result. Pff, this was frustrating. While I was so happy with the possibility of buying books from my points. What to do next? I had to get in touch with customer service. This is where we get in an area where there is a huge opportunity for improvement. It is very difficult to find a way to email/contact customer serv
Read more