How Managers Can Thrive in Waves of Change

Thriving in Times of Increasing Change Never before have organizations faced an environment as turbulent and as difficult as this one. Businesses must change the way they are doing business now to a new way that will work for them in the future. While major organizational change was once the exception, it is now the rule . . . and organizations will have to be very good at organizational change to thrive in the new business environment. Profound changes are on the way Todays businesses are bracing for change. Waves of regulatory requirements are coming in increasing amounts and intensity. Competition is more intense and coming from every direction. Customers no longer will settle for yesterdays products, services, or levels of quality. Things are challenging out there, and businesses can no longer simply hunker down and weather the storm. Many predict that todays storm is tomorrows business environment, an environment in which we must be able to thrive . . . or die. Adding to the assault, many business leaders are shocked at how much change is likely to be required in such a short period of time. No longer is it a question of if or when huge waves of change will hit, its a matter of how well organizations are positioned to effectively navigate and even flourish in the changes. Waves of change are already hitting the beach, and their strength is almost certain to build. Its too late for a bunker mentality. Out of the bunkers and into . . . what? Companies cannot stay in their bunkers forever. Sooner or later they must come out and face the music. That means they must come out and change the way they do business in order to fit into the turbulent world. Change is no longer an option but change the way they do business to what? Companies coming out have two options; options that are as different as night and day. Surviving: The intuitively-obvious way The focus of doing business just to survive is logical and intuitively obvious. It has companies adopting and/or adapting survival tactics as the core of their new way. They limit the changes they make to just get over the survival threshold. Process changes are most likely very conservative: patches, glue-ons, work-arounds, tweaks, fix and repair rather than replace, emergency repairs rather than preventive maintenance, etc. all pursued in an atmosphere of severe cost cutting and staffing layoffs. While risk management may be a goal, survival-oriented companies try to dodge every risk regardless of the risk-rewards, taking away almost all of their undeveloped opportunities that might be sources of new life for the company. Unfortunately, the slogan of this new way of doing business might be out of the frying pan and into the fire. Thriving: The straight and narrow way The focus of this new way of doing business will be positioning the organization so that it will thrive . . . even in a nasty business environment. The first step in moving toward a thriving business will be to set a vision that is designed to separate the company from the middle-of-the-road pack of competitors. This way of doing business will require the company to improve all work processes that could translate into a competitive edge. Processes must be advanced beyond best practices to an industry leading position. This way of doing business calls for investment in the best available technology that enables the companys core processes, in equipment upgrades where possible, expansion of employee responsibilities, provision of aggressive training on key skills that support core work processes, and more. All of these actions will require energy and resources as the straight and narrow way calls for an investment and opportunity mindset. However, the largest investment will need to be in innovation not innovation you pay for but innovation from the people already inside who have likely never been challenged to think and create.