by Karen Ferris
Disruption?
We are hearing a lot about digital disruption and digital transformation.
Digital transformation is nothing new. The first computers were introduced in the 1930s but we have been finding faster and more automated ways of doing things long before that. The dishwasher was invented in 1886 and the first electric vacuum cleaner introduced in 1901.
I don't think it's so much about digital transformation but more so the disruption we are feeling today, as change gets faster and faster and less predictable and manageable.
Organisations that will survive and thrive amidst the disruption are the ones that truly accept that change is now constant.
This is an organisation in which the volatility, uncertainly, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) of change that is ever increasing in velocity and shifting in direction, is embraced.
These organisations don't have a change program in which change is dictated from the top and cascaded down through the hierarchy.
In these organisations, change is a platform on which everyone can initiate and execute change.
Over the coming months I will explore how organisations and the people within them need to transform to become the organisation that says ‘We’re always ready – bring it on!’
The key areas that I believe we need to focus on I have called:
People transitions
· Kill the hierarchy
· Evolve
· Give it up!
· Adaptive leadership
· Speed
as an approach needs to undergo radical transformation if it is to be of any value when constant change is the new black!
Organisational change management practitioners and everyone else in the organisation will have to fundamentally change their thinking and approach to be relevant.
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