Business Change Management

As we have been working with our clients during this pandemic, we're noticing a recurring theme. They are unhappy about not knowing what comes next. They've figured out how to deal with living at home, working at home and being at home. But now they're beginning to be uncomfortable and anxious about what's coming next. It's strange, isn't it, that without a clear vision of the future, it's often impossible to live today. I've recently recorded a podcast talking about this, which you can listen to here.

Martin Seligman's work on homo prospectus tells us a lot about how we need to see the future clearly if we're going to leave today...even if the future is an imagined one, because that's the way our brains work. Now the challenge is how to do our work when we're uncertain about what's going to be the new normal. What's more, we're not sure it's coming back to what it was. And we're not sure what it's going to be next.

During this crisis period filled with uncertainty and disruption, you might pause, step back and turn lemons into lemonade. There probably isn’t much else you can do. If we at SAMC could help you now, it would be to urge you to take some time to use Innovation Games® to bring those big, new ideas to the forefront of your thinking about yourself, your business and your future. In fact, Andy and I recently did an On The Brink podcast about how Innovation Games are a very effective way to not only help you look into the future and rethink where your organization is going, but also figure out how to get there. You can listen to it here.

At Simon Associates Management Consultants (SAMC), we help organizations innovate and change. And as Blue Ocean Strategists®, it is critical that we understand where the world is today and where it is trending for tomorrow. We know that the rate of change is accelerating year after year. Coupled with this is the wrinkle of COVID-19 and how we deal with this pandemic.

But for me, personally, I don’t want to talk about the big mega trends. I want to talk about my world. How I am affected by this crisis. What I see as trends from my corner. Perhaps you have adapted or adopted some of these new trends for yourself. Take a look and perhaps comment or give me something from your perspective.

These are chaotic times. And we are in crisis mode. And while there are significant problems, there are also great opportunities. We can re-create our companies and ourselves for the future. No doubt it’s going to be very different. The challenge, however, is that people are uncomfortable when there’s no certainty. What I am suggesting is that this is the time for us to begin to use new tools and to see how we can adapt ourselves, our companies, our staff and our customers in innovative ways.

We often tell our clients that if they need to reignite their business or change their market strategy or create a new business model, they should have a crisis or create one. Well, with the COVID-19 pandemic upon us, the crisis is here, and change is all around us. So what can you do individually and as a business to adapt?

First, don’t panic. Don’t be the proverbial deer in headlights. By being willing to change in big ways and small, you are doing something good to help others and protect yourself. It is ok.

Next, how do you help your folks respond so they too know it is ok? This is a time for exceptional, emotionally intelligent leadership. Keep it simple. You need to lead so others trust your judgments and want to follow you. No one knows exactly what to do right now, so it is a time to learn how to deal with an unknown crisis together.

Every industry has been experiencing massive, fast, and sometimes devastating changes over the last decade or more. Take Lyft and Uber, for example, and how they’ve upended transportation. Or how Airbnb and the sharing economy have disrupted the hospitality industry, or how Spotify forced Apple to rethink its iTunes business proposition. Apps and mobile devices continue to cause major market shakeups as they either change the way people interact with a market or find their way into new markets. And it’s not slowing down, it’s speeding up!

Once again, it’s awards season in Hollywood. And once again, women have been largely (and very noticeably) snubbed by the film industry.

At the recent Golden Globes, none of these female directors were nominated: Greta Gerwig (“Little Women), Marielle Heller (“It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”), Lulu Wang (“The Farewell”), Lorene Scafaria (“Hustlers”) or Olivia Wilde (“Booksmart”). What’s going on here? Is the male grip on Hollywood really that tight?

Apparently so. Take a look at this year’s list of Oscars nominees and you’ll see the exact same story: no women directors. 

Should we be surprised? In 91 years, the Oscars have recognized only five women in the Best Director category: Lina Wertmüller (“Seven Beauties,” 1975), Jane Campion (“The Piano,” 1994), Sofia Coppola (“Lost in Translation,” 2003), Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker,” 2009) and Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird,” 2017). Bigelow is the only one woman who’s ever won, and no woman of color has ever even been nominated.

Sidelining women in film is a recurring pattern, not a one-off

Back in the 1990s, the only way to communicate with out-of-office employees was by sending a personal message via colleague or landline phone. I can also remember when we wanted someone in the office to read something, we passed it along with a “buck slip.” And if you were at the end of that slip, you might not see it for months!

Yet today in the age of the internet, smartphones, streaming and the cloud, we are always connected, and the line dividing our personal and professional lives is increasingly becoming blurred. New technologies are constantly coming at us, causing organizations across industries to experience digital disruption. What does it all mean?

Digitalization is changing the workplace so dramatically that the acquisition of new digital skills has become a prerequisite for success

Back when I ran a company, at one point we thought a situation was one way, and then the facts changed and it became another way. Yet when we reviewed our strategy, the new facts were not considered. New facts…no shift in direction! Nothing changed in our strategic planning and yet there were big changes in the external environment.

Sound familiar? How frustrating is it? As a consultant or manager in your organization, how many times do you point out something that is obvious, that should be fixed, and yet nothing gets done! And then you get that dreaded comment, “I know you’re right. Sometime when I get a chance, I will fix it.” Or how about: “I know but I just don’t have time to fix it.”

To me as the consultant or the outsider looking in, this is very deflating. It’s a real downer, particularly when the log jam is over something we discussed before. I sometimes want to ask, “What didn’t you get, or hear, since this is an important element in what we are doing right now?” No excuse, right?

Performance outcomes are directly a result of a sound (or unsound) strategic plan

I recently read an article (third in a series) in the November 22, 2019 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled, “Admin 101: Tips on Carrying Out Your Strategic Plan.” The author, David D. Perlmutter, a professor and dean of the College of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University, readily admits that “one of the great paradoxes of higher-education leadership is that most of us who find ourselves in administrative positions have not studied the kind of work we end up doing on a day-to-day basis. We manage budgets without understanding financial theories. We work with people but never learned interpersonal communication principles. And we carry out new strategic plans without even looking at the research on the relationship between planning and performance outcomes.”