Change the way you change

Change the way you change

Adaptive Enterprise

Adaptive Enterprise – 2018 will be either an exciting or a terrifying year for many organizations. Which one will depend entirely on each organization’s ability to change. “Adapt or Die” is the mantra we must hold true today, and because the rate and magnitude of market disruptions are greater than ever before, we need to change the way we change.

We all know that the need for change in this “New Normal” is growing. Territory boundaries are fading and markets are being disrupted. I see companies hoping that Amazon, Google, Apple and other key players will stay out of their business territories but, as we all know, hope is not a strategy.

How organizations change in today’s world

In the past decade, people have learned how to:

• Optimize their organizations
• Design strategies
• Run research
• Streamline processes
• Utilize machines and technology
• Standardize services or products
• Control and reduce errors

This attitude of constant learning and adaptation is baked into the DNA of organizations at a fundamental level. But is it good enough for today’s challenges? Is more of the same, with just a few new projects, consultants, technology and language going to cut it? I say no.

And so the question becomes: How much of this DNA is still valuable in the New Normal? While I can’t say everything is different now, there are some noticeable shifts that affect how organizations will succeed in the very near future.

Shifting priorities that affect organizational change

Today:

• Customer experience might be more important than standardized processes
• Agile, bottom-up change requires a different organizational configuration
• Speed of change is valued more highly than full control
• The role of technology has changed, from supporting businesses to defining them (e.g. IoT, AI, Machine Learning)
• Efforts should shift from managing complexity to driving simplicity
• An organization’s past methods for “change” may not be sufficient for a truly Adaptive Enterprise

In the New Normal, organizations need flexibility and new ideas! Unfortunately, this won’t come from doing the same things in the same way. After all, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.” Flexibility and change require new knowledge, creativity, experiments, lessons … and also failures.

After all those years of avoiding failures, are organizations ready to appreciate the power of failure and (contained) risks?

Resistance to adopting new change methods

You might be thinking, “Change is hard, so changing how we change must be impossible.” For BiZZdesign, enabling organizations to be more adaptive and more successful is our key driver. We believe that change cannot always be managed, planned or forced; many new and creative ideas need to grow from within the organization. This requires proactive, informed creation and collaboration between teams, at all levels of the organization, across IT and business operations.

It’s people that make change but, in the complexity and turbulence of daily business, there are often many barriers to success. It is those barriers that we at Bizzdesign look to lower or eliminate.

How Bizzdesign can help your organization transform

Our software platform is aimed at breaking down barriers by:

• Reducing complexity
• Creating better insights
• Bringing people together
• Stimulating creativity
• Performing analysis
• Executing experiments
• Supporting decisions
• Managing risks
• … and making continuous change happen

Our global customers strengthen and extend their change capabilities every day and, because they have become a truly Adaptive Enterprise, they are excited about what 2018 will bring, rather than terrified.

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