Managing continuous change

We are in an era of managing continuous change. We are still digesting the aftermath of COVID and the move to hybrid working, probably the largest change in ways of working globally since the industrial revolution.

We came out of the pandemic to a wave of reorganisations and downsizing and the massive acceleration of digital transformation. AI is in the very early stages of unleashing a whole new range of disruptive change that will challenge business models, skills and careers.

At the same time that managing change is becoming more important, our clients and participants tell us they are experiencing “change fatigue” on a significant scale. The pandemic made a lot of people think about their connection to work and what’s in it for them.

Significant numbers of people seem to have given up on the desire to work or have low expectation of affiliation to their organisations or their own engagement at work.

We need urgently to help people connect their purpose to the purpose of the organisation and take a more active and positive role in their own engagement at work, that’s what our people and purpose programs are all about.

Traditional change models which assume that change is a one off event that moves us to a new stable position are out of date. We need to enable our people to manage continuous change and to have a more positive language for change than the old paradigm rooted in grieving, resistance and acceptance. We need to see change as positive, normal and empowering and we don’t have time to spend years working through to acceptance.

People often like change, who wouldn’t want to lose weight or learn a language, what they don’t like is the transition and the work required in moving from where we are now to where we want to be.

A lot of this is being driven by digital transformation and the opportunities offered by new technologies, and this is likely to accelerate. So an important part of navigating change will be our ability to adopt new technologies and adapt our way of working to take advantage of them quickly. A particular challenge for leaders will be how to engage people who are perhaps slower to adopt technology, take a look at our blog on this subject here.

And of course much of this change will be delivered through cross functional “matrixed” teams.

We all know intellectually that we need to change and that the alternative is decline and obsolescence, but why does it have to be now, and does it have to be so much? That is a mindset and requires a new skillset to support it.

If you need to help your people find purpose and engagement at work, equip them to navigate continuous change and accelerate the rate of technology adoption then why not get in touch.