“The pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again.”
—Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, Davos 2018.
In nearly every industry today, we see Trudeau’s clear-eyed observation playing out before our very eyes. Organizations are grappling with a never-ending tide of change, and many have turned to the discipline of change management for help.
More and more often, change practitioners now find themselves with a seat at the leadership table, devising strategies to keep up with all the disruption.
But is “keeping pace” with change a winning strategy in this accelerated day and age? Will it help organizations innovate, excel at execution, and set themselves apart from the competition?
Here at Pioneer, we believe that organizations must do more than just survive change. Indeed, they must learn to thrive in it.
But how?
It all begins when organizations start to see the goals of change management differently.
Traditional change management centers on adoption, which is defined as repeatedly doing something different than before. The goal is short-term and task-based: helping people follow a new process, use new technology, or behave in a different way.
Adoption also implies that change has an end. Too often employees hear, “Once we adopt this change, things will slow down and go back to normal.” And too often, they discover that’s simply not true.
Now, we’re not suggesting adoption has become obsolete. It will, in fact, continue to be an essential part of change management.
But we are asserting that adoption is no longer enough. Indeed, it needs to be complemented with a long-term, multi-dimensional strategy—one that will serve organizations well as they work through wave after wave of change.
And that approach is adaptation.
Adaptation is all about seeking out what’s new.
It means having team members who are energized by the possibility of something new and different. Who embrace ambiguity and thrive in it. And who say, “Constant change is the exciting new normal, and I want to be a part of it.”
When organizations choose to develop an adaptive culture, they’ll achieve their goals faster and be able to sustain—and expand on—their hard-won results. As Dr. Max McKeown, author of Adaptability: The Art of Winning in an Age of Uncertainty, states, “Adaptability is about the powerful difference between adapting to cope and adapting to win.”
What’s more, says McKeown, “Investing in high adaptability will lead to higher returns because people will redivert energy wasted in what doesn’t work into new successes.”
These days, many organizations are looking to hire people with an adaptability mindset. In the 2019 Job Outlook survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 58.4 percent of employers cited adaptability (or flexibility) as one of the skills most valued in job candidates.
Here are three strategies worth considering:
Create a culture that rewards working differently. You’ll make more progress—and begin to master change—when people move from a fixed attitude of “this is how we’ve always done things” to a more flexible one that says, “hey, what if we tried this?” For that reason, allow employees to take reasonable risks and make mistakes, and show patience and grace when things don’t turn out quite as planned.
Empower people to make decisions. When you give employees more decision-making power, they’ll become more engaged in the changes coming their way—and they’ll start to see “the new and different” as something to run toward, not flee from. Even better, all this expanded decision-making will help you build a more agile organization, one that will be able to better respond to future needs and demands.
Provide new experiences and learning for employees. Experience, as they say, is the best teacher. Therefore, give people projects and assignments that will encourage them to think and act differently—and make the uncomfortable more bearable. When you give employees the support and freedom to experiment (with accountability, of course), you’ll be able to develop them in ways that go well beyond classroom learning.
So now, we’re curious . . . what actions have you seen that help drive or develop adaptability?
And here’s one for all you change practitioners: How can we evolve our traditional methodologies to support leaders as their organizations become more adaptable?
We’d love to hear from you, so jot down your thoughts in the “Comments” section.
Laura Nelson is the Director of the Change Practice at Pioneer Management Consulting, a business strategy, business operations, data analytics and organizational effectiveness management firm based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.