Provocation of the month:
Change and adaptation go hand in hand
This month´s reflection comes from John Dunnigan, New Jersey, U.S.A. Enjoy! Hans Akerblom
When change is faster than adaptation, you fail!
We see and experience change every day. Sometimes we embrace it and often we resist it. When I read the newspaper rather than scan the internet for news, I am saying that I find more value and comfort in the way things were, rather than the new and more current way of doing things. When I am available at all times and in all places with my mobile phone, I am embracing change. I learn and adapt. It is like this with our organization as well. When we are constantly looking for ways to change then we learn and adapt. When the change happens faster than our learning and adaptation then our customers will move to the better solution and we are left behind. When we learn and adapt as fast as or faster than the change, we survive and grow. We become more attractive to our customers because we are providing better solutions.
Change brings challenges
When we are changing we are stepping into the unknown. The unknown has risks and risks provide a challenge. Most challenges evoke a response of resistance. If we are the advocate of change, we should expect this resistance. We are in the current state because of all the decisions we have made in the past. If we want to convince others to change then we should take the time to understand why those decisions were made and the results that were achieved. If we have a stake in the way things are and are being challenged to change by others, then we will be better off if we understand why they are challenging and provoking us to change. What do they see that we do not?
Experts in the past or leaders into the future?
When our organization has not changed in a while, we become comfortable and more and more knowledgeable about the past. We recall old experiences and yearn to repeat them. We can teach others about the way things were. Our situation is that we, like everyone else, are moving into the future and here we need leaders, not only experts. The expert can help us to work on clearly defined situations. When we have explored opportunities and threats; when we know our qualities and potential and clearly defined our issue; then we can call for the experts. The leader will stimulate and provoke us along courses of action even in the face of risk, uncertainty and the unknown. The leader must ask and make us all ask the questions that will gather information that will lead to knowledge and decision making. If you wish to be the leader of a growing organization, learn to ask the questions that seek the future. Have the courage to provoke and listen to the response. Learn and adapt.
Regards,
John Dunnigan
You are welcome to share your insights with us and read others’ by clicking here.
This month´s recommendation:
Visit the website www.scandinavianleadership.com. In this daily newspaper you will find positive news about Scandinavian contributions around the globe. Scandinavian Leadership Forum is an initiative to define and promote the qualities of Scandinavian leadership as a contribution to global leadership.
Thank you John! Inspiring. The question for all of us is how we handle the change. Can we adapt?
- Sven
I just say SAAB. We in Sweden are so afraid of the South East Asia. Why could not SAAB do good business like H&M did? Doing quality and cool things in other countries, and keeping the core business inhouse?
- Daniel
Should we go out in space? When will their be a need for a bigger change, and when do we start leaving the planet? Every 3-400 years mankind have taking big steps to new continents, time for space?
- Christian F
Great John! Happy to hear your views on change.
- Dennis
Experts in the past or leaders into the future? Yes, that is the question. Can we handle a totally global world? Where everyone has the same rights, and freedom, and right to knowledge?
- J. Loo
Change & Adaptation must be PRINCIPLE CENTRED. If we are accessible 24/7 ; when will we allocate time to the other important activities in this ONE LIFE we have to live? Customers & Money are not the only important things. If we adapt & change the way we play, then eveyone will be playing sports on a computer & we will all be obese. I believe we must define growth in a way that will allow us to change, adapt & achieve 'work life balance'. Let's change the things that will make us better human beings not change 'human beings' into 'another being'
- Indera
Thanks John for this inspiring reflection letter. I must say I'm in line with Indira in my thinking. There must be a "gate" where we decide what change we want to adapt to. And there some companies, NGOs and families are lucky to have a common vision and common values which can guide them.
- Torge
Great!
I also think that we have to adopt the shanges around us som we could live in the power of now. If not we will be in history. To handle the changes in a good way you have to know who you are - who am I? If not it´s so easy to be the changes and lose yourself...
- Hans-Erik
Tack John! för denna skrivelse och vi går in i Förändringens tid och vi Måste hämta krafter och Vara Rädda om varandra oss människor det är bara vi som kan Arbeta och utföra service-och lyssna mer på varandra och lära oss mera, Tillsammans blir vi Starka (ensama är svaga) mot nya tider ...
- Stigh
"When we learn and adapt as fast as or faster than the change, we survive and grow."
Yes, but change must be correlated to the surroundings, otherwise you can be so far ahead that noboby understands what you see! Then it will be of little comfort to hear 10 years later that you had the right forsight! One way to handle this is to engage the surroundings in active participating, nutoring the competence and experience of all individuals. Then they will learn each other!
- Thorsten Bergqvist
"When we learn and adapt as fast as or faster than the change, we survive and grow."
Yes, but change must be correlated to the surroundings, otherwise you can be so far ahead that noboby understands what you see! Then it will be of little comfort to hear 10 years later that you had the right forsight! One way to handle this is to engage the surroundings in active participating, nutoring the competence and experience of all individuals. Then they will learn each other!
- Thorsten Bergqvist
With reference of our last week's discussions, change and adaption must go hand in hand.
That's why organizational and process leadership is so important within change management.
I just look in the mirror every morning, and watch the chap who has to start, I hope you do the same :)
- MC
I fear that the word "change" has taken on an iconic status. Just as "quality" was used as a signifier of inherent value, so "change" has become a mantra for those who would be "with it" or "ahead of the curve".
But, I submit, the is positive change and negative change, just as there were gradients of quality ignored by the sloganeers, so there are changes which may, when first considered be positive, but which, after the passage of time and upon further reflection, prove to be anything but improvements.
For instance, I will never answer the phone when at table with my wife. If I had a client who insisted I did, then he and I will not do business. If my emploer insisted I be 100% available 100% of the day, then I would be forced to find an employer who wished to employ human beings rather than automatons. A wise man said: "you have a job to support the family, not the other way around".
Although I do rely on the internet for a vast store of immediately available information, I do still have the "dead tree" media dropped in my driveway every morning. I gather that the big question for the internet news readers is who will gather the news for them to read for free when all the newspapers are gone?
You may recall- if you are old enough- that in the 70's we all switched to digital watches, and the automakers got busy installing digital dashes in their cars. We have since returned to analog gauges and watches. Why? Because we are analogue ( and carbon based ) creatures. So now our digital machines have analog readouts.
We should be wary of a doctrinaire acceptance of change for change's sake. When I consider the music of the 18th century, the literature of the 19th and the movies of 1939; I feel confident in a resistance to uncritical acceptance of change.
We may have 200 million computers or more in the US now, but Shakespeare wrote with a quill pen!
- Hugh Brennan, New Jersey, USA
Hugh,
Thanks for your thoughts. I agree, not all change is what it seems to be, positive or negative. Someone may lose a job and feel greatly depressed and it opens new avenues and opportunities. Someone else gets a promotion and all of a sudden there are new pressures and demands on their time, which goes beyond the boundries which are acceptable to them and they are unhappy with their professional success. By the way I still have an analog watch.
- John Dunnigan
Excellent article. Thank you for sharing it with me as it is most
relevant to what I am experiencing.
- Carolyn
John,
I think we might then be in agreement. Change must be managed, whether that means accepted, encouraged, accomodated or resisted depends on our judgement as to whether said change constitutes an improvement or not.
As humans we seem forever in a struggle against Newton's second law.
- Hugh Brennan
I tend to agree with Hugh in his thoughts. I belive the key is to be able to be open and evaluate the change and then decide how to deal with it rather that just jump on the train whitout know where it's taken us or the opposite, pretend like there are no trains...
- Jonas Edgren
How can the scandinavian Leadership help to bring change in our lives,we need to grow for the better
tommorow, AS THE FUTURE LEADERSHIP.
- REV lazarous chitalu
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