Recently, it has become fashionable to compare business to an ecosystem. As Darwin said, it is not the smartest or strongest who succeed in the competition, but those who adapt to the changing conditions the fastest. Bringing change is at the heart of leadership. Anyway, something happens, and leadership is about to make something else happen.

The best preparation for an uncertain chaotic future is to improve an organization’s agility. It’s good to think about your current business over a ten-year period – especially what can destroy it.

Development can focus on, among other things, improving the efficiency of an organization’s operations, modernizing processes, utilizing digitalization, developing services, or leadership as a service. Making significant changes takes time, so it’s a good idea to start preparing for the future right away.

An agile business will eat the slow

Agile development means experimenting and innovation, in which case the role of the leader is coaching and not, for example, declaring or delegating assignments. In a small organization or a unit of a large organization, we bring together a team, identify problems that prevent success, and agree together to try out a better way of working based on new fresh ideas.

A well-designed learning experiment tells you what works and what doesn’t. All changes consist of small steps. Taking enough of them will inevitably result in a significant change in the way we work – and possibly better results.

Guide change with challenges, not goals

Change can be seen as a personal learning process. Change management is about organizing and resourcing this process, in order to adopt the new better practices, skills, mindsets, and attitudes needed for renewal.

However, there are no simple and obvious solutions. The organization needs to create a roadmap for change and innovation. The first step is to understand the current situation and address the obvious problems with agile development methods. We have to start here and now.

The second step is to create an affirmative vision of a better future. Instead of goals, the vision is broken down into challenges that guide practical development, learning and innovation – not just in massive information system projects, but also in daily life with ever-improving experience and knowledge.

Sustainable success requires change management

Not all changes, such as organizational change, layoffs, or a new information system, may actually require change management. In such projects, we try to continue as before, perhaps a little more effectively, but repeating the same old tired ideas.

However, change management is needed when sustainable future success requires changes in thinking or attitude leading to new ways of acting. When the mindsets, attitudes, and actions of those in power change first, then it creates room for other members of the organization to adopt new ways to act. In this way, the culture of the organization evolves step by step.

Need help successfully implementing and managing change? We at Innotimi-ICG have been particularly concerned with changes related to leadership as a service, safety at work, innovation and process management.

 

In their day-to-day work, leaders face increasingly complex challenges related to, among other things, digitalization, competition, internationalization, e-services and renewal. In this series of articles, we look at different perspectives on leadership.

Read the first parts of the blog series on goal-oriented interaction and creating the conditions for success.

 

Image source: oatawa, stock.adobe.com