According to Jim Johnson of University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, the major demographic trends transforming America today are unprecedented — so unprecedented that he calls these trends “disruptive demographics.” Based on on-going analyses of statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor, Internal Revenue Service and other governmental agencies, Johnson, who is […]
Read More… from Six Disruptive Demographic Trends and What They Mean for the Workplace
Uncertainty — such as a coming organizational restructuring, a new CEO brought in to turn around the company, a competitor’s new product or new technology that could derail the company’s market position, an impending sale or merger — can represent a threat or an opportunity. The immediate response to uncertainty usually involves 1) finding more […]
Why are some people more open to change and others instinctively resistant to anything that significantly alters the status quo? The key is often in an individual’s basic attitude toward change. Some people will default to an unfavourable, negative attitude toward change that leads to resistance, while others have within them a favourable positive attitude […]
Read More… from What is the Psychology Behind Resistance to Change?
Around 20 years ago, academics and consultants Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema identified three ‘value disciplines’ or models followed by top-performing companies: operational excellence, customer-intimacy and product leadership. The second, essentially an advanced form of customer-centricity, is usually the one that’s hardest to emulate. One of the difficulties with the customer-intimacy model is that it […]
“Strategy is often like desert rain. Before the raindrops leave the desert floor, they evaporate, creating little or no effect below” — George Labovitz and Victor Rosansky, The Power of Alignment (Wiley, 1997). Failure rates for strategy execution are notoriously high: estimates by academics and consultants range from 40 to 90%. It’s no surprise, then, that […]
Strategic renewal is not an easy process to begin, fund, or lead, because it entails making changes before disruption occurs. The problem for many businesses, stretched as they are by myriad pressures and mounting costs, is they don’t want to go ‘looking for trouble’. Yet recent research suggests that is exactly what they need to […]
Read More… from Rapid Response Teams: Strategic Renewal for Organizations
Once understood as something exceptional, change is increasingly seen as part of everyday working life. (The notion of the organization, somewhat paradoxically, now incorporates both change and stability.) Change management has become a dominant modus operandi for many companies. Despite this, there’s little evidence that the management of change is getting better or that organizations […]
Read More… from Back to the Future: Managing Change with Retrospection
‘Charismatic leadership’ has received much attention from researchers over the past few decades, lending support to theories that it is capable of fostering higher levels of employee and team performance in organizations. The term was first used in the 1940s by German sociologist Max Weber, who envisioned ‘charismatic leaders’ as leaders able to inspire passionate […]
Read More… from Leaders’ Charisma, Team Performance and Organizational Change
Cynicism to change (CTC) is often studied at the individual level — how employees react to change. Indeed, employee CTC will impact whether or not change can be successfully implemented in any organization. However, according to Katherine A. DeCelles of University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, Paul E. Tesluk of the University of Buffalo […]
Read More… from Resistance to Change: Overcoming Multilevel Cynicism
Buying integrated services is now the dominant ‘modus operandi’ for clients in IT outsourcing arrangements. But relatively little is known about how integrated services are co-ordinated and implemented by providers. Combining multiple service components into a single working portfolio can be complex — and often amounts to a major change programme that involves the in-sourcing […]
Read More… from Integrated IT Outsourcing: Total Package or Total Chaos?
