Change rarely happens in the absence of pain or purpose
Most inefficiencies and complexity in business aren’t so painful or so frustrating that people fix them; they’re also not so painful or so frustrating that they cause people to leave their situations. They’re right in that middle-ground – kind of like when we maintain an unhealthy lifestyle but not so unhealthy that it significantly disrupts life. Instead, these problems can often be seen as an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of doing business. It’s unique to any one place; it’s an epidemic that faces almost all.
If there’s been one positive take-away that’s come about since the Pandemic declaration in March 2020, it’s that a fire has been lit underneath many of us to really re-examine what we’re doing right and wrong and the degree to which they’re problems. I’m not just talking about society nor politics, but I’m talking more about how we work, live and build businesses. It clearly led to the Great Resignation.
If a certain degree of chaos and dysfunction is normal in all companies, then why do so many people still insist that there must be organizations out there that have somehow gotten it right? Why believe that organizations larger and outwardly more successful have figured things out? First, it’s PR. We see news stories and read books and articles that give us a superficial peek into the companies we’ve come to admire. If you do a simple Internet search to find who has the solutions, you’re bound to find countless pundits and consultants who make the claim. Some do but most don’t. Second, it’s because our human nature makes us believe that there’s always a solution to problems and that we can always make sense out of what seemingly doesn’t. We can’t imagine that successful companies don’t have their houses in order.
I often remind people at the companies I work with of something completely obvious, yet profound. Consumers are now buying from, working in and transacting with the largest, most advanced, most profitable, and most complicated businesses in history. Even with all the tools of technology and lessons of the past, leaders and practitioners are still all making things up as they go along because movement is toward a future that is entirely unknown and doesn’t yet exist. Everything’s in flux, all the time.
The technologies that now used today to work from home were only invented a few years ago. Sure, they’re built upon ideas of predecessors but companies like Zoom, which have jumped in to fill a void in virtual meeting and collaboration – are just now unveiling new solutions to problems that have just been exposed within the past few months. Companies and people alike are moving forward into a reality that didn’t exist even just last year.
Many of us have gotten really irked by mentions of stale phrases like “we need to return to normal” or “imagine a new normal”. I know I have and I respond by saying we can’t. Normal means usual. Normal means expected. While many aspects of life and business can be usual and expected, the collective reality for all is constantly shifting. Whether accepted before or not, the path was always constantly shifting.
Goals and targets are now moving or may have changed entirely. Movement is forward but it’s hard to know whether the end-point will be where the original intent was set to go. It can be like walking blindfolded on a moving walkway that happens to be placed in the middle of a merry-go-round. Past experiences and skills that have built expertise are still important as ever but they provide less certainty in markets that are constantly changing, dissolving and coming about.