Change is Strange

Think for a moment about the gigantic effort which goes into change.

Always and everywhere, other people are trying to get you on to a different path. Governments try to nudge our voting behaviour. Doctors try to get us to ditch bad habits and take up good ones. Advertisers spend billions bombarding us with attempts to get us to swap one brand for another. Friends and partners constantly want us to be better versions of ourselves. The list is exhausting.

Change management is also a huge star in our business universe, blinding us with the latest fads, sucking us into decisions and spending to achieve that elusive advantage. Curiously, much of the recent change management playbook has been written by academics. But the ability to successfully change an organisation is not often one which can be engendered either by academics or slick consultants.

You won’t hear this said very often for obvious reasons. There is frankly too much money to be made from preaching to the unconverted, often with a bit of pseudo-science thrown in about the quick fix available – for a price – to transform your organisation’s fortunes. Probably ‘granularly’ (whatever that even means).

This is, of course, mostly garbage. It is true that there are reputable companies out there who are able to assist change management but this is normally after a catastrophic business failure where sticking the wheels back on is actually easier than transforming ‘steady state’ businesses. The capability to fully transform an organisation to meet new challenges, deal with new risks, increase productivity, develop new markets, lies in the innate capability of its people. So if you want change to work, please look in, not out first.

The rot starts when organisations start regarding change management as something to be done to them externally as opposed to something fundamental, innate, within their workforce which needs to be nurtured and grown.

Here is where we say businesses need meaningful support:

We argue that if you have these ingredients in your company, the bread will always rise without flashy, high cost, last minute consultancy which leaves you with blizzards of paper but not much else to show. Lots of time – no motion. We think your change journey starts far upstream from this point.

This is where we get involved with companies of all sizes. Discreetly but effectively, we help you fit your organisation for change because we realise no-one has better answers than you about your business. We simply help you find them.

See how we might help you get ahead of the change curve.

Please call us on 0844 848 9594 or contact us.


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