Steering Change And Transformation

In an increasingly uncertain world, probably the only thing that we can believe with certainty is that change will continue to happen, possibly only faster, and, organisations and people who are nimble, curious and open to learning shall be the likely winners.

- Pinakesh Mukherjee

There is a saying "history repeats itself" and this is so true for change. The evolution of the human race and of the planet makes for a fascinating reading. What prominently stands out is the constant rate of change that has occurred on this planet and to every life form. On the face of it, these changes might have resulted in extreme difficulties to the species at the moment of change, but over time, the ones that have successfully evolved have invariably turned up stronger and fitter in accordance with the Darwinian theory.

In the context of organisations, the evolution is more or less similar. Imagine this - ten years ago, if we had to take a picture, what was the most common method of doing it? Probably, one would use their DSLR. Today, the most convenient way to take an instant high-resolution photograph is the phone camera. And, what happened to one of the most iconic brands, when its cameras failed to evolve- Kodak went out of business. If we pause for a moment to ponder on what went wrong with Kodak, one of the realisations would be that the organisation failed to identify that a big change (in the form of camera phones) had made its way, and thus was left unprepared. This rate of change happens to all industries and those who are able to identify them are often in a better position to deal with the change and emerge stronger.

The Psychology of Change

While we consider the natural progression of change, it is important to bear in mind that change is never easy. Often, there is an inherent and visible résistance to change in any change journey. The reason is not very difficult to comprehend. In most cases, the resistance to change is triggered out of the fear of the unknown.