Page 5 - Council Journal Winter 2019

TChange is Changing
FEATURE Change is Changing
raditional change management as we know it is obsolete. Even the very notion that change can be managed
feels absurd given the reality and pace of business today. The intent of executives—to deliver results more sustainably and more quickly— remains the same, but the context in which organisations operate today is fundamentally shifting, and so is the way in which we should think about change.
Three critical shifts are fundamentally reshaping corporate change:
1. From point-in-time to all-the-time
Change is no longer a project with a defined start and end. It is continuous, and accelerating. On average, employees now experience three major changes each year, compared with fewer than two in 2012, and nearly three-quarters of organisations expect more change initiatives to come in the next few years. It will seem like that as soon as one transformation is finished, the next one begins.
machines. It necessitates a broader rethinking of the future of work. Yes, many jobs will go away, but many will be created, too, requiring smart management through this period of immense dislocation. Amazon in 2016 increased the number of robots it used by 50%, from 30,000 to 45,000 robots, securing a reduction in its costs and delivery times. Over the same period, it increased its human workforce by 50% to focus it on tasks requiring soft capabilities that would help better serve customers.
training for employees to stay relevant in the AI-enabled organisation of the future, they will fall behind and be unable to attract the right candidates.
While it is often said that change is the “new normal,” that nonetheless comes with profound implications. Being able to lead through change is no longer an optional skill. A recent study looked at boards that had initiated a CEO rotation and found the No. 1 reason was the need for someone with the ability to successfully manage change.
In a world in which an increasing number of business decisions are made by machine, research has found only 10% of people trust AI to perform complex and high risk tasks. We need to find a new way to build trust not only between people but also between people and machines. Professional applications, for example, can be viewed with skepticism by human practitioners, who accept their results as confirmation, but balk when human and machine come to different conclusions.
We must rethink how we lead, how we engage teams and how we inspire individuals. How do we build greater sponsorship, influence, desire and commitment to change, as well as greater resilience, within our organisation? The ability to successfully change—both as leaders and as organisations—is quickly becoming a source of competitive advantage.
This requires that companies cultivate an ability to retrain their workforce in new skills on an ongoing basis. The need for talent with advanced technical skills is far outstripping supply. In a 2018 study from IBM, 63% of respondents cited a lack of technical skills as a barrier to AI implementation. In response, an increasing number of forward-looking companies are now building cultures of continuous learning. They focus on developing both advanced technical skills and the human skills that go along with them. If an orgisation doesn’t provide tools and advanced
Yet increases in data and processing power are also unlocking our ability to approach old challenges in valuable new ways. Organisations can, in real time, collect and respond to data on operations, employees and customers. One example: Rather than taking a snapshot of employee sentiment in annual surveys, companies like Intel, IBM and Twitter have started using
2. From analogue to digital
Advances in technology are reshaping both the challenges and possibilities change offers.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the nature of jobs and is shifting work that humans once did to
Council Journal 5