Fundamental Change Is Very Difficult
When I first got into the strategy and planning business, I complied all the best practices I could find. You can access these compilations in Design for Success (1991), Strategies for Innovation (1992), and Catalysts for Change (1993), all published by John Wiley. I realized all this stuff could be quite dry, so I brought it all together into a down-to-earth treatise, Best Laid Plans (1994), published by Prentice-Hall. This book elaborates the best practices in the contexts of designing and building furniture, planning and taking hikes, and doing business and other adventures in foreign cultures.
Despite all this pithy wisdom, I found that many engagements encountered the apparently insurmountable barrier of fundamental change. This phenomenon came to fascinate me. I started to compile historical case studies. I studied roughly 200 enterprises in the period from 1800 to 2000, focusing on the transportation, computing, and defense industries. The transitions from steamboats to railroads to automobiles and airplanes led the way, but not by much, for the transitions from cash registers and typewriters to tabulators and computers. Almost every enterprise failed to transform itself along the way, so most disappeared amidst Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction.” However, not everyone failed – we’ll return to this later.
These case studies – see Start Where You Are (1996) published by Jossey-Bass, now a John Wiley imprint – led me to wonder why management teams so often avoided recognizing the obvious. I thought they must have been deluded, which led to another set of contemporary studies and another book – Don’t Jump to Solutions (1998), again published by Jossey-Bass. This book discusses thirteen organizational delusions that undermine strategic thinking. These delusions cause enterprises to develop strategies and plans for enterprises that they no longer are – or never were.
By this point, you are probably thinking that my only goal in this process was writing and publishing books. However, my purpose was much more one of making sense of the intense experiences I was having working with company after company, reading all the latest management literature, and trying to help management teams address the strategic challenges at hand. Thus, these books were more like reports from the front rather than intellectual treatises.
Very greatful for the information presented. I have a great time reading your content. Keep it up.
Hi, I have read your site and the content on the site is very interesting. It would be my pleasure to keep reading. Thank you for the useful informaton.
I’ve been reading the infroamtion on your site for quite some time now, just wanted to do a quick post and say thank you for all of the useful information you have been providing your readers all this time.
Hey
Absolutely agree.
One more awesome blog Google showed me. Subscribed to your feed
will surely be checking this blog out again
It was a very nice theme! Just wanna say thank you for the data you have apportioned. Just continue writing this kind of post. I will be your true reader. Thanks again.
This is my first time to visit your blog and I would say you share nice information. You definitely do research and write very well. Keep it up!
What you write is really cool and intressting, have you some more links about it?
Your blog is very nice. I’m really excited and longing for your next article. I hope I will get it soon. Really value this post especially. It’s hard to sort the very good from the bad sometimes, but I think you’ve nailed it! Is it possible to write a guest posts? I would like to post a couple articles here.
Interesting post reminds me of another gem. – Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do. – Confucius
I noticed this was written a while ago and still gets comments! I always appreciate your tips. I often wonder if it takes one of two comments to get the ball rolling.Very good job. Thanks again.
I wanted to thank you for this excellent read!! I definitely enjoyed every little bit of it. I have you bookmarked your site to check out the new stuff you post.
fundamental change is hard. Good post Please keep it up.
Exciting take on this issue. I for 1 have seen many twists on this and can typically spot the holes within the arguement however, on this occasion I belelive your writing is such that everyone need to be in agreement with this. Thank you for sharing it with us.
This was a wonderfully blog! I am just startedout with my blog, bingand I decided to learn about readership gameshanks
This is the suitable weblog for anybody who needs to search out out about this topic. You notice so much its nearly exhausting to argue with you (not that I truly would want…HaHa). You undoubtedly put a new spin on a topic thats been written about for years. Nice stuff, just great!
Please keep it up.
Great article! Hope to read more soon.
As a south african, i value transformation and the effects thereof
Great blog!!!I will definitelly get back here!
Great post!!!Will definitelly back here!
Can I simply just say what a comfort to uncover someone that genuinely understands what they are talking about on the web. You actually realize how to bring a problem to light and make it important. A lot more people should read this and understand this side of your story. I was surprised you’re not more popular because you surely have the gift.
I’m really enjoying the design and layout of your site. It’s a very easy on the eyes which makes it much more pleasant for me to come here and visit more often. Did you hire out a developer to create your theme? Great work!
I don’t create many remarks, however i did some searching
and wound up here Rouse on Transformation
I really like what you guys are usually up too.
This sort of clever work and coverage! Keep up the great works guys I’ve incorporated you guys
to blogroll.
Attractive part of content. I just stumbled upon your
site and in accession capital to say that I acquire actually loved account your blog
posts. Any way I will be subscribing for your augment or even I
fulfillment you get right of entry to constantly rapidly.
Great post. Thanks for sharing.