Adaptable to Change

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Published in 1859, Charles Darwin seminal work, ‘On The Origin Of The Species’ quoted;

‘It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change’

150 years on, this quote is even more relevant than it has ever been.

I believe it is the ‘Golden Rule of Life’ because it’s subsequently the foundation model every individual, team, leader, and business should be built on.

Define Success in 3 words?

‘Adaptable To Change’

Yet, in 2014, Forbes reported that from its initial publication of Forbes top 100 companies in 1917, 61 ceased to exist (Gordon 2014)

31 sunk in value

7 have gone bankrupt or acquired

ONLY ONE SURVIVED

CAN YOU GUESS THE COMPANY?

This article is intended for imaginative readers to emphasize the importance of constantly adapting to change in this globalised world by critically analysing the ‘change’ strategies implemented by imaginative leader Jack Welch (former CEO’s of GE) and recommendations for young managers/MBA students.

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GENERAL ELECTRIC

General electric (GE) is a multi-million dollar company which was established in New York 1892 by Thomas Edison, the man that invented the light bulb (GE 2015)

GE mission is to invent the next industrial era, to build, move power and cure the world

Since its incorporation, GE has had 12 different Chairman/CEO’s till date and its currently lies at number 7 on Forbes world’s biggest public companies with 14.8 billion dollars profit and a market valuation of $259.6 billion as of 2014. (Forbes 2015)

Not bad for 123 years old company.

Out of a 100 companies from the class 1917, why GE?

What did they do that the other 99 companies were unable to do?

According to Deloitte 2013 shift index series, on average a fortune 500 company’s life expectancy is less than 15 years. GE has defied all odds and its showing no signs of slowing down. (Gordon 2014)

What are they still doing that keeps them so successful?

This is a case study on the change model GE adopted

Between 1891 –2001 under CEO Jack Welch

imagination box

Leadership & Change

Change is nothing new and a simple fact of life. Some people actively thrive on new challenges and constant change, while others prefer the comfort of the status quo and strongly resist any change.

It is all down to the personality of the individual and there is little management can do about resistance to change (Mullins 2010: 753)

Change can be defined as substituting older and comfortable behaviours for behaviours that are new and unfamiliar. As much as it seems like the right thing to do, change is very difficult. Mullins and Darwin both expressed change as the fundamental part of life but it tends to be met with heavy resistance.

Putting this into clearer perspective, we are currently in a highly globalised and technological world. The idea of change occurs on a minute bases. As you sleep the economy is changing, new technology are developed and better competitors are entering the market, the option of resisting changing died 20 odd years ago.

For example, HMV, the largest music store retailer in the UK, actively refused to re-invent its business strategy when digital download began to become popular. The organisation even refused to sell digital music on its website. Two years later with £170 million debt it filed for bankruptcy and was sold to Hilco UK. (Marlow 2014)

 Compare HMV to GE.

What did GE do that HMV didn’t do?

Embrace Change

Why do many companies resist change?

Research suggests that these are the top 10 reasons why individuals and businesses resists change: (Kanter 2012)

Too satisfied with current condition

Fear of the unknown

Disturbance of normal routine

       Not my idea

Fear of failure

Purpose is unclear

Uncertain return of investment

Rewards don’t match efforts

Change requires additional commitments

Traditions and old habits

What is the leader’s role in managing change?

The role of the leader in administering change is to create a vision, communicate the vision effectively, motivate and empower employees with responsibilities and incentives and patiently nurture the new culture into the organisation. Jack Welch is an example of a successful change leader.

Jack Welsh (GE CEO 1981-2001)

He had a very intimidating and ruthless person which earned him the nice name Neutron bomb referring to the deadly neutron bomb as he showed no mercy to under performing employees but was still able to maintain a unified target focus and employee togetherness. (Bucifal 2009)

He adopted the Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model

kotter-5

jack welch

Advantages and Disadvantages

(Normandin 2012)

ads vs dis

Overall, his ruthless and drastic changes to GE earn him a place as one of the most successful CEO’s in the 20th century for his leadership style and achievement. He effectively applied Kotler’s 8 step model which reflected on the enormous increase in efficiency and staff performance and increased net earnings 7-folds in 20 years.

Advice for Imaginative Leaders

There are many models available in which some leader have had success with like Lewin’s change management model and McKinsey 7-S Model but the key to successfully administering change into an organisation is through

A clear vision

Effective communication

Persistence

As an Imaginative leader, demanding change would be met with heavy resistance but inviting subordinates to input in the change strategy would speed up the change process and increase success rate of achieving overall vision.

Remember

There are no right or wrong answers

“We live to learn and learn to live”

Happy Reading

Imagination Unit

References

4 thoughts on “Adaptable to Change”

  1. I like the examples you provided in order to support your opinion and I like the advertisement too.Natural selection the survival of the fittest.Most people resist changes since they want to stay in their comfort zone,as well as companies.What they don’t know is the most dangerous thing is stay changeless.Stepping out of their comfort zone would probably bring risks,but at the same time you can explore a new world.Leaders and managers should help subordinates destroy the change obstacles and support them when they feel unsafe.Could u suggest an effective way to make employees adapt changes positively?

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    1. thank you for that insight Effy. i agree with your comment that its more dangerous for organisations to stay change-less. There are many theories and models on how to successful incorporate change into organisations and many have been successful but i think the key to factors are honesty, communication and community. regardless of the new changes, if the organisation promotes a community feeling, managers communicate effectively and most important, honestly about the up-coming change and include employees feedback into the change, there is a high probability that the change would be accepted quicker.

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  2. Hi, responding to the 31 companies that sunk in value since its initial publication on the Forbes top 100 list in 1917, does it mean that all 31 companies resist change? Or where their other factors that led to their decline in value?

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    1. Thank you Sofie for the question. 1917 is over 120 years ago and during that period of time, WW2 occurred, the economy crashed twice, industrial revolution, Educational revolution and technological revolution to name a few. Currently we in the entrepreneur revolution. The world has significantly evolved during this period. For some of those companies, their decline was from internal strategic errors due to their inability to keep up with the changing environment or external factors out of their control. For the 31 companies that sunk in value in other words went bankrupt, adapting to change was the major factor.

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