Global affairs are often unstable. This month, the Japanese stock market wobbles again, capping off its worst performance in a week since the 2008 global financial crisis. Japan is not alone in its underperforming markets. However, globalization has connected countries through various elements. Financial markets are no exception. This article explores change issues in a global environment and discusses the merits of change agents in today’s organizations.
Change comes in many forms for organizations. In the Harvard Business Review, author Rod Ashkensas laid out a framework for dealing with change: “It’s easy to beat ourselves up for failures in change management and the various studies that show we’re not getting better. But we really know how to execute discrete change.” . The basic type of change in organizations can be categorized as incremental (gradual) and disruptive (radical). Incremental change can be defined as “a small adjustment made towards a final result”. Managers are aware of the change or have enough notice that they can react in a controlled and predictable manner.
With incremental changes, organizations can make slow, systematic improvements. If you think about Whirlpool and its appliances, a person will have a good idea of how organizations respond to incremental change. Customers wanted their appliances to reflect social changes. Given this reality, appliances like refrigerators have transitioned from the basic colors of black and white to more upscale color combinations. Electronic technology was incorporated to manufacture Smart appliances. Companies now have ample time to react to consumer demand. Disruptive change does not give organizations such a generous reaction period.
Disruptive change is what causes great companies to fail and highly respected CEOs to be fired. Organizations cannot afford to misinterpret this type of change. Unlike incremental change, which can have some predictability, disruptive change can be classified as unpredictable, irrational, and unstable. All these adjectives mean greater risks for organizations. Disruptive change speaks to the changing nature of our society. Young adults are comfortable with their technology. We live in an instant society that wants everything now. Disruptive change can provide a market advantage.
Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, author of The innovator’s dilemma, coined a term disruptive innovation to explain how an innovation transforms an existing market or industry by introducing simple, convenient, accessible, and affordable products to customers. In fact, the product and service will be far inferior to the status quo product or service. A disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market leaders and alliances. One of the most disruptive innovations in modern education has been distance learning. Traditional universities have tried to ignore the model with only modest effort. The University of Phoenix, a nonprofit higher education institution with more than 100,000 students and 112 campuses around the world, has been slowly conquering the education market. While the university has come under fire for its business practices and lost students, no one is saying the innovative strategy of distance learning and treating students as customers is a flawed model.
Globalization with all its wonders poses a threat due to disruptive change. Organizations need leaders who are change agents during this time in history, not just managers. Dr. Christenson points to the failures of large companies such as Sears in the face of unexpected change: “As we shall see, the list of leading companies that have failed in the face of disruptive changes in technology and market structure is long… A theme common to However, one of these failures is that the decisions that led to the failure were made when the leaders in question were considered among the best companies in the world.”
What is a change agent? A change agent is someone who “helps an organization transform itself by focusing on issues such as organizational effectiveness, improvement and development”. A change agent has a high internal place of change. That reality means that this person is driven from the inside out. Under adversity, that individual has enough internal drive to overcome external forces. Os Hillman, author of Change Agent: Engage your passion to be the difference makerHe argues that change agents are special people.
To change culture, Hillman notes that an individual must be special: “It takes less than 3-5 percent of those operating on the top of a cultural mountain to change the values represented on that mountain.” Many organizations are stuck in a rut and need a change agent to carry them through. In most organizations, significant change doesn’t happen from the bottom up. The following are characteristics of an effective change agent in a global environment: (1) Courageous, (2) Morally grounded, (3) Global-minded, (4) Visionary, (5) Strategic, (6) Adaptable, (7) ) Relational , and (8) Committed.
Therefore, leaders in power need to be change agents in their organizations. Unfortunately, many executives are unwilling to invest their time in developing and promoting change agents in their organizations due to fears related to their shareholders and financial experts. As change continues to get faster and more unpredictable, today’s organizations need to equip themselves effectively. They must embrace the recruitment and development of change agents within their organizations.
© 2016 by Daryl D. Green
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
