Machiavelli famously observed, “It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”
Every Department, every team, tries, now and then, to introduce a new product, tool, or method. One can hear stories of various initiatives that had been launched in any organisation. Typically, one eventually hears in these stories that those initiatives fizzled out.
Clay Christensen, for a large part of his career as a leading academic on innovation, was famous for his studies on the difficulties established firms face in acknowledging the potential of disruptive technologies and (after acknowledging) in spawning products or processes of their own to harness them. His book, The Innovator’s Dilemma, gives several examples of such difficulties.
The several new-age businesses that have rapidly grown in the past few years are proof that his thesis continues to be very relevant – Walmart’s difficulties in competing with Amazon, the rapid emergence of significant players such as Airbnb and Oyo in the normally assumed to be capital-intensive hospitality sector, the entire gamut of fintech start-ups, etc.
Making the new successful
The stories of failures of new products and services are legion. Naturally, therefore, stories within functions, of neglected new products or services, and unused tools, are also legion (except that, often employees have no option but to adopt the tools, and so they do get adopted among grumbles).
It takes sensitivity to decide the products and methods to introduce, and the process of introducing them. And after that, it typically still takes doggedness to make the new stick until it is adopted at large.
Pitching new products to customers that have higher value-adds has typically been resisted by sales forces. Similarly, using more advanced tools in functional processes; using provided resources, such as RPA platforms now being provided by some organisations, to transform the function’s processes – in any organisation, one is likely to find significant variation across functions in how such changes are adopted.
It takes sensitivity to decide the products and methods to introduce, and the process of introducing them. And after that, it typically still takes doggedness to make the new stick until it is adopted at large.
It is fairly easy to see whether a function has been trying to do anything new. It is easy to elicit stories of introductions of products, tools and methods. They give a convincing sense of how the team deals with the new.
As innovation guru, Vijay Govindarajan, reminds, a portion of the mind of the organisation should be in time frame “T2” and beyond – a period of time when today’s products and processes would be getting phased out. Quite often, after conversing with people in a function, we are left with the sense that it is largely living in the moment.
Related Readings:
INC. EDITORIAL, INC. STAFF. Managing Organizational Change, INC.
HERSCH H. How To Support Employees During Change, Quickbase, Perspectives ( Aug 2016 )
