the
innovative LEDGER
An e-Newsletter from The Innovative Edge™ Inc.
Vol.
8, No. 1 - January 2008
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Creating Change by Staying the Same
By Jeff Govendo
I
am writing this the morning after the New Hampshire Primary, feeling
grateful, like most of us within broadcasting range of the Granite
State, for an end to the nonstop barrage of commercials touting each
candidate's ability to produce change in our country.
It's
certainly not the first time the C-word has been mentioned in an election
campaign, but I don't think I've heard it uttered so often since
attending a convention of dollar bill change-making machine manufacturers
(which I never did, of course, but these are the liberties you can
take when you are the writer and editor of your own newsletter).
Some
candidates say it's their experience in politics that best enables
them to create change. Others say it's the absence of such experience.
For some it's having a background in business, or entertainment, or
religion, which best qualifies them to be effective change agents.
Still others say it's where they grew up, how hard their folks worked
to give them an education, or the makeup of their own families.
Clearly,
people around the country seem to be looking for change, and each
candidate wants to tell you why their life circumstances uniquely
qualify them to produce it.
We
are very early in the primary season, and nobody knows who the eventual
winners will be. But my read of the results thus far suggests that
voters are gravitating toward those candidates who, while pushing
for and advocating change, are seen as unwavering in their most basic
beliefs and principles. There is a sense that those who are perceived
as the most rock-solid in what they believe, are the ones who can
best effect the changes our country needs. It sounds almost oxymoronic,
but most voters believe this to be true.
The
same holds true for businesses. Over the past two decades or so,
we have witnessed some of the most pervasive circumstances in history
in which businesses have had to (and continue to have to) undergo
profound change in order to survive. Globalization, the web and e-commerce,
the meteoric rise of China and India as economic powers, global warming,
the threat of terrorism, complex issues around privacy and security,
the rise of consumerism - these are but a few of the forces that have
shaped organizations and demanded large-scale change in the way companies
do business. Some have done it well; others have not.
Some
call it a core purpose or core ideology, but a basic belief in
"who we are and what we stand for" seems to provide the
anchor against which companies can withstand the winds of change and
maneuver themselves to a more successful bearing in spite of them.
Its manifestation in successful companies is what Jim Collins, in
his bestseller Good to Great, calls The Hedgehog Concept: "simplify(ing)
a complex world into a single organizing idea, a basic principle or
concept that unifies and guides everything." Like some of the
candidates running for office, it’s what keeps a company “real.”
It
is also the touchstone against which many of our most dynamic organizations
are able to continually innovate without losing sight of themselves
in the process. As any adventurer will tell you, it’s a lot
easier to go off in new directions and explore new territory if you’re
sure you know the way back home.
As
I write this piece, it’s possible that on their buses or planes
heading to the next primary state, some of the candidates are having
this very discussion (or at least they should be): Who am I, really,
and how do I communicate this to the people? It’s a conversation
worth having, and your company needs to be engaged in it too. Not
once, but on an ongoing basis.
For,
unlike this year’s election losers, you might not get another
chance in four years.
