To make change, first you have to see its necessity . . .

Seeing the necessity of change is not for the nervous. Making changes — once recognized as necessary — requires unshakeable composure in the face of serious risk.

Focus on the As Is until it doesn’t work — that used to work, but now? Not so much.

Change happens at an incredibly fast pace, like never before. In principle, what has been gained must be preserved — assuming it retains its value or continues to grow in value. But fast change also means faster obsolescence . . . of just about everything. To preserve the As Is requires seeing change and adapting core enterprise (and social) values without losing them to the din of obsolescence (or the irrational) — whether seen or unseen, acknowledged and dismissed or willfully unacknowledged. Prudent management must be continuously resilient, flexible, and agile to achieve sustained adaptation to a fast changing social and economic reality. Such a state cannot exist if change goes unseen and unaddressed; or recognized but slothfully handled.

All to often, seriously disruptive situations external to an enterprise must damage it before change has agency.

Externally imposed requirements, like nation-states retiring internal combustion engines (ICEs) at dates certain, can drive entire sectors to reinvent themselves; but achieved leveraging As Is platforms. Markets are powerful external forces that drive change, often better than government-driven changes. What better proof of this point is there than the astonishing transformation of telecommunications from wired-dominated to wireless-dominated over the last three decades ? But not all reactive change is successful — consider the savage eradication of so many brands across sectors by the COVID-19 pandemic. Entities with depth, creativity, and resilience born of preparation and the ability to move fast with agility tend to see what’s required, and change as necessity dictates.

Seeing, then changing tends to depend on how an enterprise defines its internal and external situations.

Ted Levitt’s classic HBR paper on marketing myopia illustrates the point by demonstrating that railroads missed the transportation revolution because they couldn’t see the opportunity beyond moving things on rails. In today’s world, missed opportunities are as much about failing to exploit first mover advantages. But, failure of holding off change for too long runs a close second when searching for root causes.

Our services focus on helping enterprises and institutions see what enables and disables change; and finding context and associated changes that are adaptive and beneficial to all relevant stakeholders.

Once you see change, we may be able to help you plan for and execute changes necessary for new value creation in the wake of seeing the necessity to change.