Adapt in minutes not years!
Be more transformer! Agile, adaptable and ready for anything
Outdated transformation models are doomed to fail and do!
The transformation landscape pre-Covid was already a disaster but with mandatory change being enforced on business, the likely increased failure rates will be even more gloomy. There have been years of research into transformation and it’s well documented that the success rate is depressingly poor.
Indeed according to McKinsey ‘less than 30 percent succeed.’ Their most recent findings suggest that ‘digital transformations are even more difficult, with only 16 percent of organizations reporting that they have successfully improved performance and equipped them to sustain changes in the long term. An additional 7 percent say that performance improved but that those improvements were not sustained.’
Let’s take Marks and Spencer as an example. They are on their fourth or fifth transformation, their EBIT and Eps is in decline, wholly demonstrating this strategy doesn’t work. They are about to embark on another…
Enforced change is a dangerous path to be on!
The need to be ahead of the curve, innovation and creativity will never be more important. Likewise, non-mandatory change will always be ahead of mandatory change. This philosophy and extraordinary leadership will be the key to future long-term survival.
It is very important for those companies now changing due to it being forced upon them, to understand the limitations that lie ahead. There is a real danger that only short-term solutions will be implemented and the real barriers to future success will remain. This means that the next crisis or period of uncertainty that occurs, the same problems will rise once more to cause damage and threaten survival.
A constant state of reinvention is the only way ahead
The need to lead your business into a state of constant evolution – becoming a Mutable Business™ has never been more relevant than now. Those companies who are agile and have already been operating in a mode of continuous transformation, always prepared for disruption to strike, will have been riding the storm.
Now is the time for remarkable leadership like never before, combined with the commitment to drive change and send traditional business models packing. The ability to think differently and look at your organisation holistically considering your people, the business and technology.
Take time out to make conversation
Conversation is king. To be truly Mutable you need to free up the innovation and creativity both inside and outside your business, technology shouldn’t shape your ideas it should enable them.
Finding a pathway to engender conversation and to ensure all your leadership team are engaged is paramount and introducing KPI’s for this will yield results and success.
Idea generation shouldn’t be confined to internal teams either, business should actively encourage external contributions. Companies should create a mechanic to capture external ideas and actively support external conversation.
Take control of you – be personably Mutable
The same business principles apply to you and me, just how Mutable are we?
There are so many questions and opinions about what the future of work will look like. Whilst the rise of AI and Robotics is well documented, as well as the realisation that our jobs can be done by someone else from anywhere. It’s clear there is not enough consideration by individual employees about how to shape their future.
We need to recognise that our current working patterns and expectations will need to adapt. Seismic change was already underway pre-Covid and as the fourth Industrial Revolution (or the second digital revolution I believe it is) gets up a head of steam, we enter unchartered waters with nobody at the helm.
McKinsey suggests that by 2030, intelligent agents and robots could replace up to 30% of the world’s current human workforce. They suggest automation will displace between 400 and 800 million jobs by 2030, requiring as many as 375 million people to switch job categories entirely.
As well as that AI adoption is growing faster than predicted. Research from a recent Global AI Survey by Morning Consult and commissioned by IBM indicates that 34% of businesses surveyed across the U.S., Europe and China have adopted AI. That far exceeds estimates from market watchers last year, which put adoption rates in the low teens, clearly showing the rate and pace of change is accelerating.
How can we create a personal Mutable advantage?
Take time to review the areas which will be less affected and look at how you can start preparing now. Future-proof yourself and don’t think it’s for someone else to worry about, take control of you! Be prepared to work differently, think multi-portfolio, think upskilling and learn to embrace change.
To be specific, if 50% of your job is going to be taken over it’s a wonderful opportunity for you to work full-time across two different companies.
In other words, being personally Mutable – in a permanent state of reinvention should be something you seriously consider.
