The times, they are a-changin!
But our organizations are not. This is how I often felt when watching the news. While some now wonder whether it is even possible to change the outdated systems and their aging managers and politicians, others are looking forward to using this lack of competence for their advantage. As we all know, there is good money to be made from other people’s ignorance.
The slower the transformation, the better. An entire industry has emerged showing people how to get a grip on digitization. Selling everything from technological solutions up to every method that somehow looked agile and innovative. And before anyone can ask if it actually worked, the merry band moves on and offers the next promising solution.
All this sounds good, but the results are rather sobering. And the shortcomings of the past year have unmistakably revealed what is missing. It’s not the technology, nor the multitude of new methods, nor the new way of working. But only the will to really, really change things. At the heart of the dilemma we still believe that transformation can be obtained at zero cost. Or to put it another way: We only want to have the colorful, glittery things that change has to offer. Everything that is fun, but not what is painful.
What seemed to be a good show in the glare of the spotlight now turns out to be fake change. The pandemic gave us an unsparing look behind the scenes and brutally showed us the backstage reality. But maybe that’s where the big opportunity lies now?
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