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4 Myths About Empowering Change
We live in a transformational age. Powerful technologies like the cloud and artificial intelligence are quickly shifting what it means to compete. Social movements like #MeTo are exposing decades of misdeeds and rewriting norms. The stresses of modern life are creating new expectations about the relationship between work and home.
Every senior manager and entrepreneur I talk to understands the need to transform their enterprise, yet most are unsure of how to go about it. They ordinarily don’t teach transformation in business school and most management books minimize the challenge by reducing it to silly platitudes like “adapt or die.”
The truth is that change is hard because the status quo always has inertia on its side. Before we can drive a true transformation, we need to unlearn much of what we thought we knew. Change will not happen just because we want it to, nor can it be willed into existence. To make change happen, we first need to overcome the myths that tend to undermine it.
Myth #1: You Have To Start With A Bang
Traditionally, managers launching a new initiative have aimed to start big. They work to gain approval for a sizable budget as a sign of institutional commitment. They recruit high-profile executives, arrange a big “kick-off” meeting and look to move fast, gain scale…
