I had a session with a client today who has been in his position for about six months after changing company. It was a little bit of trial by fire, as this is his first clear role at this level as a people leader and he walked into several problems off the bat, plus had a lot of personal changes happening, with a new child arriving, as well as buying a new house. He has handled it well, because his personality is the type that not only identifies gaps in his understanding and skills, but actively develops measures to fill them. It makes my job more rewarding, as there can be a lot of change in a short time.
The company the client now works for though, is not going to change fast, as they have a culture of staying the same in terms of their process, because their outcomes have been good in the past. The thing is though, is that their major client is the Finnish government and that has meant that they have been able generate good results, even though they have a poor process. Now though, they are looking to expand more globally, which means that they have a different expectation for results, but their process isn't aligned with achieving them. Yet of course, they don't want to change.
Who does?
Especially when what has been done in the past, worked. But as we know, past performance is no guarantee of future results. And the company filled with highly intelligent, experienced people - are now playing a very different game. For them to do well, they are going to have to adapt to the playing field they have chosen, where their current skills are inadequate.
It is quite interesting in these kinds of situations though, because what normally has to happen for the right changes to be made is, the people have to change. Because the problem with having the same people is that they are going to keep doing what is familiar to them, keeping working on their defaults, even though when not suited to the environment. And the culture won't change, because everyone is following everyone else, and anyone who tries to make the necessary changes, are beaten down for not conforming and not being a team player.
If the team is playing the wrong game, it is the wrong team.
During these sessions we have all kinds of conversations and a lot of the tie back to generalised human nature that we can observe in all kinds of arenas. The fact is that as social animals, we do have a certain amount of desire to confirm and fit into a group and we definitely seek out more of the familiar, even when it isn't working for us. The herd mentality, the safety in numbers, the fit in so as not to be cast out approach has aided us for tens of thousands of years. Yet, it only goes so far before it starts to punish us through group stagnancy.
Change or die.
Like it or not, if we do not possess the necessary skills for the environment we need, we have to either obtain or hire those skills. When it comes to a large, specialised company, hiring all the skills especially for basics is unfeasible, because it will create too many specialised skill gaps. This leaves the option as training existing people to have the necessary skills to retain specialisation, but this is also a challenging approach, because people *don't want to change and even when they do, tend to take a long time to become proficient.
It is no wonder so many companies turn to an AI workforce.
But the more reliance on AI, the more risk of losing competitive advantage as the AIs become a homogenous source of content and ideas, that direct development. But, because short-term profits remain the focus for most, the decisions will keep being made to follow the herd, to be another sheep. Not only does it make some short-term savings, but when failures do happen, everyone can fail together.
A single point of weakness.
And the wolves are building the fences.
Taraz
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