CHANGE VISCOSITY

Abstract

Every organization faces the need for change, but only some will thrive in an environment that requires a disruption. Competitive advantage, or even surviving with a defensible posture, will require that change is both controlled and suitably accelerated using a dispersed leadership cultural attribute. Some organizations spend significant capital to reinvent themselves, execute pre-emptive transformations, or conduct recalibrations. Even though most of these efforts fail to meet expectations, the assumption of a sure position in a market is naïve and fraught with risk. As business success depends more on transformation than evolution, leaders are focused on change, but not on the forces that keep change from happening. With the new normal being temporary market share, explosive innovation, and ever shortening product life-cycles, this article discusses observations obtained from a case study that relate to the forces against positive change. Change acceleration can be effectual if the forces against it are understood and mitigated using a multi-echelon construct