Change is always talked about throughout organizations and is incredibly thoroughly researched because it’s so central to the human (and organizational/business) experience. What can often happen, however, is that someone will latch onto a specific model or theory of change and try to base all of their change initiatives on that piece. The problem that stems from that is approaching each change as its own, discrete challenge and leaders fail to build up a culture of change within the organization. This video is a quick primer for ensuring that you are clear about whether you’re dealing with a specific challenging change initiative, or if you have an organizational challenge with change (in terms of your structures, culture, or people) and that specific project is just a symptom of deeper, underlying issues that need to be addressed.
Most of what goes wrong in organizations can be traced back to a drift away from what’s really important (the organization’s purpose and core values) to a fixation on keeping track of a series of isolated outcomes. What results is a backwards looking, slow-to-react, rigid organization (and organizational culture) which is always struggling to keep up with a rapidly changing world. If you get your structures, culture, and people focused back to purpose and core values, you start to weed out outdated processes, generate more diverse viewpoints, and develop the ability to change more quickly and with less trauma. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?!
https://cfo.co.za/article/what-to-look-for-and-not-now-that-eskom-has-a-new-ceo-
Unfortunately, I feel like I have to write pieces like this quite often, but I think this one is still worth a read!
“As is often the case when a big company or SOE makes the news for the wrong reasons, Eskom has responded to its most recent dire situation by making a move to replace the leadership at the top of the organisation. Such a leadership change to deal with very public organisational failure is, of course, not unique to South Africa or its SOEs (or even to Eskom specifically). It has always been a savvy PR move; this is even more true in an era when most people are inundated with information, rarely getting past the headlines of even the bigger stories.”