Photo by Arseny Togulev on Unsplash
Max, the CEO, shook his head in disbelief.
“I can’t commit to this spending now” he said.
He faced his CFO and CTO, who were urging him to replace the old mainframe computer and adopt the recommended SaaS program that would integrate all function data within the national logistics business.
“The board wouldn’t approve this, not after the earlier write-downs” he explained.
Gary, his CFO, said “Max, we’ll not only be saving in the medium term, we’ll be reducing overheads straightaway. We’ll be more competitive.”
It’s a paradoxical fact that beliefs trump facts. That’s what Max was suffering from.
His belief was founded in fear. Fear of board disapproval. Fear of deliberate disruptive change. Fear of failure.
Max’s relationship with the board was submissive on his part. He’d been brought in to ‘gradually modernise’ the family run company that had grown from the grandfather’s regional hay cartage contract into a national logistics group.
Once the company was ‘upgraded’ they’d go for a public listing.
The board was biased by family members hanging on to the past and begrudgingly considering the inevitable changes needed to move forward.
Even though Max was brought in to energise change, he was uncomfortable in managing change upwards and personally preferred incremental change.
On reflection, those were the traits for which he was hired.
“I can’t imagine our people accepting the steep learning curve the new system would require” complained Max. “I’ve seen these radical changes flop before.”
The CFO and CTO looked at each other in exasperation. They knew that the change was not only necessary, but crucial.
Despite the strong business case for the changes, the CEO and the board decided ‘Not yet, progress gradually.’
The company never improved enough to be ready for an IPO.
Instead, tiring from the incremental changes that couldn’t keep up with the increasing costs of running the business traditionally, the company was sold to a competitor at a much lower price earnings ratio than desired.
They were lucky. They could have gone into administration.
Such is the cost of not being change ready.
The culture of your business, from the board onwards, must now be change ready.
That specifically means the culture must be:
- Values and purpose focussed
- Self and situation aware
- Positive
- Adaptable
- Resilient
- Always learning
The senior leadership must lead the way by example, otherwise the culture will be whatever the senior leadership models, tolerates, avoids, or doesn’t know about.
The worst alternative is leadership based on fear, less than useful habits and ignorance – the only three traits that hold all of us back.
Where are you and your people on that continuum?
You can, more rapidly than you may believe, improve the entire culture to be change ready.
The culture becomes change ready by becoming attitudinally competent.
Take a look.
