It’s one thing to recognize the importance of mastering change to effectively compete, and another thing entirely to effectively manage a strategic transformation within the organization.
While most organizations are quite adept at identifying change opportunities and launching new programs, the majority experience great difficulty in seeing the change through, in fact some pundits peg the failure rate of change programs at sixty percent or higher. The reasons for this dismal statistic are many and varied: lack of communication, a resistant workforce, ill-defined plans, and many other ‘usual suspects’ contributing to derail the change train before its able to muster sufficient momentum to produce any results.
This article offers guidance that looks to a new source of inspiration for taming the change beast – the sky. Specifically, the remarkable Arctic Tern. Paul Niven discusses five principles based on the bird’s migration, that with some modification, apply equally well to organizations wishing to pursue a change initiative.
