Not only is change a constant but the fact that the pace of change is ever-increasing makes running a business in modern society more complicated than ever. Companies and organizations must do more than maintain their own status quo. The world is changing around them and, every year, it changes more than it did the year before.
Corporate success is no longer creating a better widget or maximizing labour force. As Goodwin (2015) illustrates, “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate” (Goodwin, 2015).
Smart (2015) highlights several transcultural developmental patterns referred to as “There Is No Alternative” (TINA) trends (Pierre Wack, as quoted by Smart, 2015, 12:01). These trends highlight an almost inevitable societal movement toward specific ends. Societal trends affect individuals and families, of course, but they also affect companies and organizations. As societal trends impact the way people behave, there is an impact also to organizations made up of those same people.
One very timely example is today’s announcement that General Motors will be closing four North American plants. This includes the plant in Oshawa, just 15 minutes down the road from where I live. The announcement has come that the company is shifting focus to electric and hybrid cars and, therefore, the plant in Oshawa is redundant and must be closed.
Culturally, the world is moving towards the adoption of clean energy. Electric cars, green power generation, and an overall shift away from oil are all desires which are being expressed more and more around the world. And yet these desires also affect companies and how they do business. GM manufactures a product at its plant in Oshawa which is becoming less desirable and the company has decided to move in a different direction.
The shrapnel of this decision, unfortunately, doesn’t hit GM’s bottom line. This is a move to save money and increase profit. The ones who are the most affected are the people who work for the company to produce the car they were paid to make. While these people live in a world which is living through one of these TINA trends toward clean energy, the impact of a lost job and future uncertainty is very real.
In seeing these cultural trends accelerate over time, organizations must understand they exist to provide a product or service while also providing significance and meaning to their employees. Whether or not Facebook will also be the world’s largest creator of media, Facebook will always have employees. Whether GM will survive this turn toward electric cars, GM will always have employees. The value the company creates is not only in the product they manufacture for their customers.
Leaders do have a responsibility to be honest about how societal change is impacting their organization. For a company to ignore that its product is no longer relevant means it could go bankrupt and everyone is out of work. If a charity isn’t able to change communication methods with donors they risk losing significant funding. Leaders must do what they can to create environments where change can be acknowledged and new ideas can be experimented, understanding that any organization’s most valuable resource is its people.
Reference
Goodwin, T. (2015, March 03). The Battle Is For The Customer Interface. Retrieved November 26, 2018, from https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/03/in-the-age-of-disintermediation-the-battle-is-all-for-the-customer-interface/
Smart, J. M. [John M Smart]. (2015, April 08). John Smart – Leadership of Tech Change – WFS 2013. [Video file]. Retrieved November 26, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhdWqLNUJns