When the protagonists of change management tire

"Even the most detailed plans can be canceled by unforeseen events" Peter Senge in the Dance of Change.

Organizations today have the challenge of recognizing themselves as competitive, innovative and capable of surviving in a changing market that forces them to go beyond solutions that meet the needs and expectations of the customer, they must incorporate in their products added values that ensure the purchase decision and again.

The processes of organizational change and transformation are part of the daily management, it is the concern to find the answer to the triple question that is inspired by JP Sallevane on how:

Be more profitable. It is the logic of the businesses that lead to making decisions that lead to the economic sustainability of the organization, maintaining the necessary income to increase the gross profit that allows us to assure the partners an opportunity cost that allows them to say “This is a company in the one that is worth investing in ”(1) Grow more. In the business dynamics is the fact that every day sales and customers must grow and therefore strategies must lead to new products, new market segments, new customers. The generation of innovative ideas can be the driver of a significant increase in sales and customers. Stay in time. This is one of the priority challenges for those who want the organization to transcend people. This is in family businesses,especially, of formulating the necessary protocols to ensure that, regardless of the people, the company will be able to survive the crises that appear once the leader who for many years guided the main strategic decisions of the organization disappears.

Few are the companies that today can say that they are NOT in the process of change, that they are in a haven of peace and tranquility, that their income is on the rise and the turnover of personnel has not only decreased but on the contrary they have increased the plant. Perhaps we are in a whirlwind of questions that have led us to seek external help to ensure that the ship does not sink in the sea of organizations.

Es posible que nos hayamos encontrado también con los cantos de sirena que nos obligan, como a Ulises, a amarrarnos al mástil para no dejarnos arrastrar por sus melodías que han hecho cambiar el rumbo a muchas organizaciones que hoy solo existen en los libros de historia. Los responsables del cambio entienden que todas las miradas están puestas en ellos, en sus decisiones y saben que no solo deben asumir el liderazgo sino que debe ir al frente mostrando el camino. En ese sentido el equipo asignado para diseñar y poner en marcha los procesos de cambio y transformación deben recordar la importancia de las tres preguntas claves de toda gestión gerencial:

Knowing where you are going: Imagining the future implies recognizing that you have in the present the capacities and potentials required to make the future of the organization a reality. It is for this reason that the gurus say that the vision must be formulated in the present time, so that when I imagine the goal it is because I also recognize the difficulties that may arise along the way. Knowing what I want to be forces me to describe and narrate the arrival point and thus visualize the probable scenarios and challenges that the organization will have to face. Identifying how to make the change: More difficult than imagining the goal is to design the strategy since I forces you to answer the question How? In this sense, the first evaluation that must be made has to do with the resources available for the trip towards the future of the organization.Are the necessary economic, technological and infrastructure resources available? Is there clarity of the participation and coverage that we expect with our service and product? What are we willing to give up to achieve the organizational purposes? Recognize who will achieve it: Once the team is clear about what they want to achieve and how to do it, it comes Perhaps one of the most difficult questions to answer is: Who should I undertake this journey with? Who will be the traveling companions who will cross the sea of competition and overcome the monster of change (2)? We can call them as we want, employees, workers, collaborators, allies, etc. The important thing is that they must have the necessary skills to make the corporate dream come true,They must be motivated and committed to the organizational cause and live the values that force them to believe that the future of the company is also for the team.

Initiatives of change, as Peter Senge affirms, are born from the direction of the company, but without a doubt it will be the base of the pyramid that manages to generate actions capable of advancing in the established direction. The fact of moving forward does not mean that mistakes are not made, on the contrary, it is precisely the ability to adapt to new situations that will allow to build new realities for the organization, the past is a learning opportunity that forces us to recognize that the opportunities for improvement are not just for others. When the organization begins to recognize that the competition is advancing faster, that it has become more attractive and that it is dominating the market, it is then time to stop and visualize the path taken and the route that leads to the goal.It is a critical moment because there is a risk of creating toxic environments where the intention is to find guilty parties instead of correcting errors.

Most managers dream of finding an administrative theory or model that becomes the vehicle in which business objectives can be transported to the imagined future.

However, when the reality of the market begins to prevail and the evidence that the implemented changes do not offer significant improvements, the champions of change may tire and recognize that perhaps the decisions made were not risky enough to make a significant difference. versus competitors. It is time to recognize that a battle was lost but not the war.

Planning for the future has the advantage that nobody can assure that it will be successful and, on the contrary, one must be constantly on the alert to modify and adjust the pre-designed programs. The challenge is to discover whether the machine is moving forward thanks to the implementation of the strategies that will lead us to the future or, conversely, it has been rolling with the speed given by captive clients but when they decide to withdraw, they can put the expected destination at risk.

The team responsible for guiding and directing changes in the organization must understand that the first thing is to get internal allies who are willing to leave the comfort zone and risk new futures, new scenarios and be voluntary protagonists of a new organizational history. If those who support the change do so for external reasons such as economic promises, for example, they may turn out to be excellent mercenaries who will abandon the initiatives as soon as they find other companies willing to pay a little more for their services, in such a way that what they need are apostles who discover in the organizational transformation project a utility that goes beyond economics.

In other cases, the proposals for organizational transformation do not advance beyond what we know as the "spring effect" since once the initial enthusiasm ends, everyone returns to their same routines away from the risk and danger of exposing themselves too much in unknown environments.. Well-designed plans are not enough, it is necessary to anticipate possible situations that could modify the expected end result. In this sense, it is worth remembering the importance of WHAT as an objective and the HOW that allows us to make flexible the strategies that we can use.

Momentary failure can only be an interpretation that encourages the search for new routes and ways to go, that invites evaluations of performance and productivity. The change is not given by decree, we know that, it is a process that involves learning from defeat and that forces you to get up despite how hard and competitive the market may be and it is precisely in the difficulty when we can recognize the determination that it will drag the present into the desired future.

Getting tired does not mean giving up, this is how perseverance becomes a hope that helps us visualize new routes and paths, it is about insisting and being stubborn but in the novelty, in the generation of new experiences, learning to recognize which paths It is worth it, it is worth going back again and which ones we should abandon so as not to fall again.

The future of organizations is built with the threads of the past that we are capable of weaving in the present. Recognize the WHAT, design the HOW and choose WITH WHOM we will achieve the strategic dreams that we have formulated to be profitable, grow and remain over time.