It’s no longer sufficient to state that “change is constant merely”; we must integrate this statement as a new way of inhabiting the world and building organizations.
We’ve been dealing with a pandemic for over a year now. Today, the awareness of the inevitability and permanence of change is already embedded at the organizational level.
Very likely, no strategic planning had incorporated an event like the social unrest, let alone a global pandemic like COVID-19.
However, this emerging awareness is not enough. It’s no longer sufficient just to state that “change is constant.” We must internalize and integrate this statement as a new way of inhabiting the world and building organizations.
How do we go about building a strategy when the assumptions about the environment are so volatile? Is it possible to set medium and long-term plans and objectives? To what extent does the path we have taken serve us, and to what extent is it a limitation in itself?
These questions have arisen in processes with executives from significant Latin American organizations and are likely quite applicable worldwide.
Changes: A Crisis of Action
We are facing a crisis of action that has a fundamentally cultural foundation.
Our traditional way of doing things has reached its limits in terms of possibilities and is on the verge of encountering its blind spots, those areas where “I don’t know what I don’t know.” When people, resources, and ecosystems depend on my decisions, “not knowing what I don’t know” can become dangerous.
So, when we enter the blind spot, questions like “How do we do it?” “Where’s the reference?” “Where has it been applied?” are inquiries that look backward, seeking certainties, “returning to normal,” and “reverting to previous indicators,” in other words, looking at what is known and avoiding the darkness of conscious blindness.
Moving from “I don’t know what I don’t know” to “I know that I don’t know” would be a significant step. The former preserves the status quo, while the latter opens the door to learning. What we need most in times like this is adaptability, which comes from the ability to keep learning continuously.
Adaptation Process
The adaptive process is a learning process where the forms already learned are tested when facing new scenarios and challenges.
Based on their effectiveness, we decide to modify our actions or paradigms, or sometimes, we simply change our perspectives or actions without much intentionality.
But for that to happen, we have to embrace the risk of stepping out of our comfort zone and opening ourselves to the uncertainty of the emerging future.
Connecting Learning with Action
The question is, how do we do that if we don’t know how to do it? One central way to connect with learning is to link it with action. Move away from the cognitive paradigm that believes information is knowledge and delve into the depth of the human learning structure to truly understand how it happens. From there, we can make strategic decisions that foster greater organizational adaptability.
For this to happen, the space for reflection on action must be permanently open. Teams should engage in conversations about the processes that led to the results they achieved, the approaches they applied, and their effectiveness. This shared reflection allows the emergence of new, broader maps of reality that enable us to embark on new experiences, which we can then reflect upon, and so on, in a continuous cycle.
In essence, it’s about shifting from being a results-oriented machine to a living organism that adapts and harmonizes with its environment.
The article was originally published in Clase ejecutiva UC on July 2, 2021.
Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash
