The future’s uncertain, and the end is always near. 

The Doors, Roadhouse Blues, 1970

The word disruption is losing all meaning through indiscriminate overuse. This is particularly true for the phrase ‘digital disruption’. However, it is also becoming true for the phrase ‘future of work’, which maps out disruptive forces impacting on workforce and organisation.  

Let’s be clear about the realities of workforce and organisations, they come to us bound in bundles that take considerable time and effort to rework to meet new demands. If there is one area that leaders should be thinking forward on all the time it is the interaction between people, work and organisation. There is real gravity in the way these three elements co-evolve through time. Donald Schon said it best when he coined the term ‘dynamic conservatism’, which he described as the tendency of organisations to ‘fight to stay the same’. Organisations don’t go on the ‘change journey’ willingly. So, what does it mean for an organisation transform?  

Organisations transform over time. Transformation is a constant and ongoing activity. Organisations evolve in response to threats to core functions that are central to performance but they also continuously adapt in ways that do not risk day-to-day delivery.  

The disruption rhetoric argues the intolerable threat to core organisational functions is upon us. The shrill message is the past holds no lessons for the future (because we are being disrupted), so we need to sweep everything aside in order to make way for the new. This grossly underestimates what is required to initiate, but most importantly, sustain fundamental organisational change. 

There are two considerations in transforming organisation: balance and resilience.  

In transforming an organisation, leaders must evaluate the ability of the total organisation and its constituent parts to respond to changing circumstances. Organisations need to be balanced. Balance is about poise, posture, anticipation, and the ability to make the many (often small) adjustments required to shape and position an organisation (or more often, parts of an organisation) to change.  

In times of rapid change it might be necessary for leaders to take actions that deliberately unbalance an organisation because in that state it is imperfect, unfinished, incomplete, and inefficient. Being unbalanced frees up resources that were previously tightly bound into efficient processes. This opens up the capacity for adaptation. 

Resilience is focused on the capability of the organisational systems and infrastructure that detect, prevent and handle the adaptation to unforeseen circumstances (particularly those related to the ways people and work are organised).  

Resilient organisations must continue to function while constantly shifting balance. Both balance and resilience are about maintaining the core identity of the organisation while absorbing disturbance and reorganising while managing change.  

Right at its core, transformation works with the deep structures of the organisation in order to re-shape the ways it interacts with the consumers of its products and services. Transformation is not just a change in appearance. When done well it can be traced back to the roots of organisational purpose and meaning. At all times, it is about the ongoing interaction between people, work and organisation.  

What then of ‘transformational leadership’? Again, we need to set aside what we have been indoctrinated to believe and focus on the philosophy.  

People are the shock absorbers of change, so the primary role of leaders is to make meaning out of uncertainty for others. So, what do people want from transformational leaders? They want what people have always wanted from leaders - meaning. 

Show us who we are 

Show us why we are here 

Show us what we must do 

Show us where we are going 

We can see our organisations as a fixed railway network with everything running neatly on train tracks to a timetable set to our grand strategic design. Transformation becomes simply a matter of rearranging the pieces. This is a comfortable illusion that quickly comes unstuck in practice. 

Organisations are more like a fast-flowing river cutting through the landscape. The river has banks but they are continually moving. There are obstacles in its path. The river goes around them. It accommodates the fixed into the whole. The content is volatile and slippery, and it has a will all of its own. If you think you have it contained, you should start looking for the unintended consequences of your actions. In this view, our organisations are never motionless and your actions are never without consequence. 

Organisational transformation requires constant attention and effort. Our organisations can be shaped, massaged and coaxed. They resist management and control. 

Photo credit: Photo by Bruno Perrin on Unsplash