Crisis-Driven Change

In these troubling times, businesses (for and nonprofit) are facing existential threats. Preserving capital is a first priority. Cost cutting and financial re-engineering (“restructuring”) are obvious responses, especially when crisis presents itself hard and fast.    

Crisis-driven change is inevitable but not all crises come with no warning. Many develop over time until they become critical and can’t be ignored. Crises impose change, just faster. Reality presents itself in no uncertain terms and extreme measures do have to be taken.

Cost-cutting and restructuring are generally “event-driven” responses to a crisis. Their hidden costs and long-term impacts to an organization aren’t always adequately considered.   

They often don’t address long-running, deeper problems that undermine an organization’s performance and competitiveness and ultimately its ability to respond to or weather crises. 

Many forces work to fragment a business over time as they incrementally respond to internal and external demands over months, years and decades. The level of waste and inefficiency that accumulate and that many organizations operate under and accept as normal can be alarming. They also present substantial opportunities if approached pragmatically and thoughtfully. The mechanisms to do so have to be in place.

Times of crisis, even this time, present an opportunity to rethink your business at a more fundamental level … albeit with a greater sense of urgency and purpose. They are reminders that change happens and business will be transformed with or without leadership and planning. The outcomes may be different. 

Change management and its more strategic cousin, business transformation, demand serious commitment and a thoughtful approach. They are means to continuously try to anticipate, adapt and respond to change … to make it part of an organization’s DNA … its muscle memory.  

We all recognize that change is constant. Enabling organizations to face the next crisis or opportunity – large or small – more effectively will serve us all.