Inertia

We all know the old saying: Culture eats strategy for lunch; business leaders need to re-imagine their business, lift the culture spirit effortlessly, and drive business transformation proactively.

Organizations large or small are experiencing the dynamics of information exponentality and unprecedented uncertainty, they are also at the different stages of the digital paradigm shift. However, culture inertia is part of business reality. Either at the organizational or societal scope, culture is complex and often invisible. Levels and ways of inertia manifestation could be a criterion for measuring organizational health. 

Change inertia makes many people reluctant to make the move until a catastrophic event or major catalyst. One of the biggest challenges to overcome the culture inertia is to cultivate a proactive attitude, build the full set of business capabilities to take the business from where you are to the next level of organizational maturity.

People with change inertia cling to the status quo and blame those who challenge it: Change is the new normal, but it becomes difficult in most organizations due to the changing friction or culture inertia. Change makes a lot of people nervous because it means they have to move out of their comfort zone, which causes change inertia. When business leaders or managers are comfortable with the status quo, they often miss the big picture and become complacent.

When culture turns to be the laggard of business progress, it’s time to change. To dig into the root cause of inertia, the management needs to gain an in-depth understanding of their organizational culture – the collective mindset, attitude, and behaviors. How is culture created, operationalized & maintained? - How is it expressed, revealed? Can it be changed, & how? Who are your innovators, change champions who can rejuvenate a culture of innovation?

Culture inertia caused by complacency causes business mighty fail for the long run: Complacency is at the heart of resistance to change and causes business vulnerability in the face of fierce competitions and frequent disruptions. A complacency mind gets used to reacting, not being proactive. Numerous change efforts run, complete, and then slowly crumble away as people slowly revert to old ways of doing things, and get stuck with complacency. This is particularly true under the “VUCA” reality. Failing to understand the need for change is in a way or another complacency.

The good moment to change is when the top senses the urgency and the bottom feels the pain. Change managers with learning curve awareness can ride the learning curve smoothly, change inertia can be minimized via common understanding about the necessity and imperatives of changes. Once that complacency barrier is broken, people become more creative and learning agile, a positive change process can commence, organizations become agiler, innovative and flexible.

Those who have a mediocre attitude or negative impact on the business culture should be discouraged: We are what we think, Mindset differentiates top talent from mediocrity. The mediocrity is problem oriented and sticks to the comfort zone. The mediocrity thinks it knows enough, the mediocrity thinks impossible, the mediocrity avoids risk. Mediocrity eventually shows its colors in everything an organization does, even the bottom line. That causes cultural inertia.

The worst mediocrity is not “the mediocre result,” but mediocre thinking and attitude, as it brings negative attitude, sometimes competing via un-professionalism, causing change inertia, silo, or lower team morality. Those who have a mediocre attitude or negative impact on the business culture should be discouraged. High performance keeps the organization running smoothly today; and high potential drives the organization up to the next level of growth cycle for unlocking future performance successfully.

To perceive even deeper, poor leadership is the root cause of the culture of inertia: Organizations get stuck due to their own 'discouragement' of failures resulting from inertia and lukewarm support, especially from the level that claims to be "leaders." The spirit comes from the top. The energy goes on and flows down the chain of command, eventually becoming a culture of inertia in the organization. Change is always easier if you know the net value of the change compared to the net value of not changing. If you want to create a truly high-performance team, you have to understand your people at a deep level, discourage mediocrity, and build a culture to encourage creativity, learning, and high performance.

To overcome change inertia, there is a high level of trust within the upper rankings of the management team, to overcome roadblocks to changes, such as blurred vision, internal politics, misalignment of systems or processes, overly rigid organizational structural hierarchy, lack of creativity, etc. Willingness to fail is an important factor which must be fostered by top managers.

We all know the old saying: Culture eats strategy for lunch. Organizations across vertical sectors are transforming from industrial silos to hyperconnected holistic digital businesses. Business leaders need to reinvent their organizational culture, re-imagine and drive business transformation proactively; harness communication and collaboration across organizational boundaries in order to create a more business oriented value flow and build a high performance organization.

Posted in: culture Master,Digital Pitfalls