

The Trouble with Disruptive Change - jyellin
http://blogs.bnet.com/ceo/?p=2829&tag=homeCar

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bena
496 year old repost?

``It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor
more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new
order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the
old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the
new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries,
who have the laws in their favour; and partly from the incredulity of mankind,
who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had the actual
experience of it.'' \- Niccolò Machiavelli

But seriously, it's not like this is a new or previously unknown phenomenon.
This is just a fluff piece from a fluff site.

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jyellin
This is definitely not an earth shattering message and most certainly nothing
that we have not intuitively known based on our prior life experiences. But
what is profound about this post is that your perspective is different today,
then when you first had this thought or read something like this in the past.
Our perspectives change in second, which enables us to have a different
interpretation of the same experience regardless of the amount of time since
the initial occurrence took place. These are the types of messages that need
to echo, loud and clear, because their underlying meaning could never be heard
enough...

The quote by Niccolò Machiavelli is incredible!

~~~
bena
You know what? That is an excellent point.

------
thaumaturgy
From the article:

> _Baron and Hannan found that companies founded with a commitment model for
> managing their people were more likely to reach an initial public offering
> or be acquired at a good price and were much less likely to fail than
> companies managing their people using other approaches. But — and this is
> what’s important — companies that shifted to this more effective way of
> managing people were actually more likely to fail than companies than had
> begun with a different, less effective way of managing but stayed with it._

> _That’s because the benefits of changing to a better way of doing things did
> not outweigh the disruptive consequences of the transition._

Nice. Confusing causation with correlation in one sentence.

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palehose
From the article:

> A new chef at the highly rated San Francisco restaurant Ducca decided to
> make his mark by adding chili to some pasta dishes and grapes to others —
> with bad results.

I can't say anything about this specific restaurant, but this statement seems
like it could just as easily be considered an opinion rather than treated as a
fact.

Another consideration is that one leader may be highly skilled in a given
trait while anther leader has a completely different core set of traits which
force change to take place when there is a change of leadership. Changes in
leadership style are typically changes that reflect the competency range of
one leader compared to another.

Politics is especially filled with the sort of criticism that changes are
being made "for the sake of change" so that someone can challenge if the
change is meaningful, because there is no perceived value of that change to a
person who disagrees with the change.

I don't know how this could even be quantified, but I disagree with the
assumption that changes are typically made simply "for the sake of change".

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jyellin
This is an interesting concept because it dives into the human psychology of
feeling important regardless of the ramifications. When leaders take on a new
role within an organization, they feel the desire to create their legacy and
are often disruptive to something that is already working efficiently. I
personally believe that the most profound influence is the result of the
smallest change. Legacy's are born because people were willing to do what has
never been done before and more often than not, what they do, is not too
drastic.

