OzHR #9 - Change is a dirty word - isn’t it? Or is it?

This week’s Tweet Chat has been shaped around the ideas of Daniel Newman, a US based C-level executive and entrepreneur. The article from which creative license has been taken, Talent and Transformation: a Delicate Balance, was published recently at www.talentculture.com. 

On Thursday 30 October, guest facilitator Vanessa Wiltshire, Founder & Director of the HR Talent Community will look at the nature of change and the way it is conceptualised and executed in your workplace. To add a little curve ball, Vanessa will also encourage you to contemplate the changes that have occurred around the nature, scale and speed of change in the last 5-10 years. Sound confusing? It’s really not!

Daniel Newman a Talent Culture contributor recently commented: “Change. It’s not what it used to be.” Change is happening faster than ever before. “It wasn’t so long ago that businesses ran with modest, almost unnoticeable change, year after year”.

Greg Satell has elaborated on this concept, indicating that “in the industrial age, a company’s business model didn’t change much. The way a firm would create, deliver and capture value could stay fairly constant for generations. The practice of management was mostly focused on execution." Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Today, if you’re not in a state of continuous innovation, you may as well be dead. International thought leader Clayton Christensen has a similar viewpoint, and a big warning for big business: “with the onset of the digital / information economy even the best run company can now be disrupted.” www.claytonchristensen.com.

According to Heidi Grant and countless others (ask around), people have never and don’t like change. A study conducted by the University of Arkansas in 2010 revealed that not only do people fear change, they genuinely believe (usually unconsciously) that when they’ve been doing something a particular way for some time, it must be good. Even if it’s not good for them. And the longer they’ve been doing things in a particular way the better it is. So, change isn't simply about embracing the unknown -- it's about giving up something old (and therefore good) for something new (and therefore not good).

The chat will be Thursday 30 October starting at 7pm AEDT. Now we're in daylight savings time, find your city (or corresponding time zone) below, for the starting time:

7pm - Sydney, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne (AEDT)
6:30pm - Adelaide (ACDT)
6:00pm - Brisbane (AEST)
5:30pm - Darwin (ACST)
4:00pm - Perth (AWST)

Just make sure to pop a #OzHR in your tweet so we can see it, and be sure to invite others along for the ride!

The questions are:

1. Has the nature, scale and speed of change, changed in the past 2 years? The past five? Ten?

2. What kinds of changes will there be in change + transformation programs over next 3-5 years? Next 10? What will the impact be?

3. Are we trending toward workplaces that are constantly fluid or are we already there? Will some industries be more prone - or is it all?

4. Does change always mean “losing” an old state before a “new” state is gained? What does “resistance” mean to you? Will attitudes change?