How to cope with change with weak signals?

Today, change management is at the heart of manager's daily jobs.

The challenge is that the future is shaped by non linear changes (i.e. abrupt changes and large scale changes are involved) and chance events. How can we prepare our organisation to respond to these changes?

In a HBR article, it is argued that companies have to recognise the weak signals that herald important changes to the business and identify the opportunities they present.

There must then develop a program of experimentation to distill and scale unpromising ideas. Therefore, organisation can consider some pilot test and small scale implementation at the beginning of the change process. After creating a critical mass and the publication of successful stories, the change initiatives will be implemented much more smoothly, gradually to the whole organization.

The organization must interpret the weak signals as opportunities, as risk, or as both. Another challenge is that the weak signal can be real signals or just noise. It is the manager's responsibilities to separate real changes ahead and those noisy signals.

There are five important questions to be asked. They are as follow:

1. Who will be your customers in the future? What will be their priority?

2. What disruptive technologies might open up new opportunities spaces?

3. Whom will you be competing against in the future, and on what basis?

4. Will your go-to-market approach change fundamentally inn the future?

5. What are the potential regulatory reforms?

Upon your answering to these questions, you may well aware some new changes or ideas evolved.


Good luck to you -- our everyday manager.