Meanwhile the consultant is saying
Meanwhile the consultant is saying:
A journey of change is a journey, a going from one place to another, a going that often involves having a plan, a plan that is a way to manage change. Sometimes the change you manage is: you follow social media weather reports from central Ohio when you have never been to central Ohio and then you forget because don't see them but then you see them again and think they're a parody and while you think they're a parody you find them quite funny but they disappear---some time later you see them yet again and realize they're actual weather reports and not particularly funny, and still you have never been to central Ohio.
Recent experience has shown that change can change in ways that really challenge your change management plans. For example a comet hits the earth and everything is on fire is the kind of changed change that can really disrupt your change management and change your journey of change into a running away.
But the changed change that blows up your change management need not involve global conflagration. That is merely an example of a change that changes change, one that surpasses the change you were expecting and abruptly replaces it with the change that you are confronting. Efforts to adjust to changes that change change puts pressure on your approach to approaching change management.
Our thought leadership suggests that remaining optimally optimized to deal with our crazy modern world of changing change may require a rethink of your approach to approaching
Now you may be thinking: Mr. McKinsey, change management literature tells me that effecting change to one's approach to approaching is very hard because one's approach to approaching is rooted in habit and regularities...
Our studies have shown that the unexpected appearance of large quantities of lava often changes the approach to change management that gives structure to a journey of change and can change a journey of change into a running away. That is why we recommend people set up an office of change managment (OCM) and hire professionals to manage their approach to approaching a world of continuously changing change. Today's thought leaders have to be nimble in the face of changing change. And, let's face it, nimble takes staff.
Consider the case of an insurance company in Holland that was not confronting the arrival of a comet or the sudden appearance of a significant quantity of lava but instead wanted to anticipate changing change in order to further optimize their already optimally optimized optimizations. To manage this complex yet vague problem, the company turned to a specialist in changing change and asked him to to map out how the company could approach approaching their management of change in an environment where change is always changing---even though their optimzations were already optimally optimal.
When all of whatever it was was said and done, the fact that the specialist in changing change relied on himself to manage changing change meant that, when whatever it was was said and done, the company thought that everything was exactly as it had been before.
He was the same so they thought nothing had happened.
He was the same so they could not see the many changes he initiated to adapt to changing change.
He was the same because he failed to understand the extent to which changing change had changed his role.
He was the same because he did not yet see that changing change meant that his role was now optimally optimized when it was limited to telling other people what to do and collecting enormous fees.
He had to become a thought leader.
Our modern world is one of continuously changing change: plagues of locusts, showers of frogs, a swimming pool filled with petroleum.
In the face of that thought leadership must remain nimble.
And, let's face it, nimble takes staff.
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Author's Note
I'm making a project in corona time, maybe a radio opera. One aspect of it has been reprocessing the oracular pronouncements from McKinsey, the consultancy, about change and how to manage it. This one riffs on their "How do we manage the change journey?"
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"He had to become a thought leader.
Our modern world is one of continuously changing change: plagues of locusts, showers of frogs, a swimming pool filled with petroleum."
For whatever the reason - maybe the frogs - Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia came to mind.
Good piece.
Thanks for having a look, Sam!
"Change is a journey."
I've always thought "The journey is change."
Perspective is everything.
I don't understand what is meant by "Nimble takes staff." Is that some kind of colloquial expression?
*****
McKinsey puts out writing that says close to nothing which is why I admire it enough to do things like this to it. They inevitably promote agile as an approach to management. Agile recommends that companies put out products before they're quite ready on the idea that time spent making things work correctly is revenue lost. Customers become "beta testers" and their feedback about why the thing they bought doesn't work is greeted by teams that "scrum" in response. The producing company may find out there are problems with their half-baked product they didn't anticipate, so have to be "nimble."
McKinsey's also been big big big in advocating outsourcing for years because if you migrate production to places with cheap wages and no pesky unions labor because a variable cost. So here I had the idea that McKinsey would reach the limit of that position and advocate that people outsource themselves. Everyone should have staff. Everyone should have staff to do things and devote themselves to telling others what to do and collecting enormous fees. Everyone should be a thought leader. Everyone should be a McKinsey consultant. And McKinsey should be everything. Like Elvis.
All this changing change seems so rigid--love the irony, the purpose bizarre. Frogs made me think of Bellow's Henderson.
Jack be nimble, like the nursery rhyme. Staff too, like the stalk in the Jack stories. Interesting.
Thanks much for having a look.
It' pretty characteristic of the language games of contemporary capitalism are rigid where they talk about change & flexibility. Somehow that goes unnoticed most of the time.