SHOT
Great companies embrace change.
CHASER
Could there be a more trite saying in business today? People say they embrace change, but most change inside companies happens at the margins: little tweaks, optimizations, and small adjustments. The big, meaningful changes? The ones that actually reshape how a business operates? Those often never get addressed, not because they aren’t needed, but because most often they don’t even get undertaken.
There are two reasons for this:
- The things people believe can’t be changed. People assume they’re too difficult, politically fraught, or too entrenched to change.
- The things people don’t even think to question. The “way things are done around here” that are so ingrained they become invisible.
And let’s be honest: these changes are harder. They take effort, buy-in, and political capital. They may create friction with teams that don’t want to let go of familiar ways of working. But the alternative means you continue to operate under outdated assumptions and you wonder why incremental improvements aren’t moving the needle.
When I begin work with a new client, I will always look for these sorts of hidden opportunities in one of two places. One is at the at the actual work or tasks being done by people. Even when teams are stretched thin, no one challenges whether some work should shift elsewhere—to product, automation, or another function. Instead, they optimize workflows, add resources, or introduce new tools, all while avoiding the harder question: Should we even be doing this?
The other, related, is the delivery model. Many firms (even ones with great tech) staff projects based on legacy structures that date back to when work was more manual. They add efficiency tools and templates but rarely step back to ask: Is our entire delivery model still fit for purpose? They assume staffing models are untouchable instead of recognizing that the whole approach might require a fundamental rethink.
INSIGHT
Most companies don’t suffer from a lack of change; they suffer from not changing the right things. They suffer from blind spots.
You fix this by actively questioning foundational assumptions, not just optimizing around them. Look at your biggest friction points—not for small process improvements, but for fundamental shifts that would remove the issue entirely.
Yes, these changes will be uncomfortable because they require real tradeoffs. But if something seems too difficult politically or operationally, ask: Is it truly impossible, or just inconvenient?
Real change happens when people decide to see things differently and have the courage to act.