Self-disruption is akin to undergoing major surgery, but you are the one holding the scalpel.
Jay Samit – Entrepreneur
Is COVID going to disrupt your profession? Haven’t thought about it? We believe that COVID will change all professions in minor or significant ways.
A HR professional thought her job was bullet proof because COVID brought on work from work, massive reduction in force, and litigation. The HR professional also thought people will always need to be recruited, hired, trained, promoted, and fired during COVID. This is what she called the ‘full employment act’ for HR professionals. But, guess again! IBM is using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to predict when and which workers will leave in the next six months with 95% accuracy. Show me a HR professional that can do this? The result is IBM has reduced its HR footprint and department by 30%[i] before COVID disruption.
It’s estimated that 90% of big businesses have, are, or will be transforming their work processes. A radical transformation may ensue if the customer is very unhappy with a product and may litigate because of health, safety, or environmental concerns. Or, the customer is simply unhappy with performance or product quality. Or, a company doesn’t stand out from its competition. Or, a startup transforms its current business model. Or COVID needs more work at home staff. In all these cases, a legacy company has to self-disrupt how it does business.
Only several years ago, there had to be a compelling reason or driver to transform an organization. Well, a critical message of Working It is that continual adaptation has been institutionalized and is part of the competitive landscape. Companies are continuously evaluating operations and readjusting them to add value, cut waste, lower costs, and improve quality. It may involve continuous, incremental improvement, or a radical transformation.
Work Lesson Earned: Surviving and prospering organizational transformations will be one of the toughest things you’ll ever do. So, present yourself as a problem solver and part of the solution, not part of the problem.
[i] ‘Tech Knows When You’re About to Quit’, LinkedIn, April 11, 2019.