About the author:: Elizabeth Barrett runs a business consultancy that focuses on: Change management, facilitation of strategy and leadership coaching, across a broad spectrum of industries. Her change management knowledge has been distilled into a 20-day on-line learning program for leaders of change. She also has created an innovative organizational development tool: "Discovery and Action -- Managing Business Risks," which has been designed for consultants, trainers, facilitators and coaches.

Speed, urgency and lightening-paced change -- that’s the mantra. There’s also a saying "speed kills." To take this even further, just how much change can we take before stress, fatigue and burn-out take their toll? How can companies continue to find the financial resources to move from one flavor of the year to the next? Is this constant "instability" making people happy? What is the real cost of progress without periods of stability? Is there a better way?

Change is disruptive -- too much haste and its downright destructive. There’s often a pattern associated with this "urgency." Take a business that has "static" or declining sales, narrow margins, tight cash flow, staff that have become stretched and edgy, and you have a crisis that cascades like a waterfall. Sound familiar? There’s more. Creating strategy is put on the back burner — "we’re too busy," training is deferred — "we can’t afford it," marketing is scaled back — "we need the money for something else," old problems keep re-emerging — "patch it, do what you can"…and so the fire-fighting goes on. Sapped of energy, people toil away, wishing they were elsewhere and praying for a miracle. Many will be thinking "I don’t know what I don’t know. I don’t know what I need to learn. I don’t know what to do." The fear monster keeps them stuck between helplessness and denial. Confidence and competence go hand in hand.

Finally, "someone," often the banker, demands action. If the business doesn’t fold and a fire-sale is avoided, the next solution is new management. There’s urgency, and yes, there’s change -- but often the "urgency" means slash, burn and milk the cash cows. Another pattern? A workforce already sapped of energy and enthusiasm may conform — the fear monster does this — but eventually the withering vine, starved of fertiliser, will cease to bear fruit. Expediency, masked as progress, creates more losers than winners for all stakeholders.

History does repeat itself and reality bites. The average life span of companies across Europe and America is 12.5 years. Most start-ups fail within 6 to18 months and, 70% of the top 100 Australian companies listed on the ASX "disappear" within 20 years. Recent research on American companies indicates 80% of new management hires fail within 18 months. We have mental, emotional and healthy lifestyle learning on our doorsteps but they are long journeys of discovery and action requiring commitment, patience and self discipline.

Change is constant, necessary and inevitable. Establishing a sense of urgency is one thing. But changing attitudes, and building required knowledge and skills at the flick of a switch, is quite another. Speedy corporate transformation is a myth. Some people change quickly, some take longer and some don’t change at all. The emotional response precedes the rational — and the individual exercises the choice to change — or not.

It’s the businesses that consistently nibble at innovation that survive the long haul. They tinker consistently by learning, adding or replacing the building blocks without repeatedly taking a jack-hammer to the foundations. Some times a jack-hammer may be necessary but beware the vibrations — visible and invisible may come back to haunt you.

I wonder if we’d be more successful, and a good deal happier, if we were to take the time to learn two things. Firstly, learn from repeatable patterns. Secondly, "Life’s a marathon — not a sprint." The business "sprinters" may have something to learn from those "morphing" on the marathon track.

Marathon training tips

1. Don’t follow fads.
2. Have an unwavering commitment to building a culture that supports continuous learning.
3. Have a mix of rationalists and visionary leaders.
4. Don’t confuse short-term expediency for progress.
5. Never avoid asking the hard questions.
6. If it affects people, involve them from the beginning.
7. Drive innovation from within.
8. Develop rock solid executives who are "on the same page" and comfortable enough to challenge ideas.
9. Pay meticulous attention to strategy.
10. Know that to change attitudes and behaviour means tackling values and beliefs — there is no such thing as quick transformation.

©copyright 2001 E. M. Barrett Consulting