#organizational-change

#organizational-change

The opportunity is enormous: to reimagine work, unlock creativity, and expand what organizations and people can do. So is the pressure. In response, many organizations are rolling out tools and launching pilots. Some of this activity is necessary. Much of it, however, misses the deeper point. Too many leaders are asking: how will AI change us? The better question is: what kind of leadership will we build to guide AI?

Twenty years ago, as the top digital and innovation executive for Citi's credit card business, I led the team that spent months building what looked like a brilliant partnership. We'd found a startup with a disruptive payments platform-one that became the forerunner of what has become a new payment type used by millions of consumers today. The deal: strategic investment in exchange for access to the startup's codebase as a sandbox for innovation pilots. No more waiting in the legacy systems queue. Just rapid prototyping with leading-edge developers.

It's become almost a cliché to talk about how consistently organizational change fails. Study after study finds that roughly three-quarters of change efforts don't achieve their objectives. There are underlying forces that work against us adapting to change-including synaptic, network and cost effects-that lead to resistance. Another problem lies in how we study change itself. Typically, researchers at an academic institution or a consulting firm interview executives that were involved in successful efforts and try to glean insights to write case studies.

It's early 2025 and inside Equitable Holdings, CEO Mark Pearson is asking a simple but profound question: is 80% enough? Over the past three years, the company has undergone a sweeping transformation and launched a bold experiment to reinvent how a 160-year-old financial institution collaborates, innovates, and leads. This New Way of Working is designed to speed up decision-making, empower teams, and ignite a new culture of agility.

No statement can change the disappointment of the past several seasons. I know we have fallen short of the standard you expect and we as an organization have for ourselves. That responsibility rests with me. When results do not match expectations over time, as the owner, accountability cannot be shared or softened. I believe this team should be competing at a higher level than it has, and I share your deep frustration.

After 20 years inside some of the world's most iconic companies, the moment I stepped out, what both sides were missing became unmistakably clear. As an executive, pitches never stop. Everyone believes they've cracked your problem - they just need a moment of your time to prove it. Each conversation starts with the same confidence: that they've discovered a capability you were oblivious to, one that will unlock what your own organization somehow failed to see.

"There's so much that can go wrong," she told The Register. "From the beginning, we're talking with clients, and we're hearing a technology conversation without any type of business input, and that happened today. We're always steering clients back to the fact that this is business transformation. There needs to be executive sponsorship, there needs to be evidence that the organization is actually preparing itself for change - how they're going to operate - and not just replacing an application."

Yes, the Rockies acknowledged the Dodgers' place at the cutting edge of the new baseball with a nod to a 14-year-old movie about a 23-year-old season that ended in a first-round playoff loss. It did not take the worst team in baseball a full week to trump the best team in baseball with an equally jaw-dropping and equally on-brand moment, but you avert your eyes from Rockyball at your own peril.

That's a loaded question

When the economy feels volatile and companies are navigating change, many of us instinctively wait before initiating a raise conversation. But the truth is, uncertainty isn't a signal to stay quiet-it's a call to lead. Asking for a raise during times of flux doesn't mean you're tone-deaf. It means you understand your impact and are choosing to advocate for it with clarity and courage. You deserve that raise.

"It's amazing how quickly it's moved from being a novelty to rapidly becoming part of the creative instinct itself," he says. Unlike previous technological disruptions like mobile or social media, which took years to reach boardrooms, AI is different.

The Great Resignation served as a wake-up call for employees and employers alike, highlighting the need for better work conditions and prioritizing employee well-being.

Refreshing a mission or strategy feels productive. It gives leadership the impression of progress without demanding real disruption. Revising words is easier than confronting entrenched behaviors, broken incentives or outdated processes.

"Customers want a model where on-premises infrastructure offers the same flexibility as the cloud. So scalable, quick to deploy, and without long delivery times," Bal explains.

To position Gaming for enduring success and to focus on strategic growth areas, we will end or decrease work in certain areas of the business and remove layers of management.

User research insights often fail to drive organizational change because they are not connected to business objectives, making it difficult for stakeholders to recognize their potential impact.

“The path to the future isn’t a straight line. That’s where strategic foresight comes in. Foresight isn’t prediction; it’s a discipline for understanding complexity.”

In large, global legacy organizations, the challenge is to shift from an output-focused mindset to an outcome-based approach that values user experience and customer needs.