How should your company be: innovative or adaptive?

Being innovative means finding new ways to solve a problem. You can, for example, find a way to build a car that consumes less or goes faster.

Being adaptive is much simpler. It means that when someone tells you that there is a shorter way to your destination, abandon the known road and take it on the new road. You do not have to be too smart for it, many times new roads are already beaten by many, we are just for you.

Darwin, with his famous theory, told us what he thought. Survives the most adaptive. Not the smartest, not the most diligent, stronger or taller …

Almost every company I know has value, in one way or another, innovation. Adaptability is not among nobody’s values. In addition to adapting your products or services to market requirements, too few companies target their adaptability as their primary goal.

Adaptability means for a company to easily assimilate a change.

Yes, and the Titanic returned when he saw the iceberg, but it was not enough and that’s why he got to the bottom of the ocean. The problem here is one of the capabilities, as fast as you can go. And this is closely linked to the company’s internal mechanisms. Yes, all crew members have done everything they can to avoid disaster, but their fate has actually been sealed by the slow reaction speed of the boat.

If in your company it takes 6 months for everyone to use a new form or a new way of working, then it’s likely to become the next Titanic.

That’s why it seems to me that adaptability is a topic that should be on the agenda of any company.

Rarely, a company gets to launch something completely new or to make a radical domestic change. But every day it is faced with micro-changes, people, roles, working methods s.a.m.d. Effective management of these micro-changes is the key to managing major changes (which are actually made up of many micro-changes).

What we do, Digital Workplace, is very closely related to the propagation of a change. Digital Workplace is the sum of software tools available to an employee to do their job. You will say many things can change from ERP or CRM. For example, you can change a price and immediately everyone will sell with a new price. You can change a status to a prospectus and immediately get everyone to know about it. But I do not think ERP or CRM really helps you change how a clerk is talking to the customer, learning the features of a product, or who to call to repair his / her ergonomic chair.

The management of these micro-changes is facilitated by the Digital Workplace. When changes are properly integrated into the system, they become easy to digest by employees. Where you are at the level of a new process, you can find training resources, explanations and frequently asked questions or contact persons to help you in your approach.

We have contributed to important changes in companies by hundreds and thousands of employees and we know we can.

Another addition. On a personal level the job is like this: I would describe myself as a very innovative type. Radu, my friend, I would describe him as a very adaptive guy. We became entrepreneurs almost once. Today, after more than 10 years of entrepreneurship, I drive an Alfa Romeo (which I love, btw.), Radu leads a Bentley …

My recommendation: Become experts in managing micro-changes! Merita 🙂