April 2016
For almost six decades, I have been travelling to Peterborough on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria for holidays. Now that is a really scary thing to write down!
Picture: Schomberg Rock, Peterborough Victoria
During that time the Schomberg Rock has sat just off shore as a constant reminder to me not to become complacent, particularly when life, work or business seems calm and predictable. The Schomberg, a smart clipper sailing with 430 passengers from Liverpool to Melbourne, ran aground on the 29th of December 1855 when unusually the seas were calm and the night still.
Recently I beat my way, as is my routine, across the broad expanse of soft sand from the mouth of the Curdies River to the Main Beach. I paused at the top of the low rise, looking to the east towards the familiar shape of the Schomberg sitting out at the spit, but this time I am confused. My lion’s head is not quite a lion’s head any more. It is lurching at an angle with its nose sort of pointed into the air. It is hard to see that it is a lion’s nose any more. It is still the Schomberg, that is for sure, but it no longer looks quite so familiar. It seems to have changed fundamentally overnight.
Often we view companies, even the ones we are running, as solid and immutable.
We don’t always realise that the decisions we do or don’t make are constantly changing the nature of our organisation and maybe eroding its foundations.
Sometimes there are external forces that radically change the way we structure our work. When this occurs organisations that don’t have strong foundations struggle to evolve at the rate they need to and struggle to survive, and those that do become radically different.
Often we talk about being the victims of change. But who wants to be a victim? The challenge for us is not to embrace victimhood but to recognise the evolutionary and external environmental pressures on our company and ensure that we are regularly checking its foundations in readiness for the next big change.
Want to learn more?
We are running tailored in-house workshops and coaching to assist leaders and managers to develop strategic decision making to position their organisations and staff to surf the waves of change.
Interested? Please drop me a line at: boconnor@mg-australia.com.au
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