The World Has Changed. Have You?

As the COVID-19 Pandemic spreads into every American community, a leader of a non-profit instructed his people “to act more like a start-up.” Like most non-profits, his organization was conservative and slow moving. However, at a time when the tendency is to be cautious this contrarian leader directed his people to assume more risk because staying the course is an illusion. This leader adapted to our new environment because of not what he knew, but what he believed.

All change occurs at the cellular level. Leaders who adapt effectively to our new environment will thrive — not just survive. Some businesses will be ahead of the curve, some will be left behind the curve and some, sadly, will be buried by the curve. Human adaptation is dependent on one factor and one factor alone. It’s not the biggest, strongest or the smartest that evolve — it’s something much more elemental.

 
Mental Models and Business Models

Leaders subscribe to business models based on what they’ve been taught and adapting a deeply engrained business model is difficult unless one has developed a flexible mental model. Leaders develop and adopt best practices that build a reliable business model, but may also be unyielding and impervious to change. However, this assumption is false. Business models aren’t change averse — people are. We all like to think of ourselves as agile, but we have a tendency to freeze when our beliefs are challenged.

Hebbian’s Theory1 teaches us the beliefs that precede the best practices we’ve chosen become hardwired into our mental model and to question them would violate effective management. Or so we assume. This is the opportunity where effective leaders sacrifice the sanctity of stability for the virtues of change. Leaders who fail to synthesize new information of how the pandemic is disrupting their business and industry will never question their beliefs and adjust their mental model. As a result, the business model cannot and will not change putting their business behind the curve or under the curve.

 
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Πηγή: ceoworld.biz