Allowing Change

One of the most challenging aspects for Darwin was explaining the remarkable cognitive abilities of humans, including their capacity for moral reasoning.  In Darwin’s view, morality arises from a combination of emotional impulses and thoughtful deliberation.  That said, humans are unique as a species in that we tend to first observe what other humans do that results in a bad outcome and we avoid doing the same thing to avoid a similar, expected bad outcome.  This makes us humans – as a rule – pretty averse to change.  We like to stick with the safe, expected, well proven, comfortable path but invariably we might be denying ourselves the experience of a different, unexpected, sometimes powerfully positive outcome.  The same holds true for companies.

I urge you to watch a recent interview of AWS CEO Matt Garman:

Matt Garman, AWS CEO: A Fortt Knox Conversation (youtube.com)

In the interview Matt describes how he was asked to surrender what he knew best and start a new business:  Amazon Web Services (AWS).  Hard to believe there was a time when AWS did not exist.  In starting AWS there was nothing for Matt to leverage.  Matt couldn’t observe the outcomes of what others starting AWS-like businesses were experiencing.   Matt needed to take a risk and change what his career would become.  Change for Matt worked out.  Important to note, his company – Amazon – desired the change and fully supported his hands on the wheel to drive that change.

Now two months into my new role as Global Director, IT Service Management, in contrast to my former role, I can already see that my new employer desires the change that I am able to deliver.  While in my former role I had delivered significant, transformational change to how IT services were delivered, the new business challenges dictated additional change in a different direction.  While for years I had successfully driven the IT Service Management ‘bus’ towards the destination of significant improvement, until I was outside of the organization, I didn’t quite realize how my ability to help the organization change to meet the new business challenges was being limited by the lack of organizational support for the incremental change that I could deliver. 

My Career Advice:  Really evaluate where you are today.  Understand the level of support that your organization has in you to drive changes that the company requires to succeed.  In your career, do not settle for status quo.  In order to allow yourself to grow, succeed, and deliver powerfully positive outcomes for your employer you need company support for your hands on the wheel of change. Without that employer support you need to find another bus to drive!  As Matt Garman points out in the interview, support for change by your employer is the key to a powerfully, positive outcome for everyone involved!