Your Job Is Change

The Web changes everything -- including change. And it's not just the Web. Digital technologies, wireless technologies, the Human Genome Project, complexity theory, and the emergence of new science have all changed how we think about change: why change has to happen in companies, how change happens, and, most important, who makes change happen. Power has shifted from inside to outside, from corporate planners to aggressive buyers. Now all customers, all clients, all investors, have a huge array of choices -- and can switch to something better instantly.

Change today happens suddenly, unexpectedly, unpredictably. It occurs in companies the way that we see it occur in biological systems or in technological breakthroughs: Change is sudden, nonlinear, and constant. Its amplitude and direction can't be forecast. Killer apps can come from anywhere; new competitors are lurking everywhere. Markets emerge, flourish, inspire imitators, breed competitors, and disappear seemingly overnight. Brands, which once took years to establish and which, once established, seemed unassailable, now burst on the scene like a new strain of virus, finding competitive spaces and market niches that were previously invisible. Internet buzz can make a product overnight -- or break it. There is more choice than ever, more challenge than ever -- and more change than ever. As a result, products and markets are continuously morphing, so organizations that want to prosper over the long term need to practice the art of continuous change.

In this environment of constant change, companies are known both for the products that they create and for the speed and agility with which they move to create them. A communication device becomes a means of finding a great buy on a car over the Web. It becomes a financial instrument to buy a car. It becomes an interactive tool enabling a customer to design a car from scratch. "Company" no longer refers to a fixed set of assets and employees operating with a set strategy and in a defined market. A company is a living organism competing, collaborating, and cocreating in a network of other companies. It is moving and morphing into different revenue streams where it can add value, extract profits -- and change the rules of competition in entire industries.

Companies that can't change in this new environment can't play in this new economy. Companies that can't change the way that they think about change won't be able to change the way that they compete. And hiring change agents, who used to carry the banner for change inside large companies, is no longer the right way to think about or to practice change.

Change today demands the change insurgent.

The Job of the Change Insurgent

The old change agent is as much a thing of the past as the old environment for change is. The old change agent could help a company do things faster, cheaper, better. He could try to push the company toward a linear improvement in its performance -- cutting costs, questioning bad practices, applying new technology to an old task, inching the company closer to its customers. But the mind-set for change -- as well as the process for change -- was limited, mechanical, point-to-point.

The change insurgent operates with a different mandate and a different mind-set.

Rather than coming up with better products, the change insurgent continually invents better organizations. For the change insurgent, doing "it" faster, cheaper, and better is no longer the goal -- because "it" keeps changing. As a result, the change insurgent focuses less on specific products or specific markets, and more on organizational readiness. The whole organization has to scan technologies for possible applications, scan markets for possible needs, scan all other organizations for newly emerging technologies or markets -- and then move like lightning.

Rather than aiming for growth, the change insurgent aims for dexterity. In the 1990s, the Web gave companies a new mandate: Stop cutting costs, and start growing revenues. In the 2000s, the next phase of the Web is giving companies another mandate: Get more disciplined about growth and more focused on adaptation. It's no longer enough just to grow. The job of the change insurgent is to focus companies on their ability to maneuver and to change direction.

Rather than just cutting costs, the change insurgent has to explode the organization and put it on the Web. The change insurgent's job is to turn an old-line company into an online company. And in the course of making that change, the change insurgent has an opportunity to change the larger context within which the company operates. Rather than keeping operations in-house, the insurgent relies on B2B Web-based auctions and partnerships. Instead of paying suppliers a fixed price, the insurgent gives them equity. In place of fixed payrolls, the insurgent relies on performance-based pay, stock options, project teams, and contract workers.