The Fight or Flight response is something we have all run into a time or two in this challenging world we live in. When we perceive threats, an attack, or god help us all, CHANGE, to our survival or living environment, the argument states we have one of two options: peace out (yes that is a technical term) and flee the scene, or stay and fight for what we want to protect. However, if we apply the fight or flight context to the Corporate world, results may vary ever so slightly. What happens when mergers occur, new management takes over, and suddenly all the comforts of your working world are being attacked? Will employees adapt to new leaders, new policies, and most importantly, new norms in order to keep the company alive or will the change eventually kill the organization?
This type of change can occur rapidly, seemingly almost overnight to some. Or it occurs gradually over time as management slowly starts to instigate new procedures overseen by new faces, mixing up the status quo little by little. Either way it happens, getting an organization to accept and adapt to the changes becomes the key. Easier said than done my friends. Speaking from personal experience as a collegiate athlete, I went through three coaching changes during my career at Radford University. Talk about survival of the fittest. Not only did we have to change the way we physically played the game, and relearn skills the way they taught it. But we had to adjust to new personalities, new rules, and new leadership. One of the main reasons most of us survived were due in part to captains of the team. The Captains served as connectors between head coaches and the freshies, and everyone else in between. Because we saw our team as our family, our captains were our strong ties. The ones we trust, follow, and expect to tell us it's okay to change. They lead by example. By doing things the way the new coaches said to. They were the liaisons between the old way of performing and the new and unknown.
The same situation can be transposed to any organization undergoing similar restructuring. Organizations with strong internal leaders will be more likely to come out unscathed in the changeover process. If they're smart, new management will use them as connectors to diffuse new ideas into the existing culture. They have the high social capital, the ties, and the ability to relate, understand, and influence the rest of the employees that make up the organization as a whole. In theory, the trickle down effect takes place as change works its way into the pulse, the daily routines, the life of the organization. As a result, a different, perhaps new and improved culture emerges within the organization. The adaptation process allows companies to survive the transformation.
Is failure the only other option for organizations who decide to flee, or at the very least, ignore the new guys up top? What are your opinions? Do you think there is a gray area where companies have other options besides adaptation or demise? Check out Steve Tobak's CNET blog on why mergers ultimately fail. Tobak is the managing partner of Invisor Consulting LLC, and I found his perspective on corporate behavior interesting, perhaps you will too.
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