The Catalytic Mindset

Organizational inertia is the tendency of an organization to continue moving in the same direction until acted upon by some force that changes the direction.

Like individual people, organizations often become creatures of habit - continuing to follow the same routines and the same strategies. The status quo becomes the dominant force and stagnation sets in. Borrowing an image from ecology, when the organization fails to adapt to the changes going on in the environment, the environment will select that organization out.

The catalyst for changing an organization's trajectory is often a leader who recognizes that while changing will be uncomfortable and risky, not changing is an even riskier proposition.

Challenging the status quo in this way is an inherently high-risk position, but this is a differentiating factor between managers and leaders. A manager’s tolerance for risk is often trumped by a dominant need for survival. Leaders, on the other hand, are often temperamentally predisposed to seek risk. They react to the mundane nature of managerial work as to an affliction.

Where managers act to limit choices among potentially acceptable compromise positions, leaders actually seek to develop fresh approaches to existing problems. They seek to open issues to new options that may have never been considered. Leaders challenge long-standing assumptions and raise expectations by casting a vision that appeals to the head and the heart.

Leaders are change agents who change the trajectory of their organizations. They facilitate the adaptive work of their organization and seek to position the organization for long-term sustainability.

Change is always risky because we never have absolute certainty on how it will turn out. Leader's understand this. But they also understand this crucial fact:

If there is cost for changing,

there is a cost -usually an even greater cost - of not changing.