IBM’s turnaround offers an important lesson to any successful company facing big changes.
Active inertia exists because the pull of the past is so strong.
Trying to break that pull through a radical act of organizational revolution leaves people disoriented and disenfranchised, cut of from the past but unprepared to enter the future.
It’s better for managers to respect the company’s heritage.
They should build on the foundations of the past even as they teach employees that old strategic frames, processes, relationships, and values need to be recast to meet new challenges.