Rapid Organizational Change

CHAPTER 8They Got It Wrong! It's NOT a Marathon, but Lots of Sprints!

Once refraction layers have been more or less eliminated in an organization's layers of mid‐level management, an organization is capable of moving with remarkable speed and agility. So many processes used in companies for business change and improvement—such as strategy development, business cases for investment in capability changes, innovation, and individual growth and development—are more convoluted than they need to be and performed less frequently than they ought to be. In this chapter, I discuss how you can achieve lightning‐like speed in all of these, once refraction is under control.

If you are a distance runner, and you want to achieve rapid improvement in performance, you don't do so by running a lot of long distances—you do so by performing lots of little sprints. Whether preparing for a marathon, or simply wanting to be able to run longer and/or faster, sprinting is the way to go. This works not just for running, but also for cycling, swimming, and likely a number of other endurance sports. Athletes call it interval training, and it is proven to get better results and faster at that.

For many people who take fitness seriously, this is counterintuitive. Whether in New York's Central Park or around the Imperial Palace moat in Tokyo, you will find lots of runners intent on pushing themselves as hard as they can, huffing and puffing as they make their way, all in the name of fitness or perhaps also ...