The Art of Change Leadership

Chapter 7Technology and People—The Impetus for Change

A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be.

—Rosalynn Carter, former First Lady

It is more evident now than ever before that the speed of technological innovation is creating a massive need to build businesses that integrate both the opportunities that technological innovation provides as well as remaining focused on the impact that fast change has on people (employees and customers). This quote from a friend and colleague, Dr. Ralph Kilmann, author of Quantum Organizations and The Courageous Mosaic, positions the opportunity of technology and the impact of change on people beautifully with the following questions:

What is an organization? What is the role of technology in organizations? How fast do technologies change and improve? How fast do people change and improve? How can organizations make the best use of its technologies and people, especially when they change and improve at different rates? And how do we resolve the inherent conflict between the increasing rate of technological change and the increasing difficulty that many people have in adapting to that change?

Dr. Kilmann goes on to say that technology is not new per se. Rather, he clarifies that technologies have evolved (the key element that is and always will be the same—people) the way that people adapt and come together to achieve more than an individual would on his or ...