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I've conducted business war games, strategy simulations, and crisis simulations for 30 years around the world. What I've seen about change is this.

We humans don't change if we think what we're doing is working. Unfortunately, many of the measures of progress that we use are backward-looking; it's like driving with the rear-view mirror. For some comments on how we fell into that trap and got into the financial crisis, please see my blog post "It's Working!" at www.whatifyourstrategy.com.

We humans do change when we believe that we must. Often it takes more than analysis and persuasion; it takes [i]feeling[/i] that there's a problem. For comments and stories, please see my article "Feeling is Believing" at www.whatifyourstrategy.com.

The trick is to experience the need for change as early as possible, and the best way to do that that I've seen is through simulation. Simulation comes in many forms, such as the war games and computer simulations with which I'm familiar. There are other techniques too. Google finds about 15 million pages about simulations. For more, see my blog post "When I Was Wrong" at www.whatifyourstrategy.com.

Perhaps the best news is that people actually do change. In my career I've seen major, 180-degree changes. It takes a shared belief that change is necessary (that's the hard part) and a safe environment to explore ideas for solutions. Once people believe change is necessary, they are remarkably imaginative and constructive.

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
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