The answer, according to Dr. Kenagy is quite simple: Successful organization learn to do what they don’t know how to do. In short, they are what the human resources department would refer to as a ‘learning organization.’
“Legacy organizations are great at optimizing what they know how to do, and this is true is 95 percent of established organizations, they find it very difficult to do what they don’t know how to do,” Dr. Kenagy explains. The true success stories are great at optimizing, but can go beyond that. “Adaptive capacity enables them to do what they don’t know how to do.”
He points to Intel, which he studied closely in developing the theory of Adaptive Design. In the late 1980s Intel made “painful” decision to exit its original business of making dynamic-random access memory products to instead focus its resources on microprocessors — something it didn’t automatically know how to build. But, with company resources behind it, by 1992, Intel had become the No. 1 semiconductor supplier in the world.
While Intel did exit one memory business for another, the change is more iterative than disruptive. Intel reacted to disruption in its environment by adapting its business in a big way — something many businesses wouldn’t have the guts to do.
So, how do you learn things you don’t know?
Move the learning — the decisions, the changes — to those on the front lines — those that most closely understand the work being done.
“Organizations do not adapt. People adapt. It’s the organization’s ability to increase the adaptive capacity of the people that’s important,” says Dr. Kenagy.
Oh, and, move away from project-based processes and management.
Leadership must empower frontline workers to adapt processes as they encounter breakdowns or workarounds, even when those breakdowns occur as the result of major disruption.
Organizations that use Adaptive Design don’t spend hours and hours deciding which process improvement project to tackle next, based on ROI or other factors. Instead, they tackle the next problem they come across, no matter how big or small.
As a result, the organization adapts, instead of planning how to adapt.
Your future success is all about the ability to adapt. Charles Darwin would certainly agree.
While we are going to have disruption in healthcare, you can still thrive, even if you’re not the one introducing it. Just make sure your employees are empowered to respond.
“Your future success is not dependent on what you have done in the past or are doing now, but rather on how you adapt what you are doing to a constantly changing environment,” says Dr. Kenagy. “Innovation in healthcare will happen. For you and your organization, that innovation will be either disruptive or adaptive. It’s your choice.”
