How Your Organization Should Adapt to Change: How to Effect Changes in Your Organization

How your organization should adapt to change will vary depending upon the nature of your business, how you manage it and the projected timeline for your organization.

What does it mean to adapt to change?

Dictionary.com suggests that the word adapt means “to make suitable to requirements or conditions”, or to “adjust or modify fittingly”. As an employer, you may have to undergo a personal adaptation or transition of thought and ideas, as well as “adjust” your organization to incorporate “different conditions, environment, etc.”

Businessdictionary.com suggests that adaptation is an “edited or revised version of a work aimed at serving a special need” or “modification of a concept or object to make it applicable in situations different from originally anticipated”.

For example, does your business plan have a vision for the future? Most business plans include a realistic vision for the future and do not allow the organizations to become obsolete, although that can happen suddenly and unexpectedly.

Begin by analyzing your organization in the light of the future. Look seriously at your current business plan. Is it applicable? Does it continue to meet a specific need now and in the future? Perhaps it needs to be updated. 

Organization business plans or models can quickly become outmoded or outdated and often require revision to keep them up to date. While change is not necessarily easy for you or anyone else in your organization, it may be vital for the survival of your business. A functional organizational structure or technology of the past may no longer be appropriate in the present. It may also indicate the possibility or likelihood of a declining future with respect to your organization.   

What is the current financial status of your organization?

Fluctuating financial stability can be an indicator that an organization is heading downhill and needs to adapt or re-adapt to an organizational structure to become one that is more appropriate for current and future trends. With marketing, there is the rule of supply and demand. Stock market fluctuations may also indicate the necessity of change.

How should your organization adapt to change?

There is no single ‘rule of thumb’, but the introduction of new voices into your organization may prove instrumental with respect to ingenious concepts and ideas that can make a huge difference.

Expansion of your organization may be an essential component for transition into the future, particularly during a time of global economic decline. It may also present new global markets on your organization’s horizon.

Downsizing may appear to be an inevitable result of recent technological advances. Incorporating new technology is advisable for any organization, even when it involves downsizing. Training or re-training programs instituted as necessary, may prevent layoffs. Consider your senior employees in terms of becoming potential mentors for the younger generation of employees.

Rumors of war, increasing environmental concerns and the shifting sands of time serve as reminders that global transitions are continuous and affect organizations in many ways.

See change as progress and as a good thing, even while internal transitions require proactive motivation in a positive, constructive direction for any organization, including yours.