Ken Stewart contemplates Is Change an Evolution or a Revolution?:
“My take away from all this is that change is necessary and should be embraced. While I do not subscribe to the bleeding edge mentality of the early adopters, I do see reason behind consistently driving towards necessary evolution. In so doing, you can best position your company, and yourself, against stagnation while ensuring sustainable and measurable growth is an achievable reality.”
I would agree that change is easiest when it can be continuous, small, and evolutionary. Everyone likes small steps. But I would still argue that there are many situations where neglecting to continuously improve, or being in the middle of a rapidly changing environment (such as the tech industry) leave little value in the small steps — revolutions are needed just to keep from being left in the dust.
Moore’s Law predicted doubling of computer capacity every 2 years since 1965. That’s revolutionary change, not evolutionary. Evolutionary would be more like 10% better a year.
If you want to be competitive, revolutionary change is your only option.
Tags: change, emerging tech, innovation
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I continually come across situations in my day to day work where revolutionary change is what’s required, but those around me are only willing to take small evolutionary steps. While many small steps may add up to revolutionary change over time, you may be a day late and a dollar short when you finally get there. In my experience, what’s key in affecting evolutionary change is getting buy in from those above you in the organizational hierarchy. Unfortunately I haven’t yet discovered the magic formula for this just yet, but I keep looking.