Are we really ready to change? I'm not so sure. Here's why.

Living in California since the start of the pandemic has been an incredibly positive experience for my family and me. The weather, in particular, is something I am grateful for. Though we have so many environmental concerns in this state, I do try to appreciate the consistent sunniness of our Northern California landscape.

Yet on a recent trip to my hometown of Detroit, I could feel autumn in the air, and it made me long for that distinct feeling you get when one season bows to another. Sometimes the transition is subtle. Sometimes it is quick. You wake up feeling a chill for the first time in months—and you know things have changed.

I find it comforting that there is nothing we can do about the changing of seasons. I appreciate that nature is doing the hard work for us, forcing us to accept the different kind of beauty that is to come. If only it were this simple in our personal and professional lives! There’s a reason ‘change’ is a perennial buzzword. We all know that change is necessary, but are we really ready to actively drive change?

Manifesting real change, whether in life or work, is quite possibly the hardest thing we can ever attempt to do.

At a recent conference I attended, basically everything we talked about revolved around this concept of the difficulty of change. This is where I finally realized that whether it’s a boutique business like mine—or the largest corporation in the world—we are all constantly struggling with how to achieve real positive change. In three major areas right now in particular—diversity, innovation, and sustainability—doing things differently could have profoundly positive effects for any organization.

But what will achieving change truly take?

Make it more than an agenda item

We talk about it every day, and we know it matters. So we add ‘diversity’ to the company mission statement, and we make it a prominent agenda bullet in meetings. But what are companies doing differently to truly achieve diversity? In just one recent instance of how much diversity is still an issue on the job, nearly three million women in the workforce were displaced as a result of Covid. And in one year, women globally lost $800 billion in income due to the pandemic. Traditional recruiting methods also continue to ignore alternative pipelines of talent that could significantly change the diversity equation.

Achieving diversity requires specific action instead of mission statements made in good faith.

To get more women back on the job, what is being done at the C-Suite level to attract and retain women who require more flexible working conditions? And what about driving outreach in urban communities where kids have so much potential, but don’t always receive the recognition or validation they need to pursue their dreams? I serve on the alumni board of University of Detroit Mercy, an urban institution, to help do just that, where we are constantly exploring how to help diverse graduates navigate their careers.

Besides simply doing the right thing, engaging a diverse workforce may just help take on the $8.5 trillion talent shortage––which threatens to leave more than 85 million jobs unfilled by 2030 due to a skills talent shortage. Achieving diversity at the end of the day will never happen if we are just talking about it.

To get beyond the “check-the-box exercise,” we must first believe that we can drive better outcomes, then develop the plan to do it.

Make it more than an idea

We hear all the time from our clients that they want to “innovate.” Unfortunately, this term has been so over used, that this buzzword is quickly losing whatever meaning it might have had before. This is why we try to help reframe the concept of innovation. Yes, to innovate, there must be some grand ideas in play. But after that, it takes a lot of gritty work and a commitment to put real innovation in motion.

Despite leadership’s best intentions, the brutal fact is that 70% of organizational change initiatives fail or don’t result in sustained change.

For one of our clients considering a huge technology implementation that will radically change the way they operate, the most important question in my mind is this: Are they willing to invest in the change management work that will be required to make the technology stick? We already know that organizations falter when there is not a tangible change plan for technology implementations. What’s at risk? Employees may resist the technology, develop workarounds, or flat out refuse to use it. This can all lead to a fruitless exercise in “innovation” and perhaps even millions of dollars wasted.

Change management plans can be very daunting—but they can also be your secret best friend. By laying the groundwork to make innovation stick in the form of a detailed, tangible change plan, companies can protect their investments, drive sustained value, and even build a work culture capable of embracing innovation as something real instead of pie-in-the-sky ideas.

Make it more than about hope for the future

Sustainability is perhaps one of the most critical things to get right today because of the countless threats to our environment. I think of this most often as a mom and consumer. In fact, I am thinking now more than ever about the chemicals in all the products we buy. Crude oil and other basic petrochemicals like methane, ethane, ethene, propene butene, and benzene are used to support large-scale chemical reactions. All of our basic needs in life—clothing, shelter, food, health, transportation, and communication—are in some way derived from these chemicals and the countless processes and refinements needed to arrive at an end product. What is hurting, and what is helping? Are manufacturers doing everything possible to ensure the safety, quality, and sustainability across the full supply chain of the products we use every day?

On the electric car front, I wonder what will happen once we all make that shift. Will our environment miraculously get better, or will going all electric simply introduce new challenges we are not yet aware of?

These questions, of course, beg the biggest question of all: are we truly ready for a future that is sustainable? I hope that the answer is yes. But hope is never a plan.

If any of us want to be more sustainable in either our personal lives or professional ones, we have got to figure out plans in which we can act. Even the smallest acts, like driving less or consciously cutting out plastic where feasible, can make a huge difference and can contribute to a more sustainable future.

Make it more than a lifelong journey

For me, fall is always a great reminder of the journey we’re on that pushes us to change constantly. But are we really ready to change in a way that will drive positive action and outcomes? Beyond thoughts and prayers, or hopes for a better future––this season––I hope we can all reflect on what we can collectively do to carry the torch of change and drive a real impact in our communities.