Can an incremental change cause radical impacts?

IToday’s global business environment is a prime habitat for change.  The thriving businesses of today understand the nature of the ever changing global market and the agility principles are not restricted to the software development manifesto  anymore.  As organizational giants are learning to dance, their ability to cope with change, at an increased speed, is becoming part of their operational strategy.  Those organizations that have successfully instilled a change culture have learned to monitor their environment.  They have learned to provide the correct managerial answer to this ever changing puzzle.  

Change can come from a multitude of sources and it can be incremental or radical in nature.  Radical changes are those that are disrupting the environment in a big way.   The telegram, division of labor and the free speech movement are prime examples of changes that were radical in nature.  Incremental changes are more subtle but it doesn't mean they are not just as significant, as any aging peer will attest.  As much as we like to think of change in this dichotomy, radical or incremental, it is too easy to make an error of causality when evaluating the nature of change in relation with its impacts.  This blog briefly explores this relationship.

 

Would you say that the smart phone is a breakthrough innovation or an incremental one?  Most people would probably say, instinctively, that the smart phone is a breakthrough innovation.  Now, what if I was to tell you that the technical complexity required to build a single smart phone requires the cooperation of a multitude of experts spread across multiple organizations, that no organization can, on its own, build a single one internally?  The incremental advancements that had to be made in portable energy sources (battery), digital processing, electronic and manufacturing to allow the smart phone idea to even exist are staggering.  With this in mind, would you still look at the smartphone as a radical technological advancement? 

As with the smart phone example above, we often make errors of association when thinking about change.  We too easily lump a multitude of incremental changes together to call it a radical change.  A dangerous consequence of this becomes apparent when business leaders see radical change as the only possible way to archive radical results.  Some leaders cannot foster the vision, or do not understand well enough the business model they are living in, to identify the minor tweaks (incremental changes) that could lead to big results (radical impacts).  It takes a lot of time and a keen mind to deeply understand a business model and time is turning into a rare commodity in today’s quickly changing market. 

To borrow from Malcolm Gladwell, understanding where the Tipping Point might be is the key to successful change.  This tipping point can be tripped by a single, meaningful, incremental change, a combination of incremental changes, or it may require a radical new approach.  While a radial change can lead to great improvements, it can just as easily deteriorate a system, or even have a marginal bottom-line impact at the cost of lot of wasted effort and change fatigue.  The only sure thing about a radical change is the amount of risk you are taking. 

So, if you are looking for radical improvements, the first step should be to understand your environment, and explore all possibilities for incremental changes, time permitting.  Change is much more manageable, and much less costly or risky, if you can successfully draw a solution based on incremental strategy than a radial one.