The Trouble with Disruptive Change

``It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favour; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had the actual experience of it.'' - Niccolò Machiavelli

But seriously, it's not like this is a new or previously unknown phenomenon. This is just a fluff piece from a fluff site.

> Baron and Hannan found that companies founded with a commitment model for managing their people were more likely to reach an initial public offering or be acquired at a good price and were much less likely to fail than companies managing their people using other approaches. But — and this is what’s important — companies that shifted to this more effective way of managing people were actually more likely to fail than companies than had begun with a different, less effective way of managing but stayed with it.

> That’s because the benefits of changing to a better way of doing things did not outweigh the disruptive consequences of the transition.

Nice. Confusing causation with correlation in one sentence.

> A new chef at the highly rated San Francisco restaurant Ducca decided to make his mark by adding chili to some pasta dishes and grapes to others — with bad results.

I can't say anything about this specific restaurant, but this statement seems like it could just as easily be considered an opinion rather than treated as a fact.

Another consideration is that one leader may be highly skilled in a given trait while anther leader has a completely different core set of traits which force change to take place when there is a change of leadership. Changes in leadership style are typically changes that reflect the competency range of one leader compared to another.

Politics is especially filled with the sort of criticism that changes are being made "for the sake of change" so that someone can challenge if the change is meaningful, because there is no perceived value of that change to a person who disagrees with the change.

I don't know how this could even be quantified, but I disagree with the assumption that changes are typically made simply "for the sake of change".