Managing Conflict In a Fast Changing World

The Business Trendsetter Podcast

War in Ukraine. War in Israel. Threat of war in Taiwan and South China Sea. Near war in Kosovo & Serbia. A House of Representative with no Speaker. It seems like one of the biggest trends is incredible conflict. How can business deal with this?

This podcast explores how conflicts begin due to differing beliefs based on historical experiences. In business we often “Lock in” behaviorally, structurally and with our costs to a model – or way of doing business. We create “sacred cows” that cannot be challenged easily within the organization. And due to commonality of participants frequently we develop “not invented here” defenses against new ideas, processes, products, technologies and even regulations. As time passes we become ever more firm (locked in) to defending and extending the business as it was created, rather than addressing how external events require change in order to sustain.

Kodak Locked-in to film. Xerox Locked-in to click meters. Hostess Locked-in to sliced white bread and sugary mass-produced pastries. Toys-R-Us Locked-in to physical stores. Radio Shack Locked-in to an outdated product line for electronic hobbyists. IBM Locked-in to data centers and big computers. Unwilling to address sacred cows and allowing not invented here to drive decisions these companies were devastated by external market shifts.

The best way to deal with conflict is to dig into how organizations, or parts of the organization, are locked in and address when they locked in, why, and compare that previous environment to today’s. Then we can identify how alternatives have developed (and can be developed) due to changes in the external environment, which are best dealt with by overcoming the Lock-in and evolving toward a future better aligned with trends. Rather than argue about “who is right” (conflict) it is better to identify the sources of Lock-in and then attack those processes and assumptions in order to gain agreement for new solutions.

The podcast closes with a look at how Disney has suffered horribly due to its Lock-ins. When a new CEO redirected the company to new markets with new products during the pandemic he launched a new strategy aligned with market trends. But the old CEO went to the Board and got him fired, playing on Lock-ins to old business models. Now Disney is mis-aligned with markets, revenues are stumbling, and the stock has cratered. An unwillingness of the old CEO and Board to overcome Lock-ins has turned a tremendous strategic shift into a strategy-free disaster.

Thinking points:

• Do you know your organization’s “sacred cows?”
• Can you identify ideas that were dropped because they were “not invented here?”
• Do you have people who see it as their role to say “no” to change in order to preserve historical practices?
• Do you allow people to attack old business practices, products, methods, technologies and assumptions – or are people who attempt to attack Lock-ins shunned, even pushed out?