The Strategic Challenge of Change


"The only constant in our business is that everything is changing. We have to take advantage of change and not let it take advantage of us. We have to be ahead of the game."
—Michael Dell
Dell Computer Corporation

Health care providers continue to experience an ever-changing health care environment that creates challenges for the fundamentals of strategy. As consultants, our clients consistently share with us the dilemma of envisioning desired future states and developing strategic plans within a very fluid environment. With the pervasiveness of change, providers must determine the best approach for managing the change process within their organizations.

In Competing On the Edge, authors Shona L. Brown and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt suggest that the key element of competitive advantage is the ability to change—to constantly reshape an organization’s competitive advantage as the marketplace shifts.

The authors suggest that in order for organizations to embrace continuous change and to reinvent competitive advantage, a balance is required between structure and chaos—an orderly disequilibrium. Organizations need to have the ability to think about the present and the future simultaneously and be able to pace change with internal drive rather than only in response to external factors.


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