This Financial Times article by Hasso Plattner, Co-Founder of SAP caught my eye yesterday, while I was thinking deeply about the complications (difficulties) of executing ‘change’ in large enterprises.

Fact: SAP is about as rigid of a company as you can imagine, and HANA, the in-memory-database concept which SAP introduced a few years ago, represents a huge change from the standard operations at SAP. The article itself seems to be a mini-memoir that Hasso wrote about himself and the success of SAP, but the reason I wanted to share it with you is because he talks about how difficult it is to bring about meaningful change and execute change in big companies.

In particular, he points out that he tried “convincing people” versus making decisions and moving forward. In retrospect, his regret is that he did not execute change faster in the company. CEOs and executives in large companies have many great ideas, yet we see old-school business continuing for decades. Partly, that is due to the fact that the intent is to have mass consensus to change major directions in a company. Could HANA have been introduced many years earlier? Probably, yes.  But that would have required that it be introduced and risk be taken early. The real question for Hasso is if he would have accepted the risks (necessary for success) and if he would have been okay with the revenue shortfall while HANA got introduced.

In ProVoke, we work through the 5 key stages of resistance to achieve adoption of disruption actively, not just with the executives but with the rank and file. Resistance to change is pervasive and occurs at all levels while you move people out of their comfort zones. We have great examples like Apple and Google, where change (experimentation) is a way of life yet, many other major corporations who have not introduced a viable new product to the market in years. Now imagine, if at Apple, when the company decided to get into the music business OR the pad business OR the phone business, IF Jobs had had to convince everyone and spend years working through the resistances?! What would have happened to the iPod, the music distribution industry, iPhone and iPad? To disrupt and innovate, leadership needs to work with teams collaboratively to effectively innovate. Success is not waiting until one has uniform consensus, rather when one can ‘lead’ the company through a successful disruption to innovation journey. Yes, they are all protecting the revenue line and selling tons of their old technology, but they are also nurturing a culture of resistance and complacency.

Why is it important to evolve? It is not just about the lack of innovation which results from not wanting to disrupt, but more importantly, the rigid and inflexible culture that resistance to change creates. Compare United Airlines and Virgin Airlines. Both in the air transportation business, with completely different mindsets about what is possible and how rapidly (or not) changes can be introduced. Compare AirBnB with existing hotel chains…

More on this later folks, but let me now just say NO to the myth that large companies can not change! Of course they can and clients are hoping that large enterprises will evolve. Let’s not mistake the fear of loosing existing (old) product line revenue with the customer not wanting to change.

Let’s Disrupt | Innovate | and Lead together!