The First Step Toward Changing Mindsets
However, although it is easy to talk about changing mindsets within a company and encouraging employees to participate in management, as the hundreds of books already published on these subjects demonstrate, the path is different for each company and requires a complex plan that is not easy to implement.
Two of the companies we assisted decided that, first and foremost, management should communicate a message to employees to encourage a change in mindset. They created easy-to-understand animated videos explaining management’s vision for the future organization, as well as the new attitudes toward work and standards of behavior they wanted employees to adopt.
Although these were animated videos, they did not feature animated characters. Instead, they were approximately three-minute videos that used graphics, SmartArt, and other visuals to clearly organize and explain the concepts.
One of these two companies has already created its second animated video. Over the past year and a half, the company repeatedly provided employees with opportunities to watch the first video. Once the message had become established, the company produced the next animation.
By repeatedly showing employees management’s vision for the future organization, the company is attempting to increase internal conversations, make it easier to gather opinions from employees throughout the organization, and initiate changes in internal communication and organizational structure.
The other company created a new slogan to encourage a change in mindset and produced an animated video explaining its meaning. The message, “Don’t be afraid of failure. Take on more challenges,” was presented along with examples of the company’s successes. Employees have been actively encouraged to watch the video since the beginning-of-year meeting.
The plan is to implement the next initiative once the slogan has become established and has become part of the company’s everyday language.
Changing Mindsets to Seize Opportunities
The third company, facing the major opportunity presented by digital transformation (DX), embarked on a full-scale effort to change employee mindsets, motivate the entire workforce, and fundamentally transform the passive culture often found among systems engineers.
The company’s top management became interested in the concept of the “Learning Organization,” proposed by MIT professor Peter Senge, and adopted a strategy of having a carefully selected team master the concept before expanding it throughout the company.
The Learning Organization is a concept, methodology, and strategy adopted by organizations such as Nike, Intel, and the World Bank, as well as Recruit and JICA in Japan. It aims to create “an organization that continuously learns and grows in order to act effectively toward its goals.”
By becoming this kind of organization, a company can continue to improve the awareness and capabilities of its people, enabling it to respond flexibly to changes in any situation and continue growing.
Our company has been fortunate enough to participate in this project in a small way. We are planning a 10-month program of training and discussions to help every team member acquire the disciplines and skills needed to operate as a team at peak performance.
Surviving the Post-COVID Revolution
I feel that the impact of COVID-19 on the workplace may have brought about changes so significant that future generations will regard them as a revolution, comparable to the various industrial revolutions that began in the 18th century, such as the energy revolution and the computer revolution.
Employee mindsets, customers’ ways of working and thinking, and numerous new technologies and applications are all different variables acting independently. They have appeared all at once, as though Pandora’s box had been opened.
As a result, industries and business models are changing rapidly, almost on a daily basis, and these changes are difficult to grasp.
Under these circumstances, business leaders feel a sense of crisis. They recognize that unless they now explore more deeply where they should position themselves, what they should focus on, and what kind of future they should pursue, their businesses could collapse as though the sand were being pulled out from beneath their feet.
At times like these, the people they can rely on are the employees who have worked alongside them all this time.
Business leaders are seeking a new relationship with their employees, recognizing that now is the time to actively incorporate the ideas and opinions of those who have been working on the front lines, transform their organizations, and seek their employees’ cooperation.
These developments may also be influencing the shift in power between management and employees that has become increasingly apparent in recent years.