I recently left the Boston area for 10 days, and the view out my office window was green. I returned home mid-October to a color palate bursting with reds, yellows, and oranges. A short six days later, more leaves were on the ground than on the trees.
How quickly things can change.
My niece recently announced she was pregnant. While happy for her, trepidation also set in. She had only been with her boyfriend for less than a year. Suddenly their plans include moving in together, getting engaged, and bringing a new human into the world. In February, world population +1.
We face change in our personal and professional lives all the time. As part of Project University, we try to prepare our colleagues for these changes, whether they are leading them or they are joining them as willing – or sometimes unwilling – participants. Change management isn’t something leaders can put off. If the speed of change seems faster to you, that’s because it is. As Kotter and Gupta surmise in their book Change, it’s in response to the shift from the Industrial Age to the Information Age.1
1Source: Kotter, J. P., Akhtar, V., & Gupta, G. (2021). Change : how organizations achieve hard-to-1magine results in uncertain and volatile times. Wiley.
On September 14, 2023, we learned through email, meetings, and newspaper articles that our employer was driving an enormous change for Dana-Farber, its employees, its patients, the city, and perhaps the national and global cancer communities. The possibilities and opportunities that will open alongside the opening of the first dedicated adult oncology hospital in New England, driven by the leader in cancer research and care in our corner of the world, could have international impact. Yet, the change also carries risks. Five years doesn’t seem like such a long time. Again, that speed of change.
But, we’ll rise to the challenge. Remember how our 30-day implementation plan to temporarily move everyone to remote in March 2020 turned into a weekend whirlwind digital transformation? We in Information Systems were tired, but at the same time proud and impressed. How the institute adapted to change, keeping the focus on patients and employees as we figured out logistics, operations, systems, processes, budgets, policies, regulations, and more can’t be written off as luck. A balance of agility and responsibility, driven by a commitment to our mission got us here, putting us in a position for that September announcement. We know we can handle the change. Before we know it, we’ll be saying remember when.