Summary:  In "The Art of Continuous Change," Shona Brown and Kathleen Eisenhardt delve into how organizations can thrive in environments characterized by rapid, relentless change. They argue that traditional models like punctuated equilibrium fall short in today's dynamic markets. Instead, they propose a framework where organizations leverage complexity theory and time-paced evolution. This approach emphasizes three key practices: improvising in the present through semi-structured environments, probing into the future with cost-effective experiments, and linking these explorations to ongoing operations through rhythmic transitions. This model fosters innovation and ensures adaptability and continuity in high-velocity competitive landscapes.

In “The Art of Continuous Change: Linking Complexity Theory and Time-Paced Evolution in Relentlessly Shifting Organizations,” Shona Brown and Kathleen Eisenhardt (1997) explored how organizations continuously change in dynamic competitive environments. They found that successful organizations engage in three key practices.

1. Encourage product improvisation by combining limited structure, priorities, and responsibility with extensive communication and autonomy.
2. Explore the future by experimenting with cost-effective probes.
3. Connect the future to the present.

Brown and Eisenhardt integrated their field research with complexity theory and time-paced evolution to offer a model that describes how successful organizations dynamically change high-velocity competitive environments.

Beyond punctuated equilibrium

Assuming that brief periods of radical and risky change interrupt long stretches of gradual change, the punctuated equilibrium model is appealing to academics but not practical for real-world applications. Organizational models developed for slow-moving and powerful organizations in a static environment are insufficient for describing organizations in highly competitive environments. Real-world environments relentlessly and dynamically change. Successful organizations in dynamic competitive environments develop the capacity to change as a core competency.

Dynamic change is significant for organizations in highly competitive industries with short product cycles and shifting landscapes. Integrating field research with complexity theory and time-paced evolution provides a model that better describes dynamically changing organizations. Field research on nine computer industry firms found that the companies that succeeded during rapid innovation and change have three key characteristics: improvise in the present, probe into the future, and link the present to the future.

Improvise in the present

A fundamental characteristic of organizations with a successful multi-product mix is “semi-structure”, meaning that they strike a balance between order and chaos by allowing freedom for innovation while imposing a partial framework in which success can occur. In comparison, organizations with organic structures--meaning loosely defined organizational charts and jobs and few rules--may have high communication but are not conducive to success because they lack sufficient structure to cultivate success. Similarly, mechanical structures can inhibit creativity, communication, innovation, performance, and adaptability by confining people in static processes while attempting to operate in a dynamic environment.

The semi-structure in successful organizations balances mechanistic and organic approaches by defining clear responsibilities and priorities, extensively communicating across project boundaries, and tying resource allocation to priorities. Simultaneously, they loosely define design processes so developers have freedom for iterative and flexible design. Less successful organizations tend to have ill-defined responsibilities, priority disagreements, and limited cross-project communication. Although some might tout a lack of structure as organic management with a rule-breaking culture, such chaotic structures tend to be an inefficient waste of time and resources.

The combination of clear responsibilities, clear priorities, and extensive communication contributes to successful organizations for three key reasons: motivation, sense-making, and improvisation, as follows:

Motivation

Extensive communication with colleagues in a structured environment provides employees with performance measurements and feedback, while clearly defined responsibilities and priorities give the employees autonomy and accountability. This combination fosters intrinsic motivation that motivates performance.

Sense-making

A lack of structure can cause confusion and hesitation, causing people and projects to fall behind. In contrast, structure helps people create an understanding of change, encouraging confidence to act.

Improvisation

Semi-structure creates an environment where people can create while simultaneously adapting to change. As with improvisation in jazz, this does not mean that people are just making things up as they go along or operating outside of a cliché box; too much freedom without an agreed-upon framework creates disorder. Successful improvisation requires a framework of specific rules that allow people to adapt interactively with one another in real time to accomplish tasks while the environment changes. This suggests that the metaphor of project development as “disciplined problem solving” should change to “improvisation” to allow a more accurate perspective on the flexible and dynamic pace of change in competitive industries.

Probe into the future

Organizations with successful multiple-product innovation strategies do not limit themselves to building on past efforts; they develop a strong sense of multiple futures and understand where they might fit in those futures. Some unsuccessful organizations invest in a single rigid strategy for an uncertain future. Other unsuccessful organizations lack a cohesive strategy for the future. Either of these approaches can lead to continuous and ineffective reactions to unforeseen events as the organization struggles in a turbulent environment.

Companies with successful product portfolios achieve a balance between planning and reactive management by probing the future with inexpensive methods, such as creating experimental products, building strategic alliances, and employing futurists. Probing the future allows successful organizations to reduce the risks of developing a single rigid plan for an unpredictable future and the challenges of continuously reacting to unexpected events. Probing allows managers to envision multiple future options that might emerge in high-velocity industries while putting them in a position to take proactive action in a turbulent environment. In addition, low-cost probes help organizations perpetually learn and more easily anticipate the future.

Link present to future

Successful multiple-product portfolios are not made; they are grown, evolving through “rhythmic transition processes” that foster continuous change while linking present activities to alternative futures. Unsuccessful product portfolios suffer delays, make-work projects, and inefficient staffing because the managers cannot organize between projects. Organizations with successful product portfolios carefully manage a transition between the present and future by choreographing transitions, creating rhythm, and fostering time-paced evolution.

Choreographed transitions

Rather than waiting for one project to finish before starting on the next, organizations with successful product portfolios transition to new projects as their old projects wind down. For example, engineers might define the following products in the line by shifting current product development to manufacturing. Transition teams include old and new team members; current employees share the knowledge of the current product while new members contribute new ideas to the new project. Rather than being rigid, members reassess the transition processes while in transition, fine-tuning the processes with lessons learned and future perspectives.

Rhythm

Combining specific behaviors with predictable time intervals creates a rhythm, a “consistent ritual” (24) for keeping people and processes flowing. This rhythm creates a sense of urgency that keeps people focused and efficient. Considering the biological concept of entrainment by which related rhythmic processes synchronize (Ancona & Chong, 1994), rhythmic product innovation can entrain the market, allowing organizations to synchronize product development with market opportunities and even influence market rhythms.

Time-paced evolution

A characteristic of dynamic environments, time-paced evolution refers to change connected to passing time rather than to specific events. Traditional perspectives focus on event-paced changes caused by reacting to failure, while time-paced evolution provides a proactive perspective that facilitates understanding of how successful organizations continuously change. Time-paced evolution allows organizations to check actions, limiting excessive commitment to outdated strategies while creating opportunities to influence the environment.

Conclusion

According to the findings from a two-year study of multiple-product organizations in a high-velocity competitive environment, the traditional punctuated equilibrium theory is not sufficient for understanding how successful organizations adapt in a dynamic environment. Organizations that successfully steer through changing environments have three key characteristics:

1. Improvise project innovation by integrating extensive communication and freedom with clearly defined responsibilities and priorities. Semi-structures provide sufficient flexibility to allow change to occur without allowing the process to collapse into chaos.
2. Explore the future with low-cost probes. This allows managers to attend simultaneously to the present and future by focusing on current projects while considering future alternatives. Then, they use a time-based approach to choreograph the changeover from the present to the future.
3. Link current products to future products by choreographing transitions using predictable intervals. Links in time allow managers to consider simultaneously current projects against alternative futures; this facilitates dynamic organizational change by providing direction, continuity, and direction to change.

Note: This article is a precis, or summary, prepared as a literature review for a doctoral seminar with the following parameters: Use 1/10 of the words of the original without repeating words and phrases from the original while remaining true to the meaning of the original. Download the original at: 

• The art of continuous change: Linking complexity theory and time-paced evolution in relentlessly shifting organizations>

References

Ancona, D. G., & Chong, C. L. (1994). Entrainment: Cycles and synergy in organizational behavior. Working paper. Sloan School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Brown, S. L., & Eisenhardt, K. M. (1997). The art of continuous change: Linking complexity theory and time-paced evolution in relentlessly shifting organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42, 1-34.