Business leaders are facing “the age of poly-crisis” when technological advancements, geopolitical uncertainties, macroeconomic shocks, and the need for agility challenge individuals, enterprises, and economies. Distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, Mary Mesaglio, shares in a video a simple tool to help organisations categorise change, guide executive decision-making, and enable leaders to keep their ground in the shaky and volatile landscape.
2x2 framework
“There is a two-by-two that has two axes. On one axis — on the vertical axis — are expectations; expectations that this thing, this change, this transformation, this system, this new technology, whatever — expectation that it is going to be easy and expectation that it is going to be hard. On the horizontal axis, you have reality. Is the reality easy or is the reality hard?” explains Mesaglio.
Neutral
The two axes give birth to four possible scenarios, two of which are areas where expectations and reality match (neutral).
First, both expectation and reality are easy and second, where both are hard.
“People expect it to be hard. They are doing it because it is hard and that gives them elite status, and it is. So again, expectations match reality. No extra points, but on the other hand, you do not get punished for that either,” she explained.
Frustration quadrant
“This is a bad place to be because here expectations and reality do not line up, and things are harder than were expected,” she said.
Mesaglio explained that this becomes a frustration sone for those implementing the change and a danger sone for those mobilising to try a new process, system, or technology.
“That happens because the new system is new, not because it is lower quality. It is probably better quality, but because, at first, it is new, and it is frustrating for people who used to have something easy,” she said.
Delightful quadrant
“I expected to go and propose this new thing, and I was going to have a ton of bureaucracy and paperwork and meetings and obstacles, and the person in charge just went, "Yeah. OK, let us do that". You react by going, 'Knock me over with a feather. I can barely believe it. You have my lifelong allegiance. I am loyal to you forever. Thank you for making this thing I thought was going to be hard, really easy',” she explained.
Mesaglio posits that being in the delightful quadrant is the fastest way to establish a bridge, connection, loyalty, allegiance, and friends.
"For anyone out there, especially executives who are new to the role but anyone propagating any kind of change. It is as simple as looking at your change and going — which one of the quadrants is it in and how can I reduce the things in the frustration quadrant and increase them in the delight quadrant?” she said.
Watch the video to hear Mesaglio explain further about the four quadrants to keep organisations grounded in the face of change.
