Talking Supply Chain: Fortnite’s Keys to Change Management

Change management is one of the most difficult things for companies to execute. Plenty of good ideas and technology deployments have failed simply because management has been unable to implement strategies to take advantage of opportunities.

Another factor is the changing dynamics of the workforce. With more younger people moving into key roles, the ability to connect with these workers is a critical factor in successful change management.

Welcome to the Fortnite generation.

“If you just do a quick Google search, you’ll see that Mckinsey reports that 70% of change programs fail. Harvard Business Review says it’s between 60% and 70%,” explains Craig Moss, executive vice president of Ethisphere and director of the Digital Supply Chain Institute (DSCI). “So why do they fail? They fail for a number of reasons. One of the common reasons is lack of senior management support. Another very common reason is that employees don’t buy into it … You’re trying to change a lot of individual behavior. And we know that individual behavior is hard to change.”

DSCI started exploring video games such as Fortnite, and what it found was that many of the characteristics that make someone a good Fortnite player can be applied to the workplace.

“We started to look at clips of world-class gamers on Youtube and as I started to analyze it with the people at DSCI, it was really interesting to see what the world-class gamers did to create these high-performing teams. I started to think back to my background and change management. Clear goals and timebound create urgency. They’re all things that were very common with video games.”

Moss joins Talking Supply Chain host Brian Straight to discuss what DSCI has learned about video games, change management, and how it has adjusted its change management training programs to create more successful programs for clients.

Listen today. 

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