Change is Necessary to Fix Problems.

The banks we patronize today significantly differ from those that existed one hundred fifty years ago. The America of 1873 was still in the middle of a southern reconstruction, with federal troops still occupying the defeated confederacy, and most banks were locally owned and serving local communities. Each banker personally knew each depositor and recorded transactions on paper. Large corporations own banks today and dominate large swaths of geography and customers. Millions of customers conduct billions of transactions daily in the physical world and online. These systems must be accurate to the penny, available twenty-four hours a day, and meet the increasingly demanding needs of customers and regulators.

It requires an army of skilled specialists to keep the system working. It makes working in the postmodern economy difficult because you need to navigate the complicated procedures of control and bureaucracy to make a change, which keeps the global economy spinning. It is not easy, and I will discuss this on the blog today. 

James Beniger wrote a book entitled “The Control Revolution.” He argues that increasing industrialization and an expanding economy demanded that businesses and governments develop better control systems. Trains collided on the tracks, food rotted in warehouses, and money only moved as fast as people could carry it from bank to bank. Something had to change if business and prosperity were going to expand. Fortunately, we have developed innovations like paper checks, just-in-time inventory systems, and the corporate bureaucracy we all experience. These innovations make our global economy possible. 

As a technology professional, these control systems are robust but tend to resist change. So being able to pivot to new technologies of changing customer and regulatory demands feels like swimming against the tide. The number of people and their vest interests means that as an agent of change, you run into a giant wall of inertia. 

I experience systems operating until the effort to sustain them becomes overwhelming. People enjoyed train travel until the trains started to collide. It became paramount to train companies and the government that the death toll had to stop. The combination of telegraph lines, electric track switches, and synchronized clocks helped to end the collisions, and train travel was the dominant means of getting around the country until the end of World War Two. 

As an agile person, point out a problem, show how it costs the organization time, money, and energy, and propose a solution. In an interview promoting his series about work, former President Barak Obama said that leaders are looking for people to solve problems. If a problem is big enough, a good solution will find a receptive audience. It is why coal is used less for energy generation, and wind, solar, and natural gas are replacing it. 

Change is complicated and messy, but it is necessary even with complex systems. Otherwise, we will be forced to accept failure and stagnation, which is never sustainable. 

Until next time.