AUGUST 2021HR TECH OUTLOOK8Matthias Schramm, Head of Culture, Change and Org Development, HR Innovation, BayerByA New NarrativeFor the past ten years, I have been working on major transformation projects where change management and organizational development are critical enablers of transformation. Over the years, change management itself has also been evolving. Today, we use a variety of change approaches depending on the identified change impact and change need. These approaches often work towards a new strategic vision, a new operating model, a new mindset, etc.; they all seek to transform the organization and the individual `towards` an objective. A successful change approach requires the creation of a convincing, authentic, and honest `key narrative` of the desired future state. I argue that it is time to let go of the future state narrative and replace it with a new, purpose-driven one.I am currently working on our company's Digital Transformation, enhancing the customer experience, automating processes and production, and developing new business models. What is clear about digitalization is that people in our organization will be even more important. At the same time, they will face an extraordinary and totally new challenge. Instead of changing from an existing order into a new one, they must be able to adapt to continuously changing demands caused by the major change cycles of technology, systems, and organization structures. In fact, these cycles could become as short as 4-5 years. Therefore, creating a solid change narrative for the future will quickly become irrelevant because the change cycle will overlap. The narratives would need to be adapted or completely changed, leading to a loss of trust in the change itself and ultimately to change fatigue ­ or what I call "the next project will fix it"-plea. The challenge of a constant change environment is keeping employees and leaders alike engaged while also providing the psychological safety to
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