How do you have to define change for it not to be manageable?

Question

How do you have to define change for it not to be manageable?

Answer

For a firm to be successful it must ensure that it retains relevant to markets, and to do this it must recognise the importance of change and respond when change affects it. Two approaches to change management contest whether change should be dealt with through long term planning or through agile reactions to emerging requirements. However, for change to be completely unmanageable it would need to be defined such that there is no feasible way to adjust to it. If change within an industry or market were defined as being completely random and ever-present, then reacting to match the change would be a futile task. This definition can be seen reflected in the random walk theory commonly applied to stock markets – which says that prices change so unpredictably that no system can ‘beat’ the market. Another definition might draw upon the perception of change as a weakness to effectively managing it. From an ontological perspective, if reality is considered a conjoining of objective facts and individual perception, then individual views will result in different ideas of the reality of a situation. Thus, any change in the situation could be seen in different ways by different individuals, or some may perceive no change at all. Differing views on this will make coordinating the management of change, both within and outside of the business, a difficult task. With these perceptions being so fundamental to a person’s view, reaching a consensus could be considered unfeasible. In some cases the extent of change could make it unmanageable - if the change is great enough that adjusting to it could be unachievable. As the scope of external changes cannot be controlled then such changes are always potentially unmanageable.

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