Not every organization that does not constantly change is backward. Permanent change without consolidation is not progress. It is exhaustion foretold.
A small site, maybe three percent of the size of its group parent, received the parent’s SAP template, including customizing and roles. The productive landscape was new, only the sandbox a copy. A simple question stood in the room: do we take over the existing roles, or build our own? The first reflex of such a small organization was that a takeover would be far too complex.
My counter-argument was the reverse. Roles, custom tools and customizing are tuned to each other. Whoever rebuilds the roles now forgoes established tools and processes that could otherwise simply be carried along. In the early phase of a greenfield project that is a burden better spent on more critical topics. The client followed and implemented its own authorization concept only much later. In exactly the right order: first assess what the change really brings, then weigh whether it is worth it at this point in time.
„We do nothing at all right now“
A CEO with whom I still have loose contact after a long time is being pushed by his business units to switch to the new system generation at all costs, or the maker will turn off the tap. His answer pleased me: we do nothing at all right now. We run out of maintenance, fine. Consultants are expensive and scarce, a rushed job does not get better for starting earlier. AI is on the rise. If we look at the market in two or three years, such migrations will be considerably easier, because customers and partners will build tools for it. That is not convenience. That is a bet on the better moment, and it is well founded.
Recognizing change fatigue
You recognize it by the fact that too much is launched at once. You can convince and even inspire an organization to walk new paths, but not in twelve topics at the same time. It is leadership’s job to choose consciously here, and thereby also to deselect. The counter-consensus is uncomfortable: where change serves only itself, it is an attempt to show competence by swimming at the front for no benefit.
Before you launch the next change program, answer the one question that counts: why, now, this change? If the answer comes out thin, holding still is the more mature decision.