Even just changing simple behaviors across a large company can be impossible. I worked at a company with several thousand employees all required to attend mandatory training on "effective meetings", several hours long spread out across thousands of employees. Rule 1 was to have an agenda for the meeting. This was something nobody did at this company and you would regularly attend meetings unprepared.
After all that training, still nobody did it (ok I did and one other guy). That company couldn't change anything. It was amazing.
They had a project to change a department into more proactive than reactive. The solution was to create a lot of bureaucracy surrounding being proactive. As you can imagine bureaucracy about being proactive was really just institutionalizing ... not being proactive.
I eventually left and work at a smaller company now. It's been refreshing for years now when we can decide "this process doesn't work, let's not do it anymore" and it just happens. Even just new coworker: "I won't be in tomorrow, who do I tell?", me: "you just did, have a great time off" seems revolutionary after being at a big company for so long.
I'm convinced that as the sheer numbers of humans increases the friction to making real change in a company decreases and there's not much you can do. Fundamental change to respond to real disruption, nigh impossible.
After all that training, still nobody did it (ok I did and one other guy). That company couldn't change anything. It was amazing.
They had a project to change a department into more proactive than reactive. The solution was to create a lot of bureaucracy surrounding being proactive. As you can imagine bureaucracy about being proactive was really just institutionalizing ... not being proactive.
I eventually left and work at a smaller company now. It's been refreshing for years now when we can decide "this process doesn't work, let's not do it anymore" and it just happens. Even just new coworker: "I won't be in tomorrow, who do I tell?", me: "you just did, have a great time off" seems revolutionary after being at a big company for so long.
I'm convinced that as the sheer numbers of humans increases the friction to making real change in a company decreases and there's not much you can do. Fundamental change to respond to real disruption, nigh impossible.