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Beth Comstock, GE’s first woman Vice Chair, shares her own transformation story at GE and her hard-won lessons in shifting GE toward a new digital future and a more innovative culture. For all those looking to spearhead change in their companies and careers, and reinvent “the way things are done,” Imagine It Forward masterfully points the way.

The Five Challenges of Imagining It Forward

Comstock’s success in transforming GE from an institution steeped in historical success to an organization capable of embracing a digital future and a more innovative culture did not happen overnight. By her own admission, there were some early victories and some projects that took years to play out.

Looking back over those hard-won lessons, the author summarizes her journey to change-readiness in terms of the five biggest obstacles she had to learn to overcome:
1. Self-Permission: Change begins with you. Comstock is remarkably frank in outlining her own transformation from an introverted media publicist to GE’s first woman vice chair.
2. Discovery: Embracing inquiry and curiosity. The author argues that this is the step “that makes all of the other steps possible.” Once that leap of faith is made, the journey becomes a voyage of discovery and learning rather than a slow decline in market share.
3. Agitated Inquiry: Facing the tension head on. Challenging the status quo will inevitably increase tension as accepted practices are questioned. Confrontation can be minimized with civil discourse, but “innovation is the result of seeking out tension, not avoiding it.”
4. Storycraft: You must develop a powerful narrative to help the organization understand the new world. If fear of the unknown is the biggest challenge, then a detailed picture of the newly transformed organization will provide some reassurance for those struggling to manage that fear.
5. Creating a New Operating System: Develop emergent leaders who will embrace and inspire the vision. Changing an organizational mindset is just like creating a new operating system. Finding change agents who will spread the new ideas from the “bottom-up and outside-in” will be critical to your success.

Comstock’s key message here is that successful change does not come with an easy-to-follow checklist. Nor does it matter how creative or insightful your ideas are. If you cannot give yourself permission to change and embrace the fear of letting go of the status quo, you will never achieve the transformation into a “change-ready” organization.

Imagine It Forward offers straight talk supported by case studies and some hard-earned personal lessons from an experienced business leader.