Last Friday I had the pleasure of being invited along to deliver a Masterclass presentation as part of the WYNnovation Festival held by my own local council, the City of Wyndham.

It was a great opportunity to test out some of the recent research work I’ve undertaken into the attributes of transformative leaders and the need for business leaders to acquire new skills to navigate successfully through the current decade, backed by the core messages of the Managing for Change book that I co-authored with Peter Frtiz AO a few years ago.

It’s a simple message really – that in any period of change, there are winners and losers. In almost all instances the winners are those organisations that either drive the change (at great risk) or respond the fastest. Those organisations that wait until they are standing on a proverbial burning platform inevitably find themselves with unpalatable choices.

A simple message – but one that is increbily difficult to put into practice. As human beings we seem naturally predisposed to resist change – even when we know that failing to change will be to our professional (or even personal) detriment.

Over the new few weeks I’m planning on posting up a number of the insights and conclusions that I’ve been able to draw from my work over the last few years. Having already lived through one sector’s downturn (print publishing) and seen the ramifiactions first hand, I’m determined to do what I can to ensure that all businesses owners have a greater understanding of the changes that are happening around then, and hence a greater opportunity to benefit through their response.

Change is inevitable, and unless we are the rare creatures who create change, then we are destined to play the role of respondent. But how well we play that role, and the benefits that flow from doing so, is entirely up to us.