Breaking the Cycle: Leading Organizations That Thrive Amid Constant Change with Allan Rennebo Jepsen (a PNSQC Live BLog)

Well, that was fast! We have reached the end of the conference with our final keynote. There has been a lot to absorb and learn over the past few days, and I've enjoyed my time here. With that, here's the closing talk for PNSQC 2025.

Allan Rennebo Jepsen is a leadership expert and author based in Copenhagen, Denmark, who has spent over two decades helping organizations adapt to change rather than fighting it. Allan opened up with an example of an online banking initiative that went horribly wrong, where everything that could go wrong did, to the point where the CEO at a corporate meeting said that a large majority of customers of the bank would not be around a year from now. Meaning their business model was cratering and they risked going out of business. Change is needed, but how in the world are they going to do it? Large banks are optimized for compliance, and because of that, they are literally designed to preserve the status quo. 

PNSQChronicles: Leading Organizations That Thrive Amid Constant Change with Allan Rennebo Jepsen

So what ends up happening? “We are trapped in a loop of meetings, updates, and alignment sessions, with initiatives and plans made, but somehow, progress keeps slipping away.” 

This ongoing “cycle of coordination” eats up energy and time while creating an illusion of progress. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to break the cycle and replace it with focused, adaptive, and empowered teams with goals and efforts that can actually move the organization forward?

As Allen points out, the one true constant is change, and change is not slowing down. New technologies, shifting customer expectations, and global competition mean that businesses must evolve faster than ever before. “Success today requires a new paradigm, one that values bold leadership over small tweaks.”

Many organizations instead fall into reactive patterns and mindsets. They organize based on what the business thinks is important, rather than looking at what the actual customers need. Every new change triggers a cascade of alignment meetings, but before that alignment solidifies, another change hits. The result is paralysis through coordination.

What will it take to break out of this vicious cycle? Genuine adaptability, that's what. Organizations that show that they can learn, adjust, and act decisively in uncertain conditions are the ones that will ultimately thrive.

What do we need to do to actually make change happen?

Strategic Prioritization

We need to focus our energy where it matters most. Not every initiative deserves attention. Leaders need to be ruthless in prioritizing efforts that drive real impact and cut through the noise of constant change.

Winning Together

Too many departments chase local wins at the expense of the organization’s overall success. Instead, focus on organizational collaboration and allow for genuine long-term thinking. Optimizing one team while degrading the system as a whole is counterproductive.

Thriving Amid Change

When teams are empowered to make decisions and take action without waiting for endless approvals, they can develop true adaptability. With those experiences, the team can get better and address challenges related to change. Success likelihood grows when teams have both the authority and the accountability to act quickly. Resilience and adaptability are learned competencies, not traits reserved for a few innovative companies. If you want to be resilient and adaptive, you need to practice and work towards being resilient and adaptive.

Allan encourages creating a “low-risk, high-impact” framework for building organizations that are genuinely adaptable. Continuous learning loops, clear ownership, and a culture of shared goals help with and reinforce the opportunities to effectively adapt to change.

As Allen points out, “These organizations didn’t get there by accident. They created the conditions where adaptability could flourish.”

Artificial intelligence, decentralized decision-making, and global competition are reshaping how organizations operate. Instead of fearing disruption, leaders should view it as a constant condition to master. Focus on adaptability as the ultimate organizational competency.

“You can’t predict the next disruption, but you can prepare your organization to handle whatever comes next.”

Key Takeaways

- Prioritize what truly matters. Avoid being spread thin across too many initiatives.

- Empower your teams. Give them the clarity and authority to act.

- Collaborate across silos. Success comes from shared goals, not isolated wins.

- Embrace continuous learning. Every challenge is a chance to adapt and improve.

If there's any one message or idea to bring home today, it is that change doesn’t have to be chaotic. Leaders who build adaptable, empowered teams will be the ones who turn constant change into a competitive advantage.

Want to know more? Allan’s book “Impactful Organizations – And How to Become One!" expands on many of the ideas shared today. 

Being a Change Agent with April K Mills (Welcome to PNSQC Live Blog Stream)

Hello all, and welcome to PNSQC, coming at you from Portland State University Place Hotel and Conference Center. Some of you may be hearing concerning things coming from Portland and having been here for two days now in real time, it is absolutely quiet and normal here (though I must confess that the media I have seen of protests with people in frog and chicken suits, I love how absolutely unserious Portland is. We literally started the conference with "The Beat Goes On" marching band (I will upload and link media when I get the chance).

Everyone is a Change Agent

Our first talk/keynote today is coming from April K. Mills, and her talk is "Everyone is a Change Agent". I had a chance to discuss this wth April in our PNSQChronicles vidcast (will link here later), but the key point here is that change agents don't have to be high-power, in-charge people. Every one of us has the capability, and I'd argue the responsibility, to be the change agents our organizations need. To borrow from an idea I agree with a great deal, "everyone needs to stand for something, even if doing so means we have to stand alone".

One of the ideas that April is recommending we start right now to do and be a change agent is to stand against and fight the spread of "AI Slop." How many of us have found ourselves literally struggling with and drowning in AI-generated content in our organizations that seems to say a bunch but doesn't really mean anything? I have run into this a fair bit in social media, but it is absolutely creeping into publications and corporate marketing missives. I saw a person online coin a phrase I have now started using: "AI;DR".

Note: I use this when I am seeing obvious AI output that has been generated, reads as completely soulless, and you can see that much of it is not factual or is genuinely wrong in various areas. In these cases, I do believe that announcing "AI;DR" is an excellent response.

YouTube: PNSQChronicles episode with April K. Mills

One of the things I have always appreciated (and I'm quoting Matt Heusser is the wording here) when I come to conferences like PNSQC is that I am not looking to upend the entire world with everything I learned. First of all, it's not practical, and second, systems are developed over time, and there may well be entrenched interests to overcome. Thus, it's not practical to come back from a conference with everything under the sun to overturn everything we do. Instead, we need to find a few areas that we can implement and do so without needing permission to do those things. All of us can do that. We find a way to add a new approach, process, or method based on what we learned, and then, in a few weeks or months, when people are curious as to how we have made key improvements, we can then say/demonstrate what we have been doing. There may be varying barriers to exactly how much we can do in certain areas, but we can all do something in a different way. 

When we can implement an under-the-radar change, it's often a good idea to try it out quietly and see if the change is worth pursuing. Often, we can determine pretty quickly if our brilliant idea may not be so brilliant (or at least we discover the key contexts that help explain why we haven't tried doing this before). Make no mistake, that in and of itself is often a valuable exercise. 

Sometimes the best question we can ask is "Why?" There is an idea called the "Power Paradox" that comes from the idea that people can only do so much because they don't have the power to make changes. We hear that in politics and senior management all the time. If only we could get the people at the top to agree with us and make the changes necessary. Truth be told, we don't always need to do that, and sometimes, the best way to break down that false assumption of power is to ask why we do something (strategically, don't become the kid in the back seat asking, "Are we there yet?" every five minutes). By asking "Why?" at strategic times, we may not sway the people at the top, but we may get more of us at lower levels to also ask why, and if more of us start asking why, that often triggers those higher up to realize that this is an issue that is not serving the people it intends to. Sometimes it takes more than just asking why, but strategic action often starts from just that question.

Key Takeaway: Being a change agent doesn't have to be a major initiative, and we don't have to reinvent the wheel to be a change agent. We don't need to have the right boss, with the right budget, with the right revenue, at the right time to make changes. Often, we can make changes just by trying to do some different things, and often, we can do them without having to ask permission to do so. Start there first and work your way up :).