Openness to change - the power of adaptability

In 1975, an engineer named Steven Sasson invented the first digital camera.
It was a toaster-sized device that used a sensor to capture images and stored them on a cassette, similar to a Walkman. If you can imagine a front end somewhere between a cassette player and a slide projector, that's roughly what it looked like.
Sasson knew he had created something revolutionary. But the management of the company he worked for was skeptical. “It’s a nice idea, but who would want to look at a photo on a screen?” they said, putting the project in a drawer to continue focusing on film. Kodak dominated the market and did not want to risk cannibalizing its core business.
The rest is history. Today, digital photography is everywhere and Kodak, once synonymous with photography, has missed the innovation train. Because change waits for no one.

The Kodak affair is just one of many examples that demonstrate how change can be perceived as a threat, even in the most structured organizations. But why does it happen? Why, even when faced with clear signals and obvious opportunities, do individuals and companies prefer to remain anchored to the past? Ok, enough questions. Now some answers.

The first, at least in part, is in our brain. Neuroscientists have shown that change activates the amygdala, the “fear and stress department” inside our head. That’s where the little voice that whispers to us comes from: “You’ve always done it this way, why would you do it? Suppose you make a mistake.” It happens because every transformation, even the smallest, is interpreted as a potential risk to our stability. If this brain area were a room, the following would be written in clear letters on the door: “He who leaves the old road for the new, knows what he leaves behind but does not know what he will find…”.

According to research published in Nature Neuroscience, our gray friend likes predictability. Familiar situations require less cognitive energy and are perceived as safer.. When a company or an individual is faced with a turning point, the console in the control room lights up like a Christmas tree and the brain barricades itself behind automatic barriers, laser beams and other defense mechanisms to maintain the status quo.

But we are not meant to be hostages to these primitive impulses. Neuroplasticity, or the brain’s ability to reorganize itself in response to new experiences, shows that we can train ourselves to become more adaptable. The more we are exposed to changes, the more we learn to manage them with less stress.. Or rather, we are predisposed to change. After all, without adaptability, how could we have survived through the climatic and environmental transformations of our evolutionary history? But turning off the new road instead of staying on the comfortable, old, familiar highway is a question of mentality.

According to Carol Dweck, psychologist and author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, there are those who have a static mindset (fixed mindset) and those who have a growth mindset (growth mindset). The former tend to consider their abilities as immutable and fear failure, which is why they avoid change. Their fearless cousins, on the other hand, see change as an opportunity for learning and development. Transposing the concept into business, Companies with a growth mindset culture are innovative, resilient and ready to face market transformations. They not only survive but thrive.

Of course, it is never the individual who determines the fate of an organization, but the way in which it cultivates change, placing it at the forefront of its cultural paradigm and transforming it into opportunities. Here is a fact that speaks for itself: a study conducted by McKinsey & Company revealed that Companies with a culture open to change are 2.5 times more likely to succeed in digital transformation than those with a fixed mindset. Why? Because they are able to experiment, iterate, and adapt before it’s too late.

And if this still seems a bit abstract to you, here are a couple of concrete cases. Take Microsoft. In 2014, the company was still anchored to its historical products (Windows and Office). But the axis of the IT planet was inexorably tilting in the direction of cloud computing. So it began to swim vigorously by exploiting the currents of the market, quickly transforming itself into a cloud-first company. Today, Azure, its cloud platform, generates more than 50% of corporate profits and gives Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud a run for their money.

In the sea of tech companies, there are also those who have chosen to act like salmon, paying the price. Until 2007, Nokia dominated the mobile phone market, with a global share greater than 40%. Then Android arrived, an open and scalable ecosystem. Google proposed that Nokia adopt its operating system but the company's top management refused. It almost seems like we can hear what could have been the famous last words: "We've always done it this way". The result? In a few years, Nokia almost disappeared from that market. To stay afloat and then return to being a leader, they still had to dive into other oceans, implementing a transformation.

Openness to change is not a stand-alone skill, but part of a broader ecosystem of interconnected skills. Obviously, you know that, in companies, change is a bit like when a warning light with an ambiguous meaning suddenly comes on in your dashboard and the mechanic makes hypothesis after hypothesis, increasing your sense of confusion and making you consider switching to electric. It rarely arrives in a predictable and linear way and often manifests itself in the form of uncertainties, critical issues to be resolved and new opportunities to be seized on the fly. For this reason, to be truly effective, openness to change must walk side by side with other fundamental, complementary soft skills.

Critical thinking helps you clearly evaluate available options, distinguishing real risks from unfounded resistance. Problem-solving allows you to translate uncertainty into concrete solutions, transforming obstacles into growth opportunities. Leadership, on the other hand, plays a key role in guiding teams and organizations through transitions, creating an environment in which change is not perceived as a threat but as an opportunity. Finally, stress management and cognitive flexibility allow you to adapt quickly without losing sight of objectives and strategies. In this mosaic of skills, openness to change is the central piece: without it, the risk is to remain immobile as the world moves forward.”

Dealing with change is not just a matter of competence, but also of mindset. The mindset can be acquired, consolidated. For this reason Gamification is an increasingly popular approach in the corporate world to train mental flexibility and adaptability. Thanks to digital HR tools like those designed by Artémat, company team members can experience transformational situations and train to manage uncertainty.

The immersive experiences offered by our tools, for example, present participants with challenges that require them to abandon habitual patterns, think outside the box, and collaborate to find innovative solutions. In this sense, gaming becomes a safe but realistic “testing field,” where it is possible to make mistakes without negative consequences and to learn from them.

Furthermore, Gamification helps trigger an immediate gratification mechanism, which stimulates engagement and reduces natural resistance to change. With its power to transform a potentially stressful process into a motivating experience, this methodology has proven to be an excellent catalyst for the adoption of new strategies and the management of transitions.

The Kodak story we started with teaches us that openness to change is not an option but a strategic necessity. Especially in the times we are living in, characterized by the enormous transformations introduced by the democratization of artificial intelligence. Reinventing and adapting is not only possible, but can become a springboard to new successes. As the other two stories we have told demonstrate.

Investing in openness to change means building a corporate culture that values curiosity, innovation, and the courage to face the unknown. It also means using tools and adopting approaches that foster and enhance this mindset.

Ultimately, it’s not just about surviving, it’s about thriving. Companies that embrace change not only resist market transformations, but become protagonists, guiding them according to their own vision. Because, as we’ve seen, change waits for no one: it’s better to be the first to focus on the future than to be immortalized with your eyes closed in a faded photo of the past.