We're having an ongoing conversation about how we can 'transform' the organisation. We're pretty much agreed that things have to change. But there is some disagreement on whether there is the 'burning platform' or whether we even need one of these in order to 'transform'.
I think a 'burning platform' is a competitor for Lucy Kellaway's guffipedia (in fact, I just suggested it) and go along with Chip Heath's view that:'That is one of the silliest pieces of business jargon. The idea of the burning platform is that people only change when they're scared. But fear, as an emotion, creates tunnel vision'.
Failing being able to see the burning platform our other tack is to keep asking each other 'what problem are we trying to solve here?' This is almost as pointless as searching for the burning platform, especially when things aren't 'wrong', but are in, my brother's phrase, 'bumping along'.
If there are no burning platforms, and we can't adequately answer 'what problem are we trying to solve?' Are we fine as we are?