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Center for Effective Organizations

Working Paper

Building a Change Capability at Capital One Financial

Chris G. Worley, Edward E. Lawler, May 2008

This article describes the development of an enterprise-wide change capability at Capital One Financial. Despite the rhetoric that organizations need to be more flexible and adaptable to meet the demands of change, globalization, competition, and innovation, few organizations have been able to implement the organization designs necessary to support flexibility or the orchestration capabilities to ensure that change can be routine. Capital One has met both of those criteria and we describe their journey toward adaptability. For organizations seeking to develop a change capability, the Capital One case yields three practical learnings. First, organizations must consciously decide to increase the amount of change-related skills and knowledge in the organization. Second, they must implement supporting organizational systems and structures, and third, they must engage in and learn from change. Only by embracing change as a normal part of organizational functioning can they build the social capital necessary to make change a competitive advantage.

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