How institutions change

As an American, I have no position regarding the British Royal Family. We signed a paper in 1776 that settled this. But I’ve learned enough about English history to know this isn’t the first tiff within the Royal Family or the worst. Just be glad Prince Harry wrote a book and did a bunch of interviews, and he’s not strapping on armor and amassing an army to storm Buckingham Palace.

I’m interested in this royal drama because it shows us in real time an institution facing change and how it deals with it. Although the Windsors are a family, albeit one in desperate need of therapy (more on this later), they are an institution. Not only are they the foundation of the British government and the head of the Church of England, but they also set the tone for their entire society. The best of monarchs get entire time periods named after them, such as the Elizabethan Era and Victorian Age. And since England has tremendous influence, even in countries they didn’t colonize, the British Monarchy can set the values and cultural beliefs for the entire world.

In every organization, there is a conflict between tradition and change. “We’ve always done it this way” versus “Times are changing, and we must change with them.” If organizations lean too much towards tradition, they become moribund and unable to adapt. Plenty of companies have gone out of business because they refused to respond to a…