Organizational Transformations

Transformation is a much-touted effort that many organizations promise / wish to undertake – so much so, that it has become fashionable for organizations to desire a transformation, sometimes not fully understanding what it entails and how to make it sustainably successful. In this article, based on personal experiences supporting organizations through transformations, we would like to draw attention to what it takes to succeed in such an effort and some of the bottle necks to achieving a successful transformation.

  • Transformation is an effort that brings about marked changes (positively) in the way a business operates / delivers value. Transformation is typically a committed sustained effort - one that requires many elements to change within an organization. Transition is the process or the time when these changes happen – where organizations move from one state to another. In many cases, these are used interchangeably, thereby missing the wood for the trees.
  • Research suggests that over 70% of all transformational efforts have failed – many even before the effort started! The reasons for such failure have mostly been the same (we will talk about it later in the article). Those that have enabled a successful transformation have always focused on a clear articulation of ‘Why’ a transformation is needed, ‘What’ needs to change, ‘How’ will it be visible, ‘Who’ will drive this transformation and finally “What’ will success look like at the end of a successful transformation.
  • Organizational transformation, as the name suggests, oftentimes involve many efforts across various functions and processes. Given this, a successful transformation can span a few months to years, depending on the scale of transformation and size of organization, how purposeful is the transformation, coupled by leadership commitment and its people to enable the transformation. A large-scale transformation is most likely to affect the entire organization and its functions and that may well lead to functional transformations that are required.
  • However, to be successful and sustainable in your transformation efforts, one should understand some of the key reasons why transformational efforts fail. In a recent survey that we did, lack of leadership commitment came out right on top followed by the lack of focus on long term objectives & alignment to strategic objectives / vision of the enterprises.
  • Successful transformation efforts therefore have seen – A well-defined aspirational objective that is aligned to the organization’s strategy / purpose, strong and visible commitment from the leader and leadership teams, willingness to commit specific fulltime resources to the effort and taking a wholistic approach rather than a functional one. Giving the time required for such efforts and not get carried away by just low hanging fruits is another key ingredient for success!
  • Let us now dive a little deeper to understand what some of the success elements are, and how one can potentially leverage them. All of these are based on our experiences of supporting organizations through their transformation journeys.
  • Understanding the Why–This is probably the most important aspect that leaders must ponder and bring clarity around. Connecting the need for the transformation to the alignment of the long-term strategic objectives of the organization and its purpose is critical to ensure that we define the scope and impact of the entire effort and the support needed from the teams.
  • Defining the What – Once you have alignment of the transformational efforts to the purpose and vision, it is most important to be able to clearly articulate what significant changes will the transformation bring about to the overall organization. This articulation with a strong connection to the purpose and vision will enable build ownership, commitment, and engagement across the entire organization.
  • Leadership CommitmentThis is probably the most important aspect for any change, and transformation is no exception. In large transformational efforts, leadership commitment, endorsement and visible support is crucial right through the effort. It cannot stop with endorsement but must go much further in roping in the commitment of the entire leadership team and the people across the organization. The leader sets the passion, tone and communicates effectively right through the organization in helping them understand the importance of this effort not just for the business and its customers, but also to every employee.
  • Defining the scope & impact of the transformation is extremely vital. Transformations need to be aspirational and often, such an effort will cut across the entire organization, it’s functions and processes. Leaders need to remember not to lose sight of the overall scope. Often, organizations fail because they do not address all the functions that need to change. It is very tempting to focus only on the low hanging fruits or have a short-term focus. One should go after the full potential of the transformation to ensure its success.
  • Dedicated team Assign a dedicated full-time team to lead the internal transformation efforts with full representation from leadership, functional experts and employees who could be most affected by these large-scale changes. The team should be fully empowered not just with the answers but also to get things done, and every individual in such a team acts as evangelists for the transformation. It is also important to use external resources / consultants to seek benchmarking, replication of best practices and sometimes even to fill competency gaps that may exist within the organization.
  • Timelines Large scale transformation could typically run over multiple years. Leaders need to be aware of this and should give such efforts the required time and not work with very short (impractical) implementation timelines – Remember that it is easier to work on transformation in one long effort rather than several short ones, disrupting the organization and people all the time. While transformations could be a long journey, there should also be a sense of urgency in accomplishing the agenda. A combination of short-term focus and the pressure to deliver against a tight timeline is probably the most deterring to the success of any transformational effort.
  • Preparing for the change depending on the scope of the transformation, everyone in the organization needs to be prepared and prepped up for the change. While leadership at different levels play a significant role, it is equally important to help teams below embrace this change with visible value addition the change can provide them – setting some quick wins will help this process - active communication is very vital in managing the change process. Additionally, always staying true to purpose, with consistent messaging from the guiding teams helps keep the teams engaged without feeling the fatigue of change.

Driving transformation is no easy task and one should never underestimate the relevance, importance and impact a positive transformation can provide. One needs to also understand the need for change (driver) – is it the industry, is it the market or is it the business performance itself; these determine and define the urgency.

In most of our experiences, either supporting organizations in transformation or in a corporate setting, leadership failure in setting the vision or the managerial failure in ensuring building engaged teams, failure to communicate progress and impact have been the biggest reasons for a failed effort. If these happen on a regular basis within organizations, transformation and change just become buzz words and seen only as a ‘flavor of the month’ exercise – and this is the biggest reason for ‘change fatigue’ and disengagement.

However, in some circumstances where change is forced on us (the recent experiences with Covid and the need to work remotely over a single weekend), we all adapt and respond to these appropriately. This said, it has been a long journey that organizations have gone through to modify the way they work, where they work from, the processes that support the teams to work successfully in a remote setting. Today, with the emergence of Hybrid work models (that is here to stay), organizations are still coping with many aspects that need to change (including mindsets) in ensuring attraction, retention, and engagement of talent.

Good luck with your transformation journeys!