What Do We Mean by Transformation?
Transformation is one of those buzzwords that feels hard to avoid these days. Every company claims to be “doing transformation,” but the term is so vague and open-ended that there’s not a lot of consistency from one organisation to the next.
My goal with this post is to dig a little deeper into this idea of transformation. What are some of the common ways people are mis-using this term, and how do I think we should be using it instead? What do I mean when I say I can coach your company through transformation?
First, let’s start with a simple definition: Transformation means changing an organisation for the better so it’s able to achieve its strategic goals.
With that definition in mind, we can start to identify a few anti-patterns or things that transformation is not. For example:
Copying someone else’s model. Many leaders believe that they can take a shortcut to transformation by copying a model that has made someone else successful. I’ll often hear things like, “We just want to do what Spotify’s doing” or “What’s the one book I need to read that will tell me what to do?” The problem with the copy and paste approach is that it completely ignores your own company context. Successful transformation starts with understanding where you are today so you know where you’d like to be in the future.
Adopting new technology or systems. This approach also oversimplifies the problem by hyper-focusing on a particular technology or team. When leaders fall prey to this anti-pattern, they believe it’s as simple as “becoming Agile” or asking the engineers to work in a certain way. The truth is that there’s more to being a software company than the platforms or processes you use to create software. We’re living in a fast-paced, complex world and we need to empower our people to keep up with the pace of change. Your approach needs to be more sophisticated than just adopting the latest technology.
Over-indexing on speed. One of the most common things I hear from leaders is “How do we make our teams go faster?” Let’s go back to my definition for a moment. Transformation is about changing an organisation for the better so it’s achieving its strategic goals. Focusing on speed alone completely disregards the strategic part of the equation. There’s no point in going faster if you haven’t given any thought to what you’re trying to achieve and whether your current work will help you get there.
Now that I’ve talked about what doesn’t work and what I don’t mean by the term “transformation,” let’s look at some successful strategies that I can help you put in place.
Focusing on continuous improvement. It can be very effective to take a small, grassroots approach to change. When individuals and teams feel empowered to always be learning, they can quickly respond to change rather than fearing failure. Instead of waiting for complex bureaucracy and governance, they can initiate transformation in a small, experimental, iterative, and ongoing manner.
Redesigning the operating model. As I mentioned earlier, context is critical. The key ingredient to a successful transformation is a clear and honest understanding of how your organisation works (or doesn’t) right now. Taking a systems view of the organisation helps clarify what’s stopping you from achieving your desired future state and mission. Are your people able to make decisions and take action, or is there a person or process that’s preventing that from happening?
Learning to manage uncertainty: We’ve all learned over the past year how quickly the world can transform and we’ve had to cope with more uncertainty than most of us are comfortable with. But rather than pretending that everything will “return to normal,” we can help our employees manage uncertainty. Quick learning loops and iteration will help your people find suitable solutions to today’s and tomorrow’s complex problems. A user-centred design process can help identify the most valuable problem spaces and how to best solve for this need.
Focusing on outcomes over output. Teams are often held accountable for outputs and timelines. We take comfort in the “certainty” of roadmaps and detailed plans, even if that means we’re not focusing our efforts on the most meaningful activities. It’s much harder—but ultimately more valuable—to set goals and motivate our teams around outcomes.
To sum up, transformation comes in all shapes and sizes. That’s why the “copy and paste” approach doesn’t work—it needs to be tailored to your specific context. Remember that you can start small, iterate, and create a system that is optimised for learning and improving.
Transformation comes in all shapes and sizes. That’s why the “copy and paste” approach doesn’t work
If you’d like to learn more about how we might work together on the transformation of your organisation, you can schedule a 30-minute introductory call with me.
