Transformation with Purpose

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence-it is to act with yesterday’s logic”      Peter Drucker

 “Change is the only constant”, in today’s dynamic economy, the biggest challenge facing the organization is change, from incremental change to radical transformation,  the most thriving organizations are those most adapt to changes.  However, it’s rocky road to change,  according to statistics from many reputable consulting companies, about 70% of change management effort failed, the root cause may varies, we would like to brainstorm the systematic approach and well-planned scenario to manage the change scientfically (though change maybe more art than science), intent to framework the change-capable organization.

1. Change Purpose:  To explore the purpose for change could help establish a sense of urgency to gain the advocate support. Here are some main drivers to organizational transformation in 21st century:

Overcome Complexity –Complexity may come from M&A, decades of business process redundancy or legacy technology, complexity brings up hidden cost and inefficiency,  it may be the crucial reason to kill operational effectiveness and competency for a long run,  such as legacy airlines, just experienced the “Lost Decade” due to the complexity of business, beyond other factors such as high fuel or climate changes., etc.

Digitization –  Digitalization is the emerging technology trend every organization has to catch the wave on, it’s the disruptive innovation which decides your survival at the digital era, how to enhance your organization's digital footprint, it's a strategic imperative to take the digital transformation 

Globalization – The world has been interconnected, interdependent than ever, developed world and emerging economy have to interactive with each other more closely, globalization 2.0 does not just mean the Western organizations offshore the jobs to the Eastern, it’s more about collaborating with the responsibility, brainstorming the creative idea together, to build up the open, decentralized organization with purpose on innovation & sustainability cross the globe.

Customer-Centricity – lf creating customer is the organization’s main purpose to exist, then to build up the customer-centric culture will make the organization stronger, cohesive and engaged, instead of evaluating operation via inside-out standpoint, customer-centric manifest may help boost business intelligence via outside-in perspective.

Cloud Computing -Cloud transformation can not be treated as IT transformation only, well, there's no IT transformation, only business transformation (another good CIO debate), by embracing Cloud culture and solutions, the organization could experdize the innovation process, to build up the agile,  instant-on cloud enterprise.   

2. Change Strategy:

Change strategy is an emergent strategy via continuous learning.  One size doesn’t fit it all. Though we could try to standardize the change scenario,  every organization has its own operational uniqueness and process characteristic, change strategy including such as setting strategic goals (short term win & long term  objectives) via situational analysis, scenario analysis and impact assessment need be communicated and orchestrated clearly.

3. Change Culture:

Culture is what has been said, or the thought from the world, if we could really change the culture, we could change the world. Don’t let culture eat strategy for breakfast. Change culture is the attitude, encourage the risk-taking, do not punish the failure, to inspire the team collegiality and support.

4. Change Network:

Change communication should be two-way trust: both from top-down such as executive’s elevator change pitch, more importantly through front-line employee’s commitment. Empower change agents, evangelists via the right change incentives, but also need build the organization-wide change network to seek constructive opinion, consistent engagement and continuous improvement.

5. Change Technology

The latest technology such as enterprise 2.0 collaboration/communication tools  provide the powerful change platform, would make the change more streamlined and seamless, better engaged with all necessary parties via extended organizational boundary such as employees, partners, customers.,etc.

Plus, BI, BPM and EA, these modern enterprise technologies are also the valuable tools to manage the invisible change via the scientific process and KPI & metrics.

6. Change Roadmap

Every transformation need roadmap or change management agenda to build up the competency center, sharpen the strategy,  communicate the buy-in, empower the team, and manage the quick win, to realize the long-term result through the iterative approach.

7. Change Metrics

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it, change is no exception, the balanced change scoreboard helps keep track of process and capture the insight via top defined KPIs, measure the quality over quantity to state-of-the-art models, design the change process to execute via metrics and standards, to manage the transformation with tangible discipline.

Change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

-John F. kennedy