6 Steps to Transformation Success

COVID has unleashed the need for companies to change. The pandemic has engaged the warp drive. We have experienced ten years of change in ten months.

More than ever, companies are looking to transform. They seek to survive and thrive amidst this global economic downturn. For some, digitalization is the answer: moving their offerings online. Others are looking to shake off an old business model and embrace a new future.

Big change strives to reset, reshape, and reinvent who you are, what you do, and how you do it. Transformation means more than shuffling the organization chart. Deep change create whole new value streams.

Here are six steps to help you lead and manage transformative change.

1. Purpose: be clear about where you are heading and why? Vague goals meander without achieving results. A to B is a simple direction to explain and easy to adjust if we track toward C. The destination does not have to be a monumental leap, but it has to be a better place than remaining still.

A clear purpose is more than a roadmap or GPS. Leaders must know why we are undertaking a big change. Not as a precise destination but direction. It can be a reaction to unforeseen events, such as COVID or shifts in the marketplace, but its purpose must be to regain the initiative amidst the storm, right the ship, and set it on a new course.

Having a clear purpose helps you communicate more than the direction, but its intent and impact. Not just financial results but the real, tangible difference it will make in people’s lives. The effect of your change fuels motivation.

When we reach the messy middle -the reason why- will sustain people when fatigue and momentum slacken. Marathons are lost or won in the middle of the course when the pain is highest, the finish line obscure. Words mean most in the middle. When confusion, doubt, and uncertainty abound. Inspire with the purpose to give meaning to the struggle.

2. Priority: be clear about your priorities. A sharp strategy is a spearpoint more likely to hit its target. Know the handful of things you must do in the next year, the couple of crucial achievements you should do, and one goal — your vision — you would like to accomplish.

Guard your strategic clarity against the temptation to appease and dilute. When rumors build that a new “strategic plan” is brewing, pet projects come out of the woodwork. In large organizations, all too often, the result can be the strategy becomes a bandwagon where every department seeks to justify itself. Everyone wants to be part of the new direction, so they push to huddle under the strategy’s umbrella. After all, no one wants to be left out in the rain.

The result can be strategy dilution where clear direction mutates into a consensus. The danger is that the delta of change is lost. Transformation is a big change; it about doing something new, different, and disruptive. It is about letting go of the past, reducing or stopping doing entire activities. It means shedding parts of your organization, developing new capabilities.

3. Partners: strategy is a locomotive. The powerhouse of the change. However, it is dead on the tracks without others’ collaboration and motivation. Collaboration creates momentum.

The step is to know what carriages, filled with different competencies and capabilities, and you need for the transformational journey? Operations, human resources, digital, finance, marketing, sales, and customer support, to name a few, all can have a role. As the conductor, think about the sequencing and how each carriage needs to be coupled together. Know their strengths, limitations, level of commitment, and their power to derail the train. Understand the source of their resistance to change — fear of loss of certainty, status or risk thresholds.

Build a deliberate influence strategy tailored to those partners you need onboard. Remember, it is not about punching the ticket once but making sure they are working with you to remove blocks on the line and share the recognition once we have reached our destination.

4. People: ultimately, all change is a people process. Your staff, leaders, partners, stakeholders, and customers or clients are people first. They have to see the difference you are trying to make. Changes that are hated grafted new responsibilities onto already overworked people for some unknown purpose.

Be clear about how your transformation will shape people’s lives for the better. Giving us more time to do the work they love by slashing unnecessary reporting that clogs up the working week. By providing opportunities for a greater sense of autonomy and ownership to demonstrate the leadership, we all have: humble or huge. Lastly, know and articulate how the “big change” will help, support, and change customer’s or client’s reality. The magic behind the curtain can sound impressive but tangible change, making dreams come true, inspires us to give our best in a large undertaking.

5. Process: what makes a clock tick is the intricate mix of cogs, springs, and wheels. One part out of place and the whole mechanism grinds to a holt.

Big transformations are no different. Process lies behind every significant change. It might not be as flashy as glossy strategy decks, but real change starts with understanding and re-engineering how people do their work. To paraphrase General Omar Bradley’s words, an architect of victory over Germany, amateurs talk strategy while professionals talk process.

High-level strategy cannot be an excuse to fail to grasp that processes must evolve, be refined, and adapt to see any tangible change. Whether governance — how decisions are made -, physical products or services, changes in the necklace of activities create a different result. Become an expert or seek out the process experts in your organization. Know their world, listen, and understand how to make it better.

Knowing how your organization translates your people’s talents and resources into items, services, and experiences of value determines your strategy’s success. Quality is not a fluke occurrence but the consistent application of a high standard to a stable process. Whether you make wedding dresses, electric cars or run a post-secondary institution, quality and success are the sum of all of your processes woven together. Toyota, Tesla, Walmart, GE, UPS, Fed Ex, and Amazon are dominant because they know process excellence is the bedrock of greatness.

6. Persuasion: ideas need to influence to make change stick. As a transformation leader, your efforts and success hinge on your ability to influence, navigate, and build coalitions.

Elaborate plans count for little without the ability to sway decisions, build trust, and articulate the benefits in simple words clearly. Jargon is the enemy of understanding, designed to exclude and to demonstrate superiority.

Strike a different tone to canned, corporate stock phrases. Most presentations contribute to snow blindness in a blizzard. They are forgettable and forgotten. Tell stories about how your big change will change lives, remove barriers, and unlock immense value.

Ask those listening to be part of the movement, not passengers. Find roles in which people throughout the organization can contribute, co-create, and implement changes in the spirit of the direction you are headed. Provide cover to faults, false starts, and failing on the journey. Know from the start, all transformation is a learning process, amplified through empowerment, trial, and error.

Finally, big change continues after you are gone. Plant lots of seeds, give others credit and recognition for their growth, and always strive to make things a little better.

About the Author

Simon Trevarthen is the Founder and Chief Inspiration Officer of Elevate Your Greatness (EYG). EYG helps individuals, teams, and organizations unpack the secrets of success by becoming even better versions of themselves through dynamic keynotes, seminars, and workshops on innovation, inspiration, and resilience.