How can you prioritize transformation in your organization?

Be clear of where you want to go. Imagine driving a car with no clear destination. You can't plan the amount of fuel or the route to get there.

In my experience it’s gauging the gap between point a and point b of the transformation and deciding if even smaller steps need to be made in between based on the gap based on what you see — whether this is about skills, resources, motivation, or evan alliances, these smaller steps help increase the likelihood or chance of the transformation to succeed.

Clearly articulate what you want to achieve through transformation. Understand the current situation and identify the areas that need improvement or changes. Set practical and achievable goals. Engaged Key Leaders to take ownership and give support. Adapt and Adopt and constantly monitor the development. Have a Growth Mindset and communicate efficiently with all team members. This will make the task more easier to succeed!

Almost adopt a childlike imagination and never curtail where you can be. Whether it's attaining the size or zeal to compete with a major player in your space, or being the dominant party when executing certain specialities, aspire to be recognised as the best in delivering a defined product, skill set or service. For each part of your offering map out where it is today, and what it must evolve into in the short, mid and long term. Develop ways of documenting where existing features may go in the future, continually innovating to ensure they retain a competitive edge over the course of time. Note, that when you do this you don't only get recognition in your market, but also the consumers that reside in it.

In my experience, creating a decentralized system with partners, program managers, leaders, and shareholders can create a safe place for teams to be able to communicate effectively & collaborate without any resentment. In every project, it is important to set the groundwork & tone to enable such an environment. It can be as simple as: "we are all here to create a winning product, and everyone's contribution will allow us for that to happen." From here you can begin setting commitments, accountabilities, and allow decision-making authority to individuals part of this project team; as long as it aligns with your goal.

What success looks like and how it will be tracked needs to be determined and agreed at the beginning of any transformation project, no matter its scale. Without success measures in place there is no accountability, no obvious ways to ensure things are moving in the right direction and crucially, no way of telling what's working and what isn't. Using 'hard' and 'soft' KPIs are also a way to engage the entire business and ensure success just isn't about delivery. For example, a soft KPI could be tied to how effectively leadership is communicating transformation related updates and motivating the team, whereas a hard KPI could be the successful implementation of a new CRM system and how well its converting prospective clients.

Change is not change if it is not embedded. This is what unfortunately comes last when people think about transformation. Without embedding, the change reverts back to the old ways, and that’s when you realize the transformation was probably based on idea, people and politics — not commitment, which is what truly makes any change successful.

Transformation is hard - we all get tied to our ideas and the things we helped implement or build. Talk to those who often have something snarky or consistently give constructive feedback - they are often seen as naysayers - but they have amazing ideas for transformation. It also helps to have someone who is able to sit slightly outside of the day to day business while still having strong relationships to the reality of what is currently happening to be able to make strong progress on transformation.