Challenge the Status Quo: Change Management

In a race that was considered to be one of the toughest in history, an 80-1 longshot who entered the race the day before it started, "Rich Strike", emerged as champion. The Jockey on Rich Strike's horse said it best when he told trainers after their win: “We never gave up and we didn’t let anything distract us."??

Anything is a possibility with a mindset open to change.? That mindset is also what many companies need right now in this highly competitive, uniquely fluid, hybrid work environment we continue to find ourselves in. It is a time to challenge the status quo or risk relevancy. But how do you challenge the status quo and be successful at orchestrating change?

In 2022, Harvard Business Review published a terrific book on how to think about transformations and change beyond the too often used term “digital transformation.”? In “Beyond Digital” by Paul Leinward and Mahadeva Matt Mani , the authors assess change management experiences across ten different companies in different vertical markets - technology, financial services, healthcare, and others.? Their objective was to learn how these companies made choices about their future, how their leaders came to the insights that informed their choices about the future, how their leadership teams worked, how the leaders got people on board with a new direction, and how they overcame obstacles.

If you are a B2B Sales, Marketing, or Customer Experience leader, and you are trying to get others to change or see your point of view which may differ from the status quo, I’d highly recommend reading this book to help you facilitate the dialogue.?

Beyond providing you an explicit playbook, this book will make you think differently about your business and possibly help get your peers thinking differently as well.? I found the contents particularly relevant in our own experience with our clients who we help shift from a lead based to an Account based reporting and operating environment, or those we help introducing new business process and technology into their companies.

The authors found seven traits consistent with each of those pivots.

1. Reimagine your company's place in the world.

2. Embrace and create value via ecosystems.

3. Build a system of privileged insights with your customers.

4. Make your organization outcome-oriented.

5. Invert the focus of your leadership team.

6. Reinvent the social contract with your people.

7. Disrupt your own leadership approach.

What I found most valuable in this book:

1. Blank slate approach. ?It starts with the premise of reinvention and a clean sheet mentality of approaching the business from a ‘what if’ perspective, not a ‘what is’ perspective.
2. Flexibility. ? Although their examples were primarily big companies, I could see smaller companies needing to make critical change management.
3. It’s current.? It was written post-Covid in a full employment economy so feels very applicable to what we’re experiencing now versus a pre-Covid environment.
4. People are key.? Items 4-7 above deal with the people side of change management which is in my mind the single biggest challenge. ? It gives explicit ‘how to’ instructions which are often missing in dealing with people issues.? In today’s environment, people are everything. ? (My only suggestion to improve this book would have been front loading the people side of the equation in this book ahead of bullets 1-3 as people are the number one challenge of change management.)
5. Ecosystems can help:? In an environment where resources are constrained, leveraging partners in your ecosystem, working on developing trust to share data and insights, enhances how companies can win faster, together. I guarantee this section will get you to think differently about your current vendors and partners, how you can both get more value exchange in that relationship.
6. Customer experience/focus orientation:? as one example, there were explicit examples of healthcare companies focused not on the next feature or functionality but how to contribute to a better outcome for their customers (patients).? This was a consistent theme throughout the book of a customer orientation and focus on the experience across multiple verticals. Though the authors used larger companies, in smaller companies we work with, they too could benefit from this structured approach.

If you are looking for a playbook on how to facilitate change within your company, I’d highly recommend reading this book. It provides concrete examples as well as thought-provoking questions that will make you rethink the way you do business. We’ve begun applying these same concepts with our lead based clients driving toward an account based thought process, and we are excited to continue helping businesses transform their operations. Let us know in the comments below your thoughts if you have read this book or have found other resources helpful in your change management journey.? ?

Obligatory call to action - and if you’re interested in learning more about one of our recent Digital Transformation award success story (our B2B Fusion client was 1 of 5 enterprises recognized for this award - (Snowflake, Shopify, Verizon and Atlassian were the others recognized) or want to hear about peer trends around Account Based measurement and initiatives, feel free to reach out [email protected].

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A few quotes from “Beyond Digital” that resonated the most with me:

“...differentiating capabilities aren’t just things functional leaders invest in.? These capabilities must be at the core of your purpose because they define who you are as a company.? They must deliver the value proposition you are promising to your customers.? And they must be where an ever-increasing amount of your investment goes and where your talent is deployed.”

“Making your ecosystem strategy work isn’t easy.? The level of complexity is admittedly higher.? It’s not enough to worry about your own value realization, you also have to be concerned about how your ecosystem partners are doing.? And you can expose your company to real risks by opening up access for your ecosystem partners to your data, intellectual capital, and talent.? But the risks are effort are worth it, because competition will increasingly be won or lost based on ecosystems.”

“You can’t get away with plucking people out of their functional roles and asking them to work together 10 or 20 percent of their time or for six weeks or six months.? The typical cross-functional teams are no match for the dedication, focus and energy required to bring your value proposition to life.? Instead, you will need to build a more durable outcome-oriented teams that deliver your differentiating capabilities by bringing together what they need from across the organization.”

“You will need to step back and start thinking from a clean sheet:? Do we have the right roles?? Do we have the right people?? Are we focusing on the right things?? Are we driving the transformational change required or spending most of our time responding to the organization’s short term needs?? Are we working together effectively?”

“While these investments can seem daunting at first, when focused and when central to what you do, they can give you massive competitive advantage, not only because they enable you to do something that matters to customers better than anyone else but because they have the potential to propel your company forward in a self-reinforcing, virtuous loop;? the better your differentiating capabilities, the more you win in the market as customers see the unique and relevant value proposition brought to life;? and the more you win in the market, the more scale is brought to reach capability.? That virtuous loop can be made stronger as you expand your products and services to other markets.”

"When formulating our growth strategy, we focused on adopting the customer's viewpoint and leveraging Hitatchi's strengths...we can get closely involved in our customers' operations, and in this way, we can supply a wide range of additional related products."

"Your stated place needs to be relevant to a set of customers or users with the potential to buy your products and services; your place must be unique - if you disappeared, you'd leave a hole in the marketplace."

"Working with ecosystems is also vital for another reason: there really isn't enough time or money to build the scale in capabilities that is required on your own." (OMG I love this passage).