Three Faces of Change in Transformation

As we look back on our experience of running an internal innovation competition at Eneo Cameroon for the past 4 years, it has become crystal clear that the transformation of a company must be built on a foundation of grassroots cultural change. Beyond ideas, inventions and new technologies – achieving sustained innovation is only possible through cultural transformation that truly shifts the everyday beliefs and behaviours of a company’s people.

__________________________

At the heart of our internal Eneo Simply Smart Innovation competition design, we encourage employees, who are already shifting the innovation culture around them, to step into the spotlight and show their work. These employees are “change agents” – innately driven to improve processes and solve problems. Change agents have unique qualities and play an essential role in this innovation dynamic. They don’t typically hold a senior management role in the official organizational hierarchy, but they’re willing to take on greater responsibility. They constantly scan their workplace and community horizons, looking to do something differently to make a greater impact. They’re passionate, radiating enthusiasm to those around them. They act as a beacon of light, illuminating the path to transformation and encouraging others to join them.

While we’ve seen great diversity among the people and projects that have been part of the Eneo Simply Smart Innovation (SSI) competition over these past years, we’ve found that 3 profiles of change agent “types” have emerged so far:

1 – Young and Open-Minded

This type of change agent tends to be quite new to the company, comfortable with new technologies, ready to question as much as possible, and keen to explore new fields of work. For example, they may be trained as an engineer, have some work experience in supply chain, but are asked to take on a critical sales role with high-value clients for the first time. Their answer is, “Yes, I’ll do it!” Bringing their fresh perspective and a youthful curiosity to company problems and opportunities, they collaborate with other new employees to research and implement solutions that are completely different from the organization’s traditional (and sometimes outdated) techniques and tools.

2 – Experienced and Seeking Excellence

The second type of change agent profile we’ve seen is that of an Eneo employee who typically has more years of employment with the company, yet they continue to be deeply motivated by the opportunity to deliver operational excellence and continuous improvement. Their years of experience, accumulated expertise, and network of collaborators are called into action when they come across chronic operational problems or inefficient processes that can be solved with know-how, teamwork and leadership. For example, we’ve seen Eneo teams develop ingeniously simple solutions to markedly improve the performance of power plants; some of these teams had members with more than 30 years of experience with our company.

3 – Up to Meet the Challenge

The third change agent profile we’ve identified at Eneo are those people who are called into action by a crisis. They’re a kind of situational transformer who rises to the occasion when things go wrong. They refuse to give in to apparent barriers, seeing them as opportunities to gather a team and devise a solution. For example, when there was a prolonged internet blackout in a region of Cameroon, an Eneo team worked within significant safety, weather and geographic constraints to find a way to hoist a satellite antenna to the top of a mountain. This effort provided the regional agencies with an internet connection to allow for continuity of service to our customers, while at the same time, their solution provided local citizens with a means to reconnect with the world.

Whatever the profile, a change agent is an ambassador for a new way of seeing things, an innovative mindset, a renewed energy, and the will to act – in order to make a positive impact on the company culture, customer satisfaction, and society.

?An Eneo change agent who lead one of the SSI 2018 winning teams with a low-cost / high-impact digital sales solution explained their way of thinking, "It’s essential to solve problems rather than create them; to re-imagine difficulties as challenges to overcome rather than seeing them as obstacles to avoid; to always ask ourselves the question; “Why, why, why?” And together we imagine, “What if we did things differently?” My colleagues and I are particularly passionate about technological solutions and are always exploring new ways of doing things."