Is transformation illegal?

Why Transformation fails or seems to take forever?

Spoiler, let's not sing the "blame the people" song, but look a bit closer, WHY transformation does not flourish as some might hope for.

Digital Transformation, VUCA, Circular Economy... are not about continuous improvements - which we are mastering very well in hierarchical organizations... little steps getting better every day, not taking too much risk while focusing on stability, predictability and plan ability...

Transformation means doing different things (e.g. product > service) or doing things differently (e.g. digital, ai based, cloud, networked...).

In other words, transformation means we will have VERY different GOALS and VERY different PROCESSES (not just standardized, digitalized, speed up, more efficient) and with that we need NEW ROLES operating in a changed ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN. (call it agile, network or ...)

A wonderful metaphor was created by Somil Gupta with his picture about transformation... changing from a caterpillar to a butterfly (and our typical approach to speed up the caterpillar)

Check out his original post: LINK

Transformation: Doing different things (new goals)

...collides with classical goal setting, where we have to proof the result prior to starting a project via KPI, Milestones, Return On Invest calculations - agile/digital services can not be calculated as before... we hardly get budget for "doing different things". Not to mention the extremely long budget, planning, alignment cycles - being everything but responsive to market needs, changes or opportunities.

If the rule says: Don't fly, you might fall! The sky is, where the danger is! Never change a running system - stick with eating leaves! you die as a (maybe faster) caterpillar.

New Business models arise via experimenting, sharing, being transparent, involving customers and suppliers, connecting the "un-connected" and "failing" your way forward - it is wild wild west with risks, fun and losses. Of course you can wait for others to pave the road, which means you will be (if you learn/follow extremely fast) second... while the real digital winners are found in pole positions.

Transformation: Doing things differently (new processes)

collides with classical quality, lean and processes, which aim to standardize, reduce, focus... eliminating creativity, work-arounds and uncertainty (for good reasons). Thinking/acting "outside of the box" is a process-compliance issue, so the system will fight back.

A valuable process is the shortest (waste-reduced) way to success. A "one-size-fits-all" standard is simple, easy to understand and "user-friendly" - we all love that! Finding new ways of doing things (as frame conditions change, new tools, new services, new options (like AI, cloud, social networks, internet of things...) come up) is effort, risky and might end up in failing - it is more a lottery than a calculation - that is why we need "crazy intrapreneurs" to experiment the way forward.

If our processes are perfectly efficient and us being constantly "productive", lean and fully booked... when, how and where will I invest in learning, finding or walking a new path, exchanging with people from other - not yet - related competencies?

Having no time for learning and transformation is the most efficient way to die as a caterpillar!

Don't blame the people or managers!

It is not about bad people or resistant managers, over decades we built and optimized systems, which are self-stabilizing and acting like an immune system - any REAL CHANGE is seen as a VIRUS and will be punished or combated.

Real change / transformation has to question the frameset - the legal way would be to evaluate and proof FIRST that a rule needs to be removed or changed - which is quite hard, if we have no idea, what is beyond that rule. Where do we get the arguments for our "change/kill the rule" proposal?

If you want people and mangers to act differently, we have to give "Freedom To Act", build "Trust", digitally connect them (social networking to learn and exchange as fast and scalable as possible). We also need to look at our career path - what behaviors do we celebrate and promote, the ones not harming anyone, always playing by the rules and not standing up - being "simple to manage" or the ones being "high maintenance", creative, questioning everything, trying out things, being un-patient and disruptive? Of course we need diversity and a healthy balance. Disclaimer: I am talking about questioning inhouse rules, not laws here!

how open are our career path for the rule-breakers to guide transformation?

Support the uncomfortable ones

Surely not easy - but to turn a caterpillar into a butterfly

we need to get out of our comfort zone

To transform form expert crawlers we need to learn (a lot), experiment, jump and run, visit places, get out of our boxes and silos to exerience the opportunities of "flying"

Are you a sponsor or role model for transformation?

Best - you do it yourself... look at the kids, how they EXPLORE their world every day asking thousands of questions and shamelessly trying out everything - beCome a role model for ASKING and (for a while) forget about your experience!

your experience comes from crawling - don't judge with that anyone flying!

If this is to wild and risky for you to get to transformed levels, please become a sponsors of those who are BRAVE to be "VUCArockers" experimenting, what is possible outside of the todays corporate limitations (roles, rules, processes, organizational forms...) and we need those intrapreneurs taking ownership for something they believe in, not getting demotivated by being stopped by "system" soldiers.

We started building a global network of GUIDEs - transformation rolemodels already 10 years ago. They surprise us every day with their passion, ideas, challenges and success stories. It became a transformational force while guiding our people into the digital age in a healthy, culture aware, individual way.

Author: harald-schirmer.de