Transformation, is it really that hard?

Today we are in the midst of uncertainty about the future. As a result, the word "transformation" gets thrown around a lot. This word can have many meanings to individuals and companies alike. To the individual, it means disruption, uncertainty and potential job loss as the goal of many transformation projects is to reduce cost and streamline operations. To the business, it is the ability to generate new value by unlocking opportunities to drive growth and deliver improved efficiencies.

So what do I know about transformations? I have done numerous over my career and was awarded #4 in ASEAN's 50 Most Innovation CIO's 2019 for a transformation project that I recently did.

Through all these transformations, I have seen what works, what doesn't. The following are factors that are indicators that improve the chances of a transformation succeeding:

• Having the right people, those who embrace change and can see the value of the change, but also the challenges ahead.  
• Empowering people at all levels to contribute to the way forward and giving them room to experiment.
• Reviewing all processes and removing complexity and waste.
• Use data to track and make informed decisions of all changes.
• Training and building capabilities of the teams to prepare them for the future.
• Open and honest 2-way communication.

Having the right people, those who embrace change and can see the value of the change, but also the challenges ahead

We all know that change takes place across the entire organization at all levels. Many believe that most of the change is at the lower level, but in my experience, this is not correct. It is middle management and some top-level management displaced in significant transformations. The reason being is that over time we build in layers of abstraction, e.g. management overhead which in some cases adds complexity without value. This overhead, in turn, increases costs, reduces efficiency and adds a layer of bureaucracy which prevents iterative improvement and then forces a major transformation project.   

Empowering people at all levels to contribute to the way forward and giving them room to experiment

People are core to the success of any change within an organization and are a crucial part of calculating the risk of the proposed change. There are a couple of ways that you can engage people and increase the chances of success with the first being:

• Reinforcement of new behaviours and ways of working through formal mechanisms.  
• Give employees a say in the transformation and what processes need to change to support the business objectives.  

I have personally found that engaging employees at the front lines about the challenges that they see and how they would fix these aligned with a clear objective works the best. Please do note; this is not saying that you take what they say as gospel, but don't ignore it. Transformations are significant changes, and not everyone is supportive of change, but if you have a clear vision and you solicit feedback from the ground, implementing some ideas, even if they fail you will succeed.  

What do I mean by this, let me give you an example. On the last transformation project, we were changing the fundamental construct of the service desk. As part of the project, I had interviewed all the staff and identified several major themes that we needed to fix. I held a meeting with the whole team and outlined the challenges and then opened the floor up to suggestions on how to resolve them. I got a lot of feedback as I had built the trust by listening to them when they highlighted challenges during the 1:1's. I took a few ideas, even the crazy ones, and we baselined data and then commenced the experiments. A couple of them worked well and others, not so much. Using this and all the supporting data, we held a meeting, provided updates. We celebrated all the ideas, the good, the bad and the ugly and then laid out the plan for the next phase. We had the full support of the team as they felt part of the transformation, and we continuously received real 2-way feedback. Change is personal, and people need to feel engaged and valued.

Reviewing all processes and removing complexity and waste

Any transformation will require changes to existing processes which is often an area overlooked. One common theme that I have witnessed firsthand is that if we put in the technology, it will miraculously resolve process flaws, which is not the case. Technology will, however, accelerate existing problems with processes that will start a vicious cycle of blaming the technology and fingerpointing when failing to achieve results.

The first thing to do is look at the process to identify any steps that have been "bloated" or unnecessary actions. It is not uncommon for processes to become bloated and to demonstrate how this occurs, I will use a simple example of an Expense Approval Process. When you think about the process in the most straightforward manner, it is the following:

1. You incur an expense
2. You submit the cost into the system
3. It is reviewed by management to determine it is a legitimate expense
4. Approved or Rejected. If rejected, the reason for rejection is entered and then exit
5. If approved, then it goes for payment, and we get reimbursed the money

The above process is straightforward, but if you think about it in the organizations that you work, it is a lot more complicated. The aforementioned happens for several reasons, and a lot of the times, it starts with a single individual who abuses the system and takes advantage of it, for example, the sales manager buys bottles of Cristal.

Now there are a couple of approaches that you could take in this circumstance. The most logical is to deal with the individual at fault, but what we often see is that we start to build in complex rules trying to cover every conceivable scenario. 

Processes need continual refinement, and it is essential to focus on the 80% of uses cases and not 20%, which is what occurs when we start looking at the outlier use cases. Use data to ensure that you are focussed on the right areas to improve.   

Use data to track and make informed decisions of all changes

Before you start any transformation project, it is essential to have a baseline of data that captures the performance of those areas that are part of the scope of the engagement. During implementation, there is the potential to impact another function within the organization that may not have been able to be identified earlier.

By having data and continually reviewing it, you will be able to make small iterative changes to the processes and see the immediate impact of these. By analyzing the data, you will then enable you to roll back a change if you don't get the desired effect.

Training and building capabilities of the teams to prepare them for the future

As you transform, you need to empower employees to work in a new way. Several structural change approaches are available and depend on the type of transformation project:

• Implementation of digital tools to facilitate analysis of complex information
• Evolved business processes that support rapid prototyping and testing
• Enhanced digital tools to facilitate information knowledge management and sharing
• Creation of cross-functional teams with end-to-end accountability
• Digital Self Service technology
• Modification of Standard Operating Procedures and internal behaviours, e.g. Performance Management Systems

Beyond the above factors, the other critical success criteria are in the organization embracing data-based decision making culture.

Open and honest 2-way communication

As in any change, clear communication is critical during a transformation. More specifically, there are two key areas:

1. Communicating a change story, which will help everyone understand where the organization is heading, why it is undergoing the change and finally, why the changes are essential.
2. Honest, open and two-way. 

"It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Abraham Lincoln

Conclusion

Whilst it is still commonplace for many transformations to fall short of the expected outcomes, learn the lessons from understanding what has worked in the past.   

The above has worked well for me many times over and if you are struggling with your transformation project, reach out to us, and we will be happy to help.

&How Intelligence is a specialized consulting house that provides a strategic advisory role to our clients and the operational experience and knowledge required from ideation to implementation.

We help empower corporations to be the next market disruptor by understanding their data, enabling them to change the future.

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