Transformation and the unknown
I have been involved with transformation my entire professional career, in one way or another. Over the years, I have been involved in developing strategies and road maps for transformation programmes. Many of these follow roughly the same arc. There is an initial burst of activity, spurred by fear or opportunity. Great plans are made and then some work is undertaken on the road map. Then things slow down. Plans get reduced and what was transformation becomes change. As I have been trying to explain this process to myself and others, I came up with this metaphor.
The age of exploration
Imagine that you are a Spanish, English, French or Portuguese sailor at the turn of the 16th Century. You have heard stories of some distant lands full of riches and new opportunities. You may even know of someone who has been to these lands, but they cannot tell you too much. The maps are vague and patchy, details scarce. You have no idea what these new lands look like or even where they are, but you have faith that they exist and you have some compelling reason to get there. Without these two prerequisites, you not even consider leaving port.
So you convince others to join you and set out, prepared with the knowledge that you are not prepared. Even if you hire the crew of a ship that made the trip and returned already, you only have their specific experience to guide you. It is enough that they left in a different time of the year than you to make the journey unique. As a result, the journey becomes the preparation. With every new current and storm, with every day without sight of land, you become more agile, shedding what no longer serves and taking on what does, time and time again. Through this effort, the faith that allowed you go beyond sight of land is tested and, like love, made real through the effort to sustain it.
When you finally get the first glimpse of land, it is not at all what you expected. After all, Columbus was looking for India, not the Caribbean. Again you have to be agile, let go of the ideas about what you expected to find there and embrace what is there.
Transformation and change
This metaphor for transformation can be contrasted with a similar one for change. Again, you are sailor who is used to going from Africa to India by hugging the coast. Then someone comes to you and says that there is a way to get there faster, by sailing straight across the Indian Ocean. You ask around and discover that others have already taken this route and you can even buy fairly detailed charts for the journey. Equipped with your new charts and a new first mate, who has made this passage several times before, you set out. Of course it not certain that it will work. There are unexpected things that occur, but the likelihood that you will reach your destination is much higher than setting out for the "new world." Also, you know where you are going; it is just the path that is different.
Transformations are, on the other hand, a leap into the unknown. They are an acknowledgement that the world has changed and all the references that we used to have are at least questioned, if not abandoned. Globalisation, digital technologies and the virtualisation of things like data, servers, bureaucracies, art and science create a new world that we have to explore. Despite the fact that it has been nearly 30 years since the dot com explosion, there are very few clear and detailed maps. Events like Oxford Analytica, Facebook and Brexit highlight how fluid the environment is: collecting personal data is not without limits.
What is needed is the spirit of the explorer: the flexibility to accept and deal with what is in front of them today, while still keeping focused getting to the distant shore. It is not an easy path to take, which explains why transformation programmes sometimes fail to deliver on their promise. Familiarity is easier, as is routine. It takes strong leadership and commitment to head out into uncharted waters. It is not something that can be agreed in one meeting and left to happen. The vision and commitment must be renewed every day.