What every transformation strategy needs

Congratulations!?You’ve landed the role, the project, the job. You are now leading on a transformation, and you are in the driving seat.

First on the agenda – strategy.

Do you…

1. Copy and iterate the strategy you used the last time, for the last client?
2. Head to the house of G (Google in this instance, or the other G if you opt for divine intervention) and mash up examples you can find?
3. Book in a series of stakeholder engagement sessions to see what people would like to see in a strategy
4. Workshop and brainstorm, workshop, and brainstorm
5. Stare at a blank sheet of paper
6. Head straight to an external consultancy to ‘do their thing’…
7. Some or all the above (smiley face)

Whatever you end up doing is pretty much up to you, I just fancied starting this week’s newsletter like that!

What I really want to ask you is this:

1. Is the human (not just the customer) top of mind for you?
2. How do you ensure humans will engage with it?
3. Are you focussing on it from a ‘What we do’ perspective or ‘Who we are’ perspective?
4. Are your objectives and goals based on organisational targets that point to human capability shifts or are your objectives and goals based on human targets that point to digital and data design shifts?

Humanising transformation is just that – humanising transformation. And it all starts with vision and strategy. When the vision is set and says something like “I want us to be the number 1, blah blah blah” or “We exist to make our customers, blah2, blah2, blah2”, things are starting on the right track. Things are exciting, yes! I can be a part of this. Then the rot sets in and the strategy creeps up the walls, onto our desktops and onto the toilet walls (I have literally seen strategy objectives stuck on the back of toilet walls!).

What I mean is this – we are conditioned to write strategies that are organisationally focussed. Immediately losing the human connection. It’s about what we do, how we do it using things and things, following these steps and these processes. Yuck!

Yet, head to any MBA syllabus or best practice in organisational transformation and you’ll see pretty much the same thing: What we want to do, what we need to do, how best we can do it, etc.

In my opinion we have lost one of the most powerful moments in transformation to encourage adoption and connect with the humans in our systems and that’s in how we approach our strategy.

To get that power back here are some relatively simple things you can think about including and positioning in your strategy to humanise your transformation right from the start point; Time to engage with your people and humanise your transformation!

#1 PURPOSE

What I’m talking about here is straight forward – if you can relate your strategy to purpose you will connect at a human level immediately. The vision examples I gave above are great start points because they talk about “Belief” and “We”. You can’t connect to purpose too many times. Like a wise person once said – “when you grow tired of saying something, that’s when people will start hearing it.”

If you don’t have the benefit of a clearly defined vision or purpose already – then simply head to the UN Sustainability Development Goals. I can bet you will be able to connect to at least one of them! Simples ;)

#2 HUMAN

Please, please, please don’t use personas in a strategy – this is the ultimate document that is about to change people’s lives, give it due consideration. Observe the truth of people’s current rituals, habits, and beliefs. BE HUMAN.

#3 BELIEF

I like this one, it might feel a bit icky, but trust me it’s really empowering – for the leaders too! What this is about is working as a leadership team to translate the key outcomes and results identified in the strategy into belief statements, giving them identity.

The power of this humanising tip comes from when your leaders start to socialise these belief statements in their narrative, in their strategy. This can generate trust. “If you believe this, then maybe it’s gonna work!?”.

#4 MY FUTURE SELF

This is something that’s not often done and rarely given any real priority, and yet, it’s arguably the most important thing that gives you a strong start to successful transformation. Give people time to reflect on who they are and connect to their strengths, then give people the space to explore how they as a human can connect to the strategy? Get people to share these in stories, videos, and pictures or simply in trusted conversational circles.

#5 CROSS COLLABORATE

This might feel a bit harder to grasp. What often happens when a strategy is being designed or has been completed, it's focussing on ‘what we need to do and how we need to do it’. That’s theoretically fine, we are all taught that strategy is about sharing the what and the how. However, in a world that’s defined by diversity and barriers becoming stretchy and even osmotic, this is too narrow. There is a golden moment between theory and reality. That golden moment is an opportunity to cross collaborate – partners, industry, community, suppliers. This is not for them to review your strategy it’s for you all to share your strengths and future visions and how they might potentially accelerate your strategy, push your strategy.

These are 5 simple things you can think about that can humanise your transformation at the strategic phase, setting your system up for success.

These are all snippets from our Practitioner Leadership Academy syllabus. If you are a transformational leader or practitioner and some of this resonates with you or simply just feels right, I would love to know your story, connect, and keep in touch. For your copy of our syllabus just follow this LINK.

As always, if you would like to know more about how you can humanise transformation you are working on or leading, I’m always available on Thursday’s for 121 strategy sessions.

You can book your SESSION here.