Brewing Organizational Transformations

Definition: Organizational Transformation is a term referring collectively to such activities as re-engineering, re-designing and re-defining business systems. The dominant enabling technology in transforming organization is information and technology

Organization heads today face challenges on a daily basis…intense competition, mounting pressures on operating margins, need to deliver beautiful and simplistic customer experience, and revenue growth. This leads to an almost constantly changing business combat zone. 

Staying relevant; investing in new domains, technologies, processes & methodologies; being ready for the business of tomorrow through newer products & services; building thought leadership; investing in the right amount of automation and engaging the teams at all levels, thereby accelerating retention are the key compellers for every leader to drive change.

Driving successful business transformation for the organization or unit is the dream and nightmare for every leader. Today’s leader faces newer and far more difficult challenges than before. Execution of such transformations need multi-faceted tracks of activities. At the onset, it involves defining the larger vision for the organization. This would need the leader to define what he wants to see as outcomes and results; team behaviors and culture changes; and above all the values of the unit. It would then involve setting up an intricate web of program governance that defines what would the state of the organization in multiple timelines – short or immediate; medium term and long term. The period of execution for each of this would vary basis the change needed and will need to be a part of the change definition.

The pre-requisites of defining the change and the goal posts is to first fully comprehend the state of the organization. The leader needs to have an unbiased assessment of the state of the unit with respect to the following parameters:

a.      Is the organization and its members capable of un-learning and learning again

b.     How customer centric is the current organization

c.      Identification of the team players and the team influencers

d.     Adaptability of the organization’s leadership to change

And above all

e.     Does the leadership believe change is needed?!

f.       Agility of the change execution

Not only does the leader need to have strong focus on content and results, the attention to the softer aspects is also key to the change management. The series of blogs will aim to help with the softer aspects.

Driving change is critical for the growth of any organization. Renovation of any business needs the leader to:

a.      Inspire the team, Motivate and Persuade the team to move long

b.     Define immediate, medium term and long term goals

c.      Enthuse every team member to participate in the change revolution

d.     Build the fabric of trust and foster team work

e.     Strong governance models measuring success

As the brew of the transformation begins to be created, it is important that the key spices are in place. The recipe to a successful orchestration remains same, the level and mix of the ingredients may vary. Lets aim to list them:

a.      The winning team

b.     Visualizing the vision & its impact

c.      Communicating the progress

d.     Ability to recognize failure and change course

e.     Team culture

In subsequent blogs, will aim to detail this out further capturing key strategies and operations for such change management. Will also be keen to understand diverse views and experiences on this subject.