What does your business have in common with…
- Amazon?
- Apple (iPhone and iTunes)?
- Netflix?
Through a series of disruptions, they transformed aspects of our world.
Now it’s your turn. Ready?
Strategic Transformation starts with your vision, your commitment to that vision, and your ability to influence others in service to that vision. That’s it. I can stop writing now. Simple right? Maybe simple – but not easy. I hear you.
The last article I could find about business transformation within the Harvard Business Review was written in 2016. So business transformation may be essential, but it’s not often written about.
If you have been doing organizational transformation for some time, you can thank the year 2020 for giving you some new vital pieces in the mix, which I will get to in a moment. Although the typical keys of Business Transformation still apply – clearly communicating expected outcomes, and keeping the eyes of your ideal customers, your front-line employees, and key influencers (within and outside your organization) in mind are key to ensuring a successful transformation.
Once you have a good idea of that, remember to engage early adaptors and key influencers as soon as possible and get super clear on the 5Ps when communicating change:
- Purpose – Why are we changing and why now? – The “burning platform” message. Besides a good business case, be able to answer, “What’s the risk if we do nothing?”
- Picture – What are the changes and how will it look once the changes are implemented? (Vision. Think JFK when he was describing our mission to the moon.)
- Plan – What is the transition plan for implementing the change? (Milestones, timeline, potential risks, known issues.)
- Part to Play – How will it impact each role family in the organization? What behaviors or actions do we need to see? (WIIFM) Who can be contacted with concerns? Strong sponsorship presence, clear and consistent messaging, etc.
- Party – What exactly do we need to do so we can celebrate success together? How might we leverage any lessons learned in our next transformation project? How will we be together when we fail? (Curiosity, consequence, reward.)
Most importantly, remember what most leaders want throughout the transformation effort and how you can go about it:
- Gain Market Share – Increase Revenue
Most executives know that between the time a strategy is created and execution occurs, there is fragmentation. When we align strategic processes strongly with clear governance over workflows AND ensure that the appropriate decision structures are in place, along with two-way feedback loops, we have a better chance of keeping the Board Happier For Longer Than a Quarter! - Focus The Culture On Customer Satisfaction
Since customer focus and innovation are key strategic priorities for any company, it’s important to ensure the effective marketing and delivery of your organization’s products and services are aligned with key measures and metrics through Customer Line of Visibility Models to keep your company competitive for years to come. - Improve Employee Engagement
Business Interaction Models lead to a more positive work climate as it increases staff engagement, resulting in fewer turf wars and in-fighting because people value being part of a company that provides clarity on roles and expected outcomes. Further, having a holistic understanding of how processes work and how data flows in and out of your organization increases the effectiveness of sales, product development, operations, and technologies, and will enable quick decisions. - Sustainability
End-to-end optimized Business Process Architecture provides a centralized repository so your company never has to worry about losing intellectual property due to employee attrition. Further, defining current and future state driving processes, core business process models and supporting processes, optimizes how departments are staffed and enables better collaboration and people management.
Further thanks to 2020, Business Transformation not only includes how we best handle being in disaster recovery mode together, but we also need to consider more strongly how working virtually will be integrated into the transformation we are expecting. This makes Digital Transformation via digital technology more important than ever, on top of how to lead people remotely.
This is a crucial element in today’s world.
How can we be a secure remote organization?
How can teams be more cohesive?
What type of leadership qualities do we want (or need) in virtual leaders?
We get to remember virtual teams make the world a better place:
- Smaller footprint on the earth.
- Save one of the highest typical OPEX (rent).
- More time being spent at home (benefit for us introverts and dog lovers).
What important conversations do we get to have around diversity, inclusion, and what most people really want – belonging?
Now on top of that, we need to consider, how working virtually will be integrated into the transformation we are expecting. For example, the leadership capabilities we need to expect from our people:
- Listening to your Leader Within (gut feeling, intuition, higher power, etc.).
- Influence and Accountability (being able to communicate outcomes clearly and not worrying too much about how people decide to get there).
- Empathy (you know when your colleague forgot to turn off the mute button while ordering lunch, or maybe you see a cat walking across your screen).
Most importantly, executive decision-making is enhanced when it comes to an important aspect of Feminine Leadership “being in the mystery”. The truth is you will not have all the answers. How well you manage your own change curve, and point others into having productive conflict, taking risks, and recovering quickly from “failure” will help your organization adapt when embarking on new products and services.
For decades we at Metaspire Consulting have been called on by Global Technology, Finance and Health Care Companies to help them create capital “T” Transformation. Reinventing their core business models and creating a new operational model in service of tomorrow’s core business.
Now that most of the developed world has gone virtual, geographical boundaries are flattened as well as many industry boundaries (you do not have to stay in your exact industry lane). In fact, being able to run lean, keep cash on hand, and quickly pivot is how most businesses have transformed to the next level today.
Ready to take it a little further? I would love to hear about your business transformation effort.
Metaspire is a boutique management consulting firm. We provide management consulting services to expand time and money, turn one-time buyers into long term relationships, and retain your best talent.
Schedule a success call with me >> https://metaspireconsulting.com/successcall
