Is Your Transformation More Successful Than You Realise?

Introduction

Leaders often talk to us about the challenges of their latest transformation. The challenges are varied but often at the core is an assumption that transformations are binary: they either work or they do not. They were either implemented as planned, or they were not.

Transformations are inherently complex. When done well, they seek to fundamentally rethink how an organization operates, often with a shift in structure, culture, processes, strategy or tooling.

Applying a binary concept of success to something as wickedly complex as transformation does your efforts an injustice. Understanding success needs to go beyond the implementation of a transformation plan and consider the outcomes you have created within the organization. Applying the below ‘three-questions test’ can help you frame the considerations and decide for yourself whether your transformation was a win and what you could do differently next time.

The 3-question test for success:

When looking to assess whether your transformation was a success, these three questions can help guide your thinking.

1. Does your transformation solve the problem you were trying to solve?
2. You would have created new problems. Overall, are they better problems to have than your original problem?
3. Is your transformation going to last?

If you can answer yes to all three questions, it is likely your transformation is well on its way to success.

Does your transformation solve the problem you were trying to solve?

Transformations need a clear purpose if they are to succeed. What are you trying to solve? Without clarity into the problem, then it will be difficult to deliver and demonstrate improvement.

Ideally, problems are SMART-oriented. We want to have problem statements with specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound parameters. While this might not always be possible, it is important to at least strive to have a sense of what success would look like once the transformation is implemented.

A media retail client of ours wanted to understand if their structure was best placed for rapid expansion over the next time horizon. While not a completely SMART problem, this was a specific problem to solve and gave us clarity into the end state, with room to consider a variety of options and their trade-offs.

Overall, are your new problems better to have than your original problem?

Changing one part of an organization will always impact another. New problems will inevitably occur. The test is not whether new problems have been created; rather, using an overall cost-benefit approach, are your new problems better to have than the one you started with?

Every stakeholder will have a unique view on the success of your transformation related to their journey or part of the workflow in the organization. Depending on their understanding of organizational value (discussed below), they will have varying views on whether the transformation was a success. But when taking a holistic, system-wide view, is the organization better able to deliver value? Have the trade-offs been worth it?

For example, if your transformation focus is cost reduction, then this will come at the expense of other parts of your business. Your marketing team may find it harder to get approval for big spend campaigns, or your product team may take a little longer to bring a product to market. But that’s precisely the point! Trade-offs must occur in the pursuit of your transformation target. New problems have arisen, but in the context of cost reduction, the new problems are better to have than the former one.

Is the transformation going to last?

Ongoing sustainability of a transformation is a key consideration of success. Will people continue to work within the new approach, or will they regress? The best transformations have teams recognise the value being created by doing something differently and will be motivated and capable of working in the new model. The worst transformations have teams working within the unofficial or pre-existing power structures they are used to, or in pre-existing patterns that we are trying to improve.

The organization needs a way to adjust the new model in response to the challenges raised in question two, above. Have you designed a transformation where you are able to revisit assumptions and trade-offs in response to shifting conditions? A successful transformation enables the leadership team to understand the effectiveness of the transformation and to make small improvements. Think of a transformation less like a one-off car purchase, and more like working with an architect to design your dream home.

How can I ensure my next transformation is a success?

There are innumerable aspects to successful transformations, each depending on the unique context and how you are seeking to transform. However, there are five key areas we see with our clients that help them achieve their ambitions and sustain their transformations over the long-term.

Have a clear idea of the problems you want to solve for

Identifying a clear goal, or problem to solve, is a crucial anchoring step in the transformation process. Understanding the problem and aligning leaders around it provides you with a clear problem to solve and the authorising environment to solve it.

Clients often find a discovery process useful when forming their goal or problem statement. This may include an analysis of end-to-end processes or journeys with recommendations for improvements. Interviews, surveys, and observations bring to life how team members experience their organization and uncover opportunity areas for reform over the short, medium and long-term.

Case study experience: Our client, a large global pharmaceutical company, needed to restructure to better respond to market conditions, while building the right capabilities along the way. We supported them by conducting a diagnostic of the existing ways of working, identifying strengths and opportunities for improvement. We also facilitated leadership workshops to define work to be done to achieve the strategic goals, and identified organizational capabilities required. The result: Proposed ~3x simplification in the role types to build strong shared ownership and breadth of skills, increased alignment with organizational strategic goals among leaders and increased team engagement relating to the transformation.

Align on which of the problems you want to solve most

You can solve everything, just not all at once. When considering the insights raised from Discovery research, it will be necessary to have a view on what matters most for your organization in the pursuit of your strategy.

Prioritisation workshops help facilitate this thinking, uncovering the range of unique views of what should be done and why. Trade-offs will have to be made due to the finite nature of the resources. We cannot always be fast and cheap. We cannot always be zero defect and fast. Something has to give, and prioritisation discussions are a great way to hone the executives mind and build strategic alignment toward the biggest return for your efforts.

Case Study experience: Our client, a global energy corporation, needed to improve its project delivery time and efficiency, while building accountability & better prioritisation across the organization. We supported them by coaching leaders to establish Objectives and Key Results (OKR), to drive accountability and action toward strategic outcomes. We also designed and embedded a Quarterly Delivery Cycle to align leaders and teams on upcoming priorities and maintain visibility into delivery execution & shifting demands. The result: Complete transparency on project goals with all stakeholders; 83% of stakeholders declared that planning became more proactive and responsive.

Take a bespoke approach

Your organization is different to your competitors, and it is certainly different to other industries. The value proposition you offer to customers and team is also likely different. This means your transformation needs to be different too. While you could follow the same transformation as your competitor, it just won’t be as effective as one designed for your unique circumstances.

For instance, if transforming via operating model design, consider a range of options that could work. Don’t believe anyone who gives you a deck with the best option. Think through the benefits and trade-offs of each organizing option. Within the context of the problem you are solving, consider How Might We work if we structure to focus on customer service. Cost reduction? Speed? How many hand-offs have we created? Make an informed and considered choice, because it won’t be the consultant who works in the new model: it’s you and your teams.

When creating significant change, the use of a Pilot before Scaling can be a helpful way to iron out any kinks. What we think we have communicated and what people hear are not always the same thing. Perhaps how we imagined something would work, and how it does work are different things. A Pilot gives you an opportunity to test ideas, see what works, apply continuous improvement, and then apply the winning formula on a larger scale. This is also the best way to handle emerging risks.

Case study experience: Our client, a Big 4 Australian bank, needed to bring together different parts of the business, unifying their ways of working, increasing speed to market and improving customer experience. We took a bespoke approach by conducting a program maturity diagnostic to provide recommendations to refine the existing operating model. We created a change management framework to support adoption and facilitated workshops to find additional opportunities to improve and accelerate the delivery cycle. With teams, we built customised customer journey maps to inform current and future decisions. The result: 4 disparate parts of the business came together, with an uplift in transparency into the work and increase in consistency of ways of working. There is now a holistic view across multiple programs of work within an ability to identify dependencies and manage delivery risks.

Co-design the transformation

How and with whom the transformation is designed matters as much as the final design. Your teams know more about the business than anyone else. Stakeholders know what they want from your teams and when they need it. Customers decide if you succeed or fail.

Tapping into the detailed knowledge and perceptions of others makes it a transformation owned by your teams, rather than one happening to your teams. Ensure a range of views that reflects how your business should work. If your team sends data to a products division, have a decision-maker from the products division in the room offering insight into how teams work together now and how they see the potential changes impacting them in future. Now is not the time to isolate, but to seek views.

A word of caution: co-design is not the same as a broad consultation process. Seek informed opinions from a few, select people who have the insights you need or will be intrinsic to the ongoing success of the transformation. It is a fine balance between hearing opinions and co-creating the best transformation possible.

Further, those that are involved in the co-design will champion the end result as they were involved along the way. Consider who you want the champions to be when selecting who to help you co-design.

Case Study experience: Our client, an Australian energy distributor, needed to improve its response time to rapid market changes and increase its delivery effectiveness. We helped this client by co-designing an improvements roadmap to be delivered in 8 weeks, based on findings from a diagnostic. We delivered tailored training to meet their needs, uplifting internal knowledge and capabilities and coaching the team toward sustained performance. As we co-designed the improvements roadmap with the team, engagement and buy-in was high. The result: Generated an 11% increase in delivery of business value after 8 weeks, increased employee efficiency by 21% and created a continuous improvement mindset with 8 opportunities identified and progress tracked.

Focus on embedding and refining

Embedding and refining the transformation process is key to success over time. Teams need to understand the value being created so that they feel motivation to apply whatever it is that is now different. Desire and motivation need to be backed by capability.

To create desire and motivation, a communication approach needs to be prepared ahead of rollout. Use communication experts to take your transformation plan to the next level. Understand why people should be motivated. The answer is likely different for different personas within your organization. Combined with an understanding of the value being created, detailed understanding of how people are impacted and what they need to do differently will inform your communication approach. What’s in it for me remains a truism.

You have invested a lot of time, energy and money into the transformation – make sure it sticks through hands-on coaching. This goes beyond training, spending time with teams and leaders to understand what we are doing differently and giving them the capabilities to execute. Just like you don’t drive a car without someone next to you while you learn, so too teams need help when operating under a new model.

Data-led mechanisms need to be in place to regularly review and refresh the assumptions and trade-offs made at the start of the transformation process. Conditions will most likely have evolved as the transformation progressed, and new problems will have arisen. Ensure a process exists to identify these challenges and rectify where possible. Along with qualitative feedback, decide quantitative measures you will use going forward to track the impacts of your transformation.

Note, we are aiming to strike a balance between continuous improvement and stability for teams. The perfect transformation does not exist.

Case study: Our Client, the digital & innovation division of one of Australia’s major supermarket retailers, needed to become more responsive to client needs in a highly competitive market. We helped this client to re-design their operating model so that it shifted from a category-led to a customer-led business. This operating model continues to be refined to adapt to shifting market demands. The result: An operating model able to address the organization’s unique challenges in scaling, design of 10 Business areas across 2000 people, coordinating 20 tribes to work to a single cadence, and trained 10 Practice leads with a focus on building and developing the most important capabilities.

In Summary

Transformation success goes beyond implementation. Use the three-question test to understand if your transformation is on the right path.

1. Does your transformation solve the problem you were trying to solve?
2. You would have created new problems. Overall, are they better problems to have than your original problem?
3. Is your transformation going to last?

Ensure it remains on track, or that your next transformation is a success, by using the five key focus areas:

1. Have a clear idea of the problems you want to solve for
2. Align on the problem you want to solve most
3. Take a bespoke approach
4. Co-design the transformation
5. Focus on embedding and refining

Our team are experts in management consulting and coaching and would be happy to talk you through key aspects you need to consider in your upcoming transformation. Contact us if you are looking to adapt or innovate your organization.