Transformation requires a primary ability to recognize patterns. Any transformation effort is therefore fraught with challenges as the complexity of the pattern spreads across a cultural one, a vision one, a structure/systems one, execution and communication one – at the least.
Let us for the time being consider the pattern below. The question is, which is the logical transformed pattern (from the set in the right), in sequence with the set on the left?
We have possibly solved problems like the one below a few times as part of adaptive-intelligence tests. In reality, a successful outcome of a transformation is much more difficult to obtain as there is an element of multi-variables (not just the yellow/blue/+), a much more erratic sequence of movements and most importantly, an element of time. Whereas many challenges may be solved by a larger cohort of people with time, transformative change-drives have a lower cushion on time, which creates a significant impact on the decision-making/communication/execution process and thereby on the outcome.
A production manager was facing a series of unreported near-misses and existing fatalities at the workplace, arising out of low alignment on the culture of safety. The organization had made enough investments in both contracts and on-rolls personnel on repeated training on safety, expensive personal protective equipment, continuous communication, externally facilitated sessions/workshops on safety, etc.; employees did not have safety on the radar — a study of the goals and objectives of employees in the manufacturing function in the organization revealed that less than 40 percent of the employees had even a mention of the word ‘safety’ or anything close to it. Close monitoring, penalties and even costly implementation of basic pillars of the TPM did not do much justice to the cause of safety. The production manager who used to be a University-level athlete started taking out workmen and executives out on a Saturday walk for a half-hour, tracked through a small fitness device. A few Saturdays later, he did not have to take them out — people were already out on their own, compressing the lunchtime and busy comparing numbers displayed on their device – in terms of how correctly or incorrectly the device was measuring their steps, and how much they were doing and whether it was being honestly done or not, and so on and so forth.
When they were comparing, they were talking. When they were talking, they were closer. When they were closer, they did not need to ask for ‘appointment’ time to meet the supervisor and upwards on the floor to report issues and near-misses. Bringing in a culture of safety, that is as critical in a production environment or for that matter anywhere to prevent loss of license-to-operate, seemingly had nothing to do with engagement on the floor through a wellness-device. But it actually did, in this case. In an organizational context, the culture of dialogue and engagement and reduced hierarchy resulted in a process of profound and radical change that oriented awareness and execution of principles on safety towards a new direction and took it to an entirely different level of effectiveness.
In the pattern diagram, the yellow color of safety moves clockwise along the outer squares (and transforms into green when combined with the blue of engagement or ‘talking together’). This is not an ordinary sequence, as the blended color creates confusion (initially, unless traced regularly to be able to understand the long-term advantage). If we follow this sequence, the answer should have yellow in the middle bottom square. Therefore, answers two and four can be eliminated. The blue color moves counterclockwise, moving two squares around the outer squares after each step. Therefore, in the answer, the blue should be in the middle upper square. The plus sign moves from the bottom middle square to the upper middle square after every transition. The plus sign is not visible when there is a color on the same square. In every step of transformation, there are hidden elements — good or bad; Transformations fail when there is an inability to view larger combinations, back-burner issues that are actually critical and taking assumptions without due diligence.
Transformation requires a higher plane of thought, and simultaneously a tremendous eye for detail, and the ability to understand those seemingly dissimilar elements may couple together during a transformation effort, to create a sum larger than the parts, or the other way round.
The study “Influence of participation in strategic change” by Lines (2004) confirms a positive correlation between participation and success of transformation. This participation in a time-bound transformative change requires a high level of goal-focus and attention on a set of activities or processes that lead to a future state, which, in most cases, most participants have no experience of, or have visibility to, and therefore, not aligned on. In the context of transformation, Hahn (1994) states that “Employees are asked by means of targets (…) to perform activities using certain resources in order to achieve the intended future states”. Furthermore, Evers and Körfer (2015) point out that the ability to break-down new goals into tasks and activities are equally important, and that requires a stage of negotiations, acceptance, and willingness by the people to accept the execution of goals. This is important as it helps employees to measure steps up the ladder, experience outcome of the efforts and therefore be ready for the other steps together and align with the long-term vision. It also brings in change gradually, with minimal shocks/disruptions.
Transformations fail in the absence of a few fundamental ingredients:
1) The ability to eliminate or minimize hierarchal decision-making
2) Focus on groups and teams, rather than individuals (change-champions are individuals though, in most cases)
3) Interim measures and controls to track progress
4) Reduced internal competition and silos towards building trust
5) Blending/balancing organic and inorganic capabilities
6) Ability to define end-steps or future steps expected out of transformation
7) Realizing that the competencies required to transform are very different from those required to innovate or maintain status-quo or business-as-usual growth.
Surprisingly, efforts labeled as transformative may also be deceptive in order to create distractions. Take the example of a large promoter-driven organization embarked on a ‘transformation’ effort with money invested in through multiple investors. The transformation effort was initiated when the investors pressed down on payback arising out of an over-sold deal. In this case, the intent was to gain timelines to avoid rising pressure from the investors (rather than an effort to change internal culture and processes fraught with leakages), and therefore failure was destined. Most organizations, however, indulge in a transformation process arising out of a genuine need to alter form, structure, shape, processes, business value proposition in order to reposition itself in the face of changing market/customer expectations.
Apart from ensuring at a minimum that the above ingredients exist for any transformation effort to be successful, Fred Luthans through his research and study of organizations undergoing this change, emphasizes on focus towards the following elements required for success:
1) Human process intervention (guiding individuals, mentoring and counseling, continuous dissemination of learning, etc.);
2) Techno-structural changes (downsizing/outsourcing, redefining jobs and tasks, business process revamps, etc.);
3) Strategic interventions like rigorous business planning and ability to re-establish the cultural factors (philosophy, rules, observed behavioral regularities, norms, dominant values, organizational climate, etc.)
As organizations attempt to move from existing models into new ones, the elements of Galbraith’s model (Strategy, People, Structure, Rewards Process) are impacted and task-uncertainty increases, and therefore requires the ability to process information faster. Transformation-goaled organizations need paradigm shifts in the way organizational learning happens, and in terms of how it reacts to the environment and internal factors. I would not be surprised if there are a significant correlation and combination of core self-evaluation factors [self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, state of anxiety (neuroticism)] at an individual level, and larger cultural factors that Hoefstede talks about in terms of Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, etc., that breaks or makes transformative outcomes.