5. Transforming Ways of Working
Why Do We Need Transforming?
A ReBoot Co. blog series that helps you & your teams discover a better way of working.
“When the dust settles I would love to buy you a coffee and you can teach me why I shouldn't deeply loathe the whole concept of Transformation”
I was speaking at a virtual event last year and must have mentioned “Transformation being the core of what we do at ReBoot Co.” when Michele Playfair asked me this in a direct message channel.
I’m so deep in the world of our clients and what they are trying to change all the time, that it didn’t occur to me that the term transformation could be read as a negative thing, but Michele is right to a degree. It can be irritating and false to peddle the idea that teams, departments or companies will, post Transformation, emerge into beautiful butterflies and be done with “Transforming” at some magical point of time in the future.
So what really is this thing known as Transformation, why is it the core of what we do at ReBoot Co. and why have I just written four blogs about it?
TRANSFORMATION THE TERM, WHY TRANSFORM?
For fun, let’s take a step into the world of Lean and the term Kaizen. Most Agilists and fans of Lean will know that Kaizen is the principle of “Continuous Improvement” that we practice in Lean and Agile ways of working. Literally Kai-Zen translates to ‘Good Change’ in English, or as most people interpret it, Change for the Better. If we practice Change for the Better with discipline, we are always in a state of changing and improving continuously, so does this make the notion of “Transformation” as a concept redundant?
Not quite. I think that all teams pursuing Change for the Better all the time would be magnificent, I would love to live in a world where this happened in our companies, it would be glorious! However I have been in and around enough improvement programs to know that a declaration to pursue continuous improvement is not enough, in itself, to yield desired results.
More fun Lean words - Kai-ka-ku means Radical or Revolutionary Reform and also is often translated to Innovation or Disruption in English.
So perhaps Kaikaku is a better term to align with Transformation? The nature of the business challenges where the sums of all the continuous improvements would not be enough to solve the biggest organisational problems, need Kaikaku.
LEADERS ARE ACCOUNTABLE
Transformation Programs, I believe, are a way to lift the profile of Change for the Better beyond the pursuits of good workers and good teams, up to the highest accountability in a company in order to attain permission for the disruption that might come with Radical or Revolutionary Reform.
The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen introduced us to the concept that once a market leader is established, it’s almost impossible to disrupt their business model in order to exploit a new customer segment or product type. Hence the downfall of companies like Kodak who dominated the camera market and when photography moved to the digital world became bankrupt before emerging as a much smaller technical company. Challenging all of the values and processes that makes you a market leader requires strong support from the top leaders, to all levels of management, and here is where we see the need for Radical and Revolutionary Reform, that is, here is how we can signal to the whole organisation that we need to Transform.
At ReBoot Co. we like to look at Transformation as important and revolutionary reform with clear goals in mind.
Ask yourself, who will disrupt your business? What other models, automation or perhaps competitors are already biting at your heels with their new ideas, values and processes? Transformation or Revolutionary Reform is a way of tuning in to the value you are delivering today, and ensuring you have sustainable value to deliver tomorrow.
THAT WORD TRANSFORMATION IS TRIGGERING
Some months after my chat with Michele I was invited to come on the No Nonsense Agile podcast where we talked about this topic at length, if you want to have a listen here is the episode: Alex Stokes on Agile Transformations.
Shane Gibson went so far as to say that the term Transformation triggered him and that it has been “vendor washed”, which I supposed means vendors have coined the term in order to charge money for doing it. Shane and Murray Robinson, the hosts, have an issue with Big Consulting and the state of Agile that is the result of Big Consulting sweeping through organisations with their expensive change programs. I mostly agree with that as I don’t believe Big Change should necessarily translate to Big Cost but we agreed to disagree about the term itself. Shane is sticking with “Change”. I'm happy to keep using Transformation, but I will also be slipping in Radical or Revolutionary Reform as often as I can.
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Next in this series, we’ll talk through ideas about Creating Awareness for Necessary Change.
Looking to Take Your Teams to The Next Level?
Book a preliminary chat or even a coaching session with ReBoot Co. co-founder Alex Stokes to learn how we can help with your transformation needs. There are 30 minute slots for a chat, or 60 minute slots for a coaching session.