A cookie cutter transformation is never the best transformation strategy for your company. You must own the design of your transformation, says Arif Harbott
Transformation is perhaps one of the most overused and misunderstood terms in the business world today. The irony is that delivering successful transformations has never been so important. In a rapidly changing world of consumer trends, technology acceleration and disruption, geo-political shifts and now the huge impact of Covid-19, transformations can be the difference between business success and failure.
But when you look at the number of transformations that actually succeed it makes for grim reading, with most transformations failing to meet their stated objectives.
How can you avoid becoming yet another transformation failure?
We believe that the seeds of transformation success are sown in the Transformation Design phase.
Transformation Design is the process by which you clarify the current performance of the organisation and define where you want to go. Then most importantly you have to determine how much value this will create for the business.
The design phase has sequential steps, which means you cannot progress to the next step until the previous step is complete. This is because the output of one step is the input to the next step.
Step 1: Transformation Outcome
Define a measurable and compelling business target, which when achieved will have a clear and measurable impact on Enterprise Value.
Step 2: Enterprise Map
Use this visual HERO® proprietary technique to capture how the company currently operates and what levers are available to improve performance.
Step 3: Targeted Analysis
Perform analysis to close any gaps in your Enterprise Map and to identify which of the levers have potential to deliver the Transformation Outcome.
Step 4: Transformation Plan
The initial set of Initiatives that give you line of sight to the Transformation Outcome and includes an indicative budget, along with how much value this will generate for the business.
Step 5: Initiation
The first part is gaining formal approval for the transformation business case. Once approved you can move to set-up, which involves filling all the transformation roles, setting up governance, and most importantly setting up outcome tracking (metrics).
It will be tempting to try and gloss over design and get right into the busyness of delivery but the roots of transformation success will be laid in the design phase. If you cannot make the business case work in the design phase then you should not start your transformation.
Too many people start a transformation in the hope that their business case will magically be achieved. This rarely happens and is a good way to throw lots of money down the drain.
There are many consultancies that will have predetermined ideas on how to transform your organisation, but the real key to measurable and lasting value creation will be unique to your organisation.
A cookie cutter transformation is NEVER the best transformation for your company. You must own the design of your transformation. Starting off on the right foot is essential for transformation success, and we see so many companies skip this step and this always, repeat ALWAYS, comes back to bite them.
It can be a very expensive mistake to take design lightly, and an even more expensive step to take a cookie cutter approach. Your organisation is unique, your approach must be tailored to your context, environment and culture. This is the only way you can get your transformation off to a flying start.
Arif Harbott is co-founder of The HERO® Transformation Framework (www.herotransformation.com) – the step-by-step process to deliver transformations and large-scale change programs with the best chance of success. He is a CTO and leading transformation expert having delivered some of the world’s largest and most complex transformations.
