Introduction
The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places…
— Plutarch, Theseus[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
The problem with the present
Not just the mighty Ship of Thesus, even the mightiest of organisations need to change their planks from time to time in order to stay relevant and competitive in this rapidly changing world.
Organisations quite often need to change their planks and put in new and stronger ones, not at the comforts of a shore like Thesus’ ship, but while sailing on high seas.
I’m NOT trying to convince why enterprise transformation is necessary. The case is well established. But for many, it is a “programme”, often known with different names – digital transformation programme, finance transformation programme, restructuring programme, reengineering programme, downsizing programme and so on. For others, it is also a programme with start and end dates, that can be outsourced to the lowest bidder of the RFP.
This isn’t new. If you are in the C-Suite or C-1 / C-2 (target group of this article), you must have come across this predicament before. Corporate history is littered with many examples. As this is not new, there are plenty of strategic management models to analyse current position and frame a desired state. There are also new age canvases like Business Model Canvas, Lean Canvas, Product Canvas etc. to define strategic position as well as deliver the outcomes associated with it. Delivery Frameworks / Methodologies (PMI, Prince2, Agile etc.) and tools (ERP, CRM tools, Portfolio delivery tools like Clarizen One, Planview, Primavera, Atlassian Jira etc.) are everywhere, promising “transformation nirvana”. Then there are infrastructure & integration service providers (HP, DELL, AWS, GCP, MS Azure, …) flashing the same along with plenty of Systems Integrators.
Though useful, the approach in all these is not “holistic”. Quite often, Strategy, Innovation, Organisational Design, Organisational Change & Delivery activities are treated as discrete and are addressed independently. Such thinking led to the proliferation of boutique innovation firms, pure-play strategy consulting firms, OD / OC experts dealing with predominantly people & communications side of change management etc. It is not the problem of these consultancies, their approaches or their business models, rather how these efforts come together contributing to your organisation’s transformation for the long-term is the problem I’m trying to address here.
It is that how part of that transformation.
My views on Enterprise Transformation
“Enterprise transformation” is not a transactional activity with a timeframe & budget; nor it is about “shuffling boxes or moving boxes around” in the organisational hierarchy. Also, it is not about strategy development or implementation of new CRM. Enterprise Transformation is not some mythical future state or a destination and once you achieve that state, you hope the sail would be smooth from then onwards, metaphorically speaking.
In the words of Lou Gerstner, the former CEO of IBM “Transformation means that you’re really fundamentally changing the way the organisation thinks, the way it responds, and the way it leads”. For me
Enterprise transformation is the way an organisation evolves in relation to its environment, both internal and external.
Kiran Goparaju
Every programme / project an organisation invests in is an opportunity for the enterprise transformation.
Organisations must realise that every endeavour, be it a small marketing programme or future-defining legacy replacement or routine customer service activity, is an opportunity to transform. Each of these activities / endeavours must address / eliminate any process or system or an impediment that obstructs progression to the “adjacent possible improvement (API)” – sensing when to change and then changing the planks must be continuous.
On one hand, enterprise transformation is a fundamental reboot that enables a business to achieve a dramatic, sustainable improvement in performance and alter the trajectory of its future; on the other, enterprise transformation comprises of multiple & simultaneous, big & small efforts to continuously change to the adjacent possible improvement. At first they seem quite opposite and contradictory – evolutionary biology tells us otherwise.
The need for an alternate approach
But, how do you go about in achieving that – empowering the organisation to constantly change and grow. Where do you start? How do you change the way you respond? How do you see the gap between concept to cash reduced? If there are too many old planks, what interventions you aim to make without sinking the ship?
We need a tools and practices that allow us to treat that process as a lifelong journey where the organisation has the strategic empowerment to constantly change and grow.
Continue to "Transformation Canvas"