business change

As soon as I arrived at the conference venue, I was welcomed by a lady in charge of VIP and speakers. She seemed happy to see me & asked me enthusiastically if I knew in which seminar room my talk would take place. “Yes. Seminar room 3 & it is tomorrow” I said. “Great! I am now taking you to the VIP/Speakers lounge so that you can eat or drink something,” she added. One part of me longed for breakfast in the lounge. The other half of mine responded: “Thank you. Actually I would like to directly go to the keynote area to listen to the keynote talk.”

At a party the other night, I got an earful about how much everyone hates Agile.  They violently hate it. They quit their jobs because of it. Get me another glass of wine, this party just got real.

It was one of those defining moments that occasionally punctuate our working lives. The realisation that what had been previously taken as an article of faith was, in fact, the cause of the problem. As this inconvenient truth dawned on the faces of the assembled transformation leaders, there was a perceptible shift of energy. Feelings of release, as well as fear pervaded the hotel conference room in which we were gathered.

We conducted a Q&A interview with Jess Tayel, Global Business and Digital Transformation Coach and Mentor, about business transformation, where it should sit within an organisation and the importance of value-add business transformation to an organisation. If you missed Part 1 and Part 2 you can view it here.

Business transformation is a challenging endeavour, we all know that. If it isn’t, then you’re probably not transforming. Engaging people early on and setting expectations is really important, as I once said out of a bit of desperation, ‘the transformation fairy isn’t going to just turn up and magic this all into place you know’

I recently recorded a podcast about all things Business Transformation. We talked about the difference between Agile and Waterfall, Scrum and Prince 2, Leadership and Management. It was a whistle-stop tour of my thoughts and reflections on change and transformation. One of the central concepts I offered was that Digital Transformation is first and foremost about people, not just technology.

Last week I asked I shared:

"Change is natural and in nature all living entities change or transform naturally without resisting or questioning. Life happens, and what happens is something called change. Some changes are the result of biology and the passage of time, within the natural cycle or order of things. Nature can change all by herself without the hand of man. If change is a natural event why is change so difficult for humans?"

In today's current environment, uncertainty is the only thing that is certain for us and we have no road map of how to deal with it...

So how can businesses and people survive this dramatic time of uncertainty, change and upheaval?

Being excellent at turning ideas for change into the outcomes we want - and at market-speed - is core to every enterprise’s choices, changes and results. 

Change Portfolios must be goals-driven, dynamic, extroverted and efficient. Traditional portfolios - initiatives-driven, static, and often introspective - are becoming constraints on enterprise performance.  It’s time to innovate, transform, and build on the platform they created.

Regardless of how many organisations espouse a core value of integrity (e.g. Accenture, Adidas, Alibaba, Amex, Coke, Huawei and Tencent etc.) cases of individuals and organisations breaching common ethical standards continue unabated (Volkswagen and diesel emissions, DJI and supply chain fraud, Changchun Changsheng Biotechnology and rabies vaccine quality or Renault-Nissan and Carlos Ghoson’s alleged financial misconduct ). Organisations, rightly, are seen as serving the societies in which they sit and breaches of trust consequently are devastating – destroying significant brand value.