business transformation

In business and particularly in HR we talk about ‘fit’.  The right fit for the role, team fit, cultural fit, it’s all about fit and often as people we expect to fit in or try our best to so that we feel a sense of belonging.

Brené Brown talks repeatedly and more so in her latest book Braving The Wilderness about the differences between belonging and fitting in, and that if we ‘fit’ we lose some of our self, some of our authenticity, because to fit, we have to change who we are at the core.

Being agile and adaptive in today's age of ecosystems and accelerated change has seen a shift in what transformations of legacy organisations look like. Time to rethink what we mean, do and measure, when we talk business transformation.

Defining ' transformation' in relation to strategies and initiatives

I can't recall who said it, or where I heard it, but it has resonated with me for a while now, providing the inspiration for the first article in this series - "uncertainty is the only certainty in business". Never has this been more relevant than in today's world of rapid change, where organisations are continuously challenged to disrupt or be disrupted.

We’ve all seen films where Artificial Intelligence replaces humans on-mass – and much debate swirls around just how much of this could ever be a reality.

Meet Erica – perhaps the world’s most advanced, human-like robot yet. She demonstrates that we may not be too far away from silver-screen-like AI workers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaTfzYDZG8c

Complexity as the enemy is a popular catch cry.

So what creates complexity in organisations and should strategies that generate complexity be avoided?

Here’s a quick summary of what is typically described as making organisations more complex.

People; more staff, more staff locations, multiple lines of accountability and responsibility, role duplication, diversity of workforce, more relationships with third parties / business partners / vendors.

You may have seen my interview last year with Henley Business School, talking about how to succeed with corporate change, and the need for organisations to invest enough time upfront to ensure that people are involved in co-developing the solution, and that they can see benefits of the change along the way. This will give you the best chance of the transformation being sustainable.

Whilst your organisation has been successfully growing the business, are the controls and processes that were originally implemented, still fit for purpose?

The news feeds and press are rife with companies suffering from major challenges, potentially serious enough to put the organisation out of business, along with many smaller firms in their supply chains. The most recent sad demise of Carillion, being a prime example.

People say that these challenges can be traced back to one or two badly contracted or managed deals, at an aggressively competitive moment in time.