Transform or Die: Can Companies Make Their Reinvention Work?

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in a time of rapidly accelerating change.

Most CEOs are noticing – and many are quite concerned.

Globally, 95% of CEOs are planning to maintain or accelerate their transformational change this year. And in the past 6 months, the number of CEOs accelerating their plans has tripled.

 Why?

Almost half believe their companies won’t be viable in 10 years if they don’t do something.

 It makes sense. If everything is changing, companies have to change too. So, “transformation” is the theme of the year… but will it work?

Just over half of companies who embark on a transformation journey achieve most or all their goals. However, only 12 percent say they have sustained their results for more than 3 years. So, where does that put them after 10 years?

If they can make their transformation stick, it’s worth it. The companies that make it work report twice the rate of financial growth as their peers.

In other words, companies need to change how they change – or they might just get left behind.

I get it. It’s not that easy. In fact, it’s a bit of a Goldilocks situation. 

Some companies overcomplicate their transformation and get lost in the complexity of the strategy. Other companies try to please everyone and end up moving too slow or losing sight of their goals.

This is why we use Red Thread Leadership™ at Executive Leadership Consulting to create synergy with both business strategy and organizational culture. If you want to transform, you have to transform both – together.

How? We call it the 5Ps.

Purpose

As Simon Sinek said, “Start with WHY!” The first step is defining your purpose – why you are transforming, how you want to transform, and what results you want to achieve (and sustain).

Plan 

The next step is to build your plan.

• What’s our Vision?
• What’s our Strategy?
• What goals do we want to achieve and when?
• How will we know we’re successful?

Process

This is where most changes and transformations fall apart. It’s not just about having a process to implement the changes in the business. It’s about making changes to the culture too.

• How will we communicate? To whom and how often?
• How will decisions be made? How will we handle conflict?
• How will we manage risk? What if we need to pivot?
• Will our values change? How will we know? What’s the process to change them if we need to?

Positions

From the beginning, determine who needs to be involved and who is responsible for what.

• At what point in the process do we need to bring in different stakeholders?
• What’s their role?
• How will we ensure accountability?

Passion

Being engaged in the work is one thing. Being passionate about it? That’s what makes all the difference.

When your team is passionate about the Purpose and the Vision and their role in it, and they trust each other, they can overcome any obstacle along the way. This is where culture can fuel exponential results.

By following these 5 simple steps in Red Thread Leadership™, we can create sustainable results integrating strategy and culture, so it's built not only to adapt to change as it continues to accelerate, but in some cases, to lead the change.