Transformation programmes often start with lofty goals.
- Aim to be more customer-focused.
- Accelerate processes.
- Shift to a product-led approach.
- Implement AI at scale.
- Simplify organisational structures.
- Enhance innovation.
Once underway, new roles are created, training is conducted, governance frameworks are established, tools are rolled out, and teams are reorganised.
Initially, momentum is evident.
However, as the transformation confronts the operating model, funding remains based on old processes, decision rights stay the same, and performance metrics favour local optimisation.
Teams rely on structures suited for a different working style. Leaders call for new behaviours, but the organisation continues to reinforce old habits.
At this stage, transformation shifts from a change issue to an operating issue:
- How should decisions be made?
- How should priorities translate into work?
- Who is accountable?
- How should funding and capacity adapt to changing priorities?
- What organisational changes are necessary?
- Which structures are still useful and which hinder progress?
These questions are less glamorous than initiating a transformation but are where the real effort is needed.
Effective transformation involves more than changing behaviour; it involves altering the conditions that influence behaviour. Therefore, I see transformation as linking strategic intent with effective execution. If the strategy shifts but the organisation remains the same, the transformation is incomplete.
The same applies when teams start new practices but decision-making remains unchanged, or when leaders seek outcomes but governance rewards milestones.
The operating model is where ambition meets reality.
Sometimes the key transformation question isn’t:
How do we get people to adopt change?
But:
What organisational changes are needed for the new way to truly work?