Accepting the Transformation Challenge
This week, our Associate Ms Lorretta Barbour continues with discussions on asking questions.
To our followers: Here are more questions to consider.
What if …? What if we were sold a myth? What if development is not continuous, stable and steady? Many of us still picture the growth in our organisations, our expertise and our own success as a sequence of successive steps each bringing us closer to the goal we set.
But what if this progression is a myth? Do we have an alternative strategy?
Transformation is not Change or Business as Usual
It makes us feel safe to think that we can devise a plan in which if we take a step every day we reach our final goal. A process whereby we can ease ourselves into a new market, a new structure or a new way of doing business in the same way we can gingerly walk into a swimming pool, adjusting to the cold as we go. Sometimes, however, we come to realise that what we need is to jump in. In these cases, we need to engage in a transformation and not a change programme.
So what is the difference between TRANSFORMATION and CHANGE? Comparing the processes more closely we see:
Transformation |
Change |
|
Purpose | Improved viability | Increased performance |
Key Characteristic | Discontinuity in fit, form and /or function resulting in a change in behaviour | Striving for cohesion and continuity whilst scaling capabilities and capacity |
Strategy | Decoupling from historical position to become more adaptive and responsive to new market | Leveraging existing position to strengthen market capitalisation |
Trigger | Sense that there is a better way of working or goal to pursue | Underutilised capacity, limited market penetration, or market cycles |
In short, change bears a resemblance to the rhythmical waxing and waning of a musical composition. Where it may be hard to detect the underlying cadence but it does exist and one-note links to the previous, creating a sense of continuous, stable and steady growth.
Whereas transformation asks us to question the fundamentals of our existence. Decoupling from our past to create a new pattern of being as happens when insects and other organisms experience a metamorphosis.
What do we learn from Metamorphosis?
Metamorphosis in nature is truly fascinating and far more varied than the transformation of egg to caterpillar to butterfly that we learned in school biology. Although I would love to share the story of animals like the European eel, sea urchin, frogs, butterflies and so many others I will rather just highlight a couple of common characteristics:
- There is a discontinuity in the development path. That means that the baby form of the organism does not look or carry the same active genes as the adult. This requires a little bit of explanation. The organism is capable of supporting multiple forms (ways of looking and being) within its genes. At some point or points within its life, it switches between these forms. This decoupling has increased its viability and resilience. At the discontinuity the animal changes how it looks – its FORM, how it grows and survives – its FUNCTION to adapt to a new environment or sub-environment (e.g. water to land for a frog), changing its FIT.
- There is a period of transition where things move around, new parts of the DNA are activated and behaviour changes. During this phase of transition it is clear that there is a stable core – the identity, and requirements for sustainable change; alternative development pathways or options which makes sense of an otherwise disparate state.
- The transition is set in motion by both an INTERNAL and an EXTERNAL trigger. So although we have often assumed that these are simply stages in life there is also a significant environmental trigger such as the earth’s changing magnetic field, days getting warmer or toxicity of water rising. Animals that undergo metamorphosis have been shown to watch for change more closely and also filter the signals zeroing on particular clues.
- All of this is tied together in a particular type of evolutionary survival STRATEGY.
What does this mean for Companies or Individuals?
Discontinuity
If we think about it the biggest WHAT IF…? this perspective is allowing us to disconnect from our past. We do not have to be who we have always been. This allows us to create a deep reflection on what was and what could be.
Our history still remains important because it has provided the building blocks for who we want to become but we are not committed to a single path. We get to recognise that we have a multitude of ways of being. For example, taking a gap year before committing to further study allows people to explore their passions and interests helping them make a better choice for their studies. It also helps to understand themselves better.
The BIG Question
If where we are going does not have to be where we came from then we get to consciously evaluate our FORM, FIT and FUNCTION. This means evaluating:
- What is important to us? Our VALUES
- How we think of ourselves and how we want others to think of us? Our IDENTITY
- Where we want to go? Our VISION
These are tied strongly to who we are now and so represent the CORE STABILITY we carry forward through the transformation.
From this platform we can ask ourselves – what behaviour needs to change:
- What do we want to do, and how does this create value? Our FUNCTION
- How would be best create that value? What structures and processes do we need? Our FORM
- What relationships and connections do we need to foster? How do we plan on interacting with our market or community? What roles will we play in our community? Our FIT
We are allowed to imagine a world full of possibility and options. Slowly zeroing on the options that make the most sense for us – given where we are at and where we are going we can start charting our transformation.
The Strategy
The transformation strategy becomes an adaptive and responsive series of exploratory choices. Trying, testing and moving forward along different pathways until we are able to create what makes the most sense for us and fits into our environment the best.
In explaining ourselves and getting others to join the transformation journey we can choose to:
- Create a transformation Imperative – where the critical need for transformation is stressed and everyone gets to understand that this is a matter of survival,
- Zero in on particular necessary adaptations. Focusing on reshaping what and how we do things around these new priorities,
- Extracting the core value we want to create the current way of doing things and enhancing or improving it to meet a new market,
- Continuing with our current practices but spending less and less time doing them, with more and more time and resources spent on the new ways – also known as cannibalising your own market or constricting your current business,
- Making a clean break and simply starting over, as new.
The way we choose through the transition becomes our strategy.
As transformation includes challenging and moving into an UNKNOWN world we have to recognise that it induces FEAR in us and others. Thus an important part of being able to mitigate that fear means creating PERSONAL AGENCY for all involved – that requires giving or finding choices and offering people control in how they navigate or act on those choices, increasing their autonomy.
What are the Triggers for Transformation?
Taking stock transformation asks us to make a major break in how we live and work, so why would we want to do this. Observing metamorphosis in nature gives us some clues. Showing us that triggers could be internal, related to the maturity of the organism or external related to the changes in nature. For me, an internal trigger is linked to a sense that there must be a better way or a sense of we could be more and transformation taps into this latent potential. External signs that there is a need for transformation could be “physical” – finding a better place to be or a new market or “chemical” finding a new way of working, defining new products and services that link better to the world you live in.