The "Success Environment" for your Transformation

Change is hard. Changing is harder! Most transformation and change programs fail to deliver their set expectations (over 70% according to HBR). The top question is why? and how do we keep our change effort from failing? Well, as my father used to tell me, "if it starts wrong, it will more than likely end wrong". And after ignoring the advice for sometime I realized, he was right.

We know there is no recipe for implementing change. All companies are different. The culture, processes, the people, the circumstances to mention a few. So how do we know if we started the wrong way. Now let me share with you the next part of that conversation with my dad. As we were planting corn and beans that day, he continued, "Eric if we are planning to eat corn from our land, first we must have healthy corn seeds; and if we want them by harvest then we need to ensure the field is prepped, fertile and ready for planing. So we can't just go straight to planting and expect a good harvest." He also said, we are planting both, the corn and the beans at the same time, in the same field because they don't compete with each other and we get more from the land at harvest.

So how do we know if we started our transformation effort wrong? Here is are 4 base questions to reflect on with your team about your transformation:

1. Do you have clarity of why you want or need to change / transform? and Can you be specific about it? (we want to eat corn from our own land)
2. What needs to be done to ensure the change hits fertile ground? and that it has clear set of measurable success criteria (Are the seeds healthy?)
3. What is the change tolerance for the organization? Are there any competing initiatives that need to be reprioritized?
4. What are the cycles for which the change will be monitored, until the results are realized? Is there clarity of the expected results? and, How often it is needed to check pulse, throughout the cycles? (What are the seasons for preparing, planting, and harvesting, etc.?)

One thing to consider is that sometimes we have to stop in order to accelerate. Many companies unfortunately go straight to planting their solutions, roadmaps with details dates and expected work to be done, and fall short of "enabling" and building an environment for success.

Over the years we have been teaching our clients about prepping for the expected results; investing and incorporating the right amount of time and effort to understand what is needed to enable success and build a foundation for growth and learning.

What are you currently doing about preparing for success? In our next blog I will share additional details about how our approach has generated quick wins and positive change towards transformation.

Please share your comments, experiences and feedback. Thank you for been part of our Sendo family.