Why Transformation Consistently Misses The Mark
Has Transformation Left You Disappointed?
Are you frustrated waiting for the improvements in efficiency or effectiveness promised by the last project? Was the last ‘big idea’ not quite what it was cracked up to be? Is there a promise that the ‘next’ project will actually deliver results? Does it sound like you are being sold some sort of magic elixir?
Traditional Methods Don’t Work
One of the biggest derailers of transformation is making significant investments in time, money, and processes to ‘change’ while assuming the organizational structure can stay the same. We tend to focus on ‘eliminating’ the roles that have been automated and moving the remaining boxes on the organization chart (and the people with them) around. In some cases, consultants are engaged to ‘restructure’ using best practices and benchmarking how others in your industry structure themselves, with the intention of picking the best from the best. If you’ve experienced that, you know that:
This does not work.
It creates more chaos than you started with.
It feels like trading one set of silos and confusing matrix structures for another.
It Is Time To Think Differently
If you are tired of traditional transformation methods leaving you disappointed by failing to deliver results, it is time to take a closer look at your organizational structure and to rethink redesign.
1. Start With The Core
Driving real transformation (both business and digital) requires us to look at the very core of our business; the organization structure. Like transformation, we need to approach the business and the organizational structure in a completely new way. Grappling with whether to structure by geography, product, customer, function, or matrix are based on the last generation of thinking. By definition, companies invest in business and digital transformation to break all the rules so that you can leapfrog their competition. Your organization structure needs to support that.
2. Organize for Flexibility
To stay alive, the way companies operate must continue to evolve and shift as new technology, customer needs, and competition changes. Your organizational structure must be flexible enough so that you are not constantly struggling with why your structure is ‘getting in the way’ or how work gets done. Realizing the benefits of transformation requires structures to be adaptive to so that the organization can shift with investments in transformation.
LeaderShift Insights™ is an organizational design firm. In the past decade, we have learned a thing or two about:
- Aligning organizational structure to drive strategy
- Replacing unproductive internal competition with collaboration
- Developing adaptive leaders at all levels
- Eliminating hidden agendas that undermine structures that make sense
This experience and related insights are essential to designing adaptive structures. We design structure based on outcomes and results…with linkages that deliver customer experience and leverage the skills of your team.
3. Break the Organization Design Box
‘Thinking outside of the box’ is THE central theme in business and digital transformation. Our approach to organization design and restructuring starts with your strategy, not your current organizational chart. We do things WITH you, not TO you and together, we will uncover the critical business capabilities needed to deliver business objectives.
Delivering the capabilities to drive your strategy becomes part of our organizing principles. We create synergies around ‘like work’ (be it automated, human intelligence based, or beyond). Together we create an adaptive structure that will flex with the next inevitable waves of change and the required transformation to support it.
This approach is based on real experiences grounded in breakthrough research which includes:
- Running countless projects that resulted in sustained change
- Leading in jobs like you; in operations, HR, sales, and finance
- Implementing transformations that actually transformed the business
- Restructuring businesses from 500 to 20,000 people, and doing it in days not months
At LeaderShift Insights™ we help leaders and teams implement adaptive structures that enable them to thrive in the face of change. So your team can deliver more results with what they already have. Call us. It’s what we do!