When doing transformation, we need to establish the two states upfront – Current State and Desired (Future) State. In the current state, you are either on a burning platform state or in a normal healthy state. With the burning platform, you are probably living in a survival mode, whereas in the latter one, you are probably living in a creation mode. Living in a creation mode means you have the resources and the creative moments to make things happen.
For the desired state, we go through a visioning process of what do you want or where you want to be in the market. We triangulate the visioning process in three ways:
We start with the LAB approach, leveraging on the knowledge of the people in the organization. This is known as the “Expert Model”.
We carry out our own research based on the data from the organization and industry. We term this as the “Submarine” approach.
Then, we provide a helicopter view based on scenarios and what needs to be done. We term this as “Scenario Based” approach
In looking at the current state, we use the part of the SCORE model. SCORE stands for Symptoms, Causes, Outcomes, Resources, and Long-term Effects. Here, we address only the symptoms and causes. This will give us a feel when formulating the hypothesis on what we believe are not working in the organization.
For the desired state, we address the other parts of the SCORE model – the outcomes we are looking for, the resources required to support the transformation journey, and the long-term effect of the solutions on the business.
In the earlier article on transformation at the individual level, we said there are two parts of you – the mind and the body. The mind is purely energy and information. It operates under quantum physics. Here, there is no space and time dimensions, and everything is entangled. Hence, the mind can travel along the passage of time in the material world.
Unlike the mind, the body cannot travel. Hence, the body is always in the current state. The picture below shows what is happening when you are visioning the desired state. Your mind travels to the future, leaving your body in the current position. People will struggle with this because the body cannot feel that the desired future is real as there is no sensory based data coming to their body. Everything sounds fuzzy and not grounded.
For the desired state, we address the other parts of the SCORE model – the outcomes we are looking for, the resources required to support the transformation journey, and the long-term effect of the solutions on the business.
In the earlier article on transformation at the individual level, we said there are two parts of you – the mind and the body. The mind is purely energy and information. It operates under quantum physics. Here, there is no space and time dimensions, and everything is entangled. Hence, the mind can travel along the passage of time in the material world.
Unlike the mind, the body cannot travel. Hence, the body is always in the current state. The picture below shows what is happening when you are visioning the desired state. Your mind travels to the future, leaving your body in the current position. People will struggle with this because the body cannot feel that the desired future is real as there is no sensory based data coming to their body. Everything sounds fuzzy and not grounded.
Once we have the desired future state, we need to come back to the current state where the body is. This is done through “backward imaging” or “retrograde analysis” – we move from the desired state to the current state.
Many organizations do this the other way round; they extrapolate the future based on the past. You will end up in organic growth or major confusion while embarking on transformation.
In backward imaging, we need the people to imagine at the desired future state - what do customers say, hear, or feel about us? This is to give meaning to the people and to connect them emotionally as words relating to see, hear, and say are sensory based words. Retrograde analysis is similar to the technique used in a chess game – determining which moves or strategies need to be played leading up to the desired state.
Some consultants prefer to call the desired future state as the “True North”. It is just a label. What is key is to know how to determine the desired future state, and the intervention levers that you need to emphasise on during the transformation journey.
A transformation journey is systemic as it involves people, process, technology as well as supply chain players. It is complex; hence, the simple cause-and-effect approach may not work in a complex environment.