Over the years, and especially due to the Covid-19 pandemic, business transformation has become a necessity for organisations in order to keep pace with the evolving workplace and the changing environment.
Transformation is never a smooth sailing journey. A recent study shows that over 70% of large-scale transformations fail, and transformation risk continues to be a top concern for most CEOs. It is important to structure the transformation plan, identify the desired future that you want, and prepare for ongoing change management to support the transformation journey. It has to be well planned.
There are two sides of transformation – the technical side or business side, and the people side. As an organisation, you need to transform the business side of the equation in order to remain relevant in the industry or market place. The business side sets the context like the vision and mission – what and why you want to transform. This side of the equation needs to be supported by the people within the organisation. It addresses the how to do it and whether it is ecological (side effects) and a self-sustaining journey.
Our approach is very much self-paced. Self-paced means we empower your leaders and teams with the knowledge and tools to create a culture that supports transformation and ultimately future growth and success. Hence, we offer 4 workshop modules and we can support with hand holding consulting like a buddy to your organisation.
The 4 workshop modules:
Structuring a transformation plan
Organisational readiness - building a peak performance organisation
People readiness – mind management
People readiness – thinking capability
The first workshop helps you to structure your transformation plan from the Current State to a Future State. The approach uses meta-coaching on “what do you want”, the Well Formed Outcome tool, and the SCORE model. The data of the current state will be validated and calibrated at the workshop. Once the team is clear on the Future State, the next step is to address the intervention levers. This will be done using the “Scenario Based Approach” and “Backward Imaging”.
The second workshop is on “Organisational Readiness - building a peak performance organisation”. It also addresses the two states – Current State and Future State but in the context of organisational readiness. There are three components in both the Current State and Future State that will be discussed in the workshop – Process, Technology, and People. For the Current State, we will address “what it is currently” and for the Future State, we address “what do you want to see, feel, and hear”.
The next step is to plan the support system for the transformation journey – how to bridge the two states. This is critical as the organisation will be in a dualarity mode – performing under the current business state and at the same time transforming to a future state. The people must continually see the future and being energised at the same time.
Communication is key especially on the clarity of the transformation steps and the trust in the leadership team. During the transformation journey, we need to be agile in the addressing the adaptive changes. Hence, the communication is important
The third workshop is on “People Readiness – Mind Management”. From experience, the biggest challenge in transformation is the people. We bring the knowledge from neuroscience, quantum physics, brain chemistry, and biology for the people to understand who they truly are and how to move forward in the transformation journey.
Mind management will address how your psychological mind is working, understand and manage your emotions and thoughts, and manage yourself to the future state of the organisation. We will address the three brains - the Human, the Chimp, and the Computer. The human brain has the desire to transform but the chimp brain is likely to hijack it. Hence, you need to know how to manage the chimp during the transformation journey.
The analogy is like the “Waze”. The GPS (human) gives you the instruction and at times when there is a conflict on which road to take, the driver (chimp) wins. There is only one of you except that you have two minds – the human mind and the chimp mind. It is similar to this joke. “I was in a cab the other day and the cab driver said ‘I love my job. I am my own boss. Nobody tells me what to do’. We then came to a junction and I told him ‘turn left.’”
The last workshop is on “People Readiness – Thinking Capability.” We need to have the thinking capability to address the intervention levers in a changing environment. For example, the driver of changing environment is speed of doing business - getting faster and faster. Those days the files used are delivered to your desk once a day. Today, it arrives digitally, instantly and round-the-clock on your smart devices. The other driver is complexity and we are bombarded with more and more of them. For example, mobile phones, airlines, etc that you can choose from are getting more complex. How do you to make the right choices?
The transformation journey is never easy, and people can get demoralised along the way. This is because your brain resources are taxed due to some underlying issues during the journey. When this happens, you may develop “brain fog” which WebMD defines it as a “term used for symptoms that can affect your ability to think.” The symptoms are confusion, irritability, inability to focus, tired, and being mentally exhausted.
In the last module, we will address the thinking approach using the Cynefin model. It addresses both the linear orderly environment and the non-linear systemic environment. You need different thinking skills for different environments. The module also covers critical thinking, creative thinking, and systems thinking.
Should the above approach be of interest to you, please contact Siti Maheran at maheran@abconsulting.asia Or Zammil at zammil@abconsulting.asia. The discussion would help us to customise the self-paced approach for your organisation.