NO TIME FOR COMPLACENCY! NO ROOM FOR FROZEN PARADIGMS!

THE MANTRA FOR NEW AGE BUSINESS IS

“ BUILD BEYOND THE EXEMPLAR…REINVENT AT EACH STEP…

CONTINUOUSLY TRANSFORM …”

In the middle of a meeting with a few colleagues I caught myself saying, "Once we get through
this crazy period and things get back to normal..." Then it hit me. I had been saying
something like that for at least a year or two. As we scrambled to move into a strong market
leadership position we were initiating endless waves of changes and (we hoped) improvements
throughout the organization. I interrupted myself with the question, "Do we seem to be
consistently talking about change as if it's a temporary condition to be endured until
calmer times return?"

"Yeah, it's as if we're battening down the hatches and waiting out the storm."

"But," another colleague observed, "We've got to learn how to work in the driving rain and
high seas because things aren't going to slow down unless we scale back on our vision, goals,
and rate of growth."

"And that could be deadly in today's fast moving market."

"We'd be following and trying to keep up rather than leading and setting the pace."

The discussion went on to mark a turning point for many of us. We began to realize we needed
to accept that our frenzied pace of change was the new "normal." Then we had to do a
better job of helping others in our company understand why that was the case and become
energized by the exciting possibilities offered by the changes.

"The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating.
The paths to it are not found but made, and the activity of making them changes
both the maker and the destination."
— John Schaar, American sociologist

Some companies have a culture of relentless, almost compulsive, improvement. No matter how
good the company is, it should be doing better. It reminds me of a Smithsonian exhibit on
American ingenuity, "If We're So Good, Why Aren't We Better?"

By contrast, other companies are smugly stuck in the past. I remember one vice president
telling me that his company was doing everything right because "if there were a better way, we
would have found it, and we'd be doing it."
Top managers have an extremely important role to play in creating paradigmatic change.
They can take measures to make their companies' cultures much more change-friendly. By
encouraging showcases and experimentation, rather than rigid adherence to standard practices,
they can accelerate innovation.

Organizational culture tends to reflect the actions and attitudes of the leaders. By being
open-minded about the need to experiment with fundamentally new ways of doing business,
and by viewing small setbacks as learning and not failure, top managers can condition their
company's culture to respond positively to paradigmatic change.

A company's most important asset is a management team inclined to learn quickly by

thinking and doing, embedded in an open-minded culture. In the long run, this is the best
way for insightful top managers to ensure their companies' success.

“Managers cope with change.

Leaders cause it - and make the competition change.”
– Prof. John Kotter, Harvard Business School
(Enabling Continuous Transformation)

Continuous Transformation is a type of change that is focused on increasing the

effectiveness and/or efficiency of an organization to fulfill its policies and objectives. It is not
limited to quality initiatives. Improvement in business strategy, business results, and customer,
employee, and supplier business relationships can be subject to continual improvement. Putting
it simply, it means getting better all the time'.

Continuous Transformation should focus on enablers such as leadership,

communication, resources, organization structure, people, and processes - in other
words, everything in the organization, in all functions at all levels. Continuous Transformation
should also lead to better results, such as, price, cost, productivity, time to market, delivery,
responsiveness, profit, and customer and employee satisfaction.

Gradual, incremental, or breakthrough?

Continuous Transformation is gradual never-ending change, whereas continual improvement is

incremental change. Both types of improvements are what the Japanese call Kaizen. In the
United States, Lean and Six Sigma improvement is common place. Breakthroughs are
improvements, but in one giant leap - a step change. However, the method of achievement is
the same, but breakthroughs tend to arise out of chance discoveries and could take years
before being made.

When should Continuous Transformation be started?

All managerial activity is directed either at control or at improvement. Managers are either
devoting their efforts at maintaining performance, preventing change, or creating change,
breakthrough, or improvement. If businesses stand still, they will lose their competitive edge, so
improvements must be made to keep pace and stay in business. Every system, program, or
project should provide for an improvement cycle. Therefore, when an objective has been
achieved, work should commence on identifying what is meeting the requirements of the
process, and what better ways of doing it.
Continuous Transformation is a cyclical process:
Q.1 Where do we stand now ?
- Determine current performance.
- Organize the diagnostic resources.
- Carry out research and analysis to discover the cause of current performance.
Q.2 Where do we intend to go ?
- Establish a need to improve.
- Obtain commitment and define the improvement objective.
Q.3 How do we get there ?
- Define and test solutions that will accomplish the improvement objective.
- Produce improvement plans which specify how and by whom the changes will be
implemented.
- Identify and overcome any resistance to the change.
- Implement the change.
Q.4 How do we know we have gotten there ?
-Put in place controls to hold new levels of performance, and repeat step one.
- There is no improvement without measurement. Assessments and measurements for
improvement.

What tools should be used?

The portfolio of tools used for continual improvement should be those which enable an
organization to execute the ten steps above. These can include:
• Ishikawa fishbone diagram to examine cause and effect
• Pareto analysis to identify the few influences on a situation which have the biggest impact
• Force field diagram to display the forces for and against change
• Low Hanging Fruit Analysis: Charting techniques to demonstrate the first steps to jumpstart the
process.

Continuous Transformation is far more than a set of techniques.

For many organizations, it involves a radical change in attitudes. The defense of the status quo,
and resistance to innovation, cannot be treated as normal management behavior. A fear of
reprisals for reporting problems has to be replaced by congratulating people for identifying an
opportunity to improve. Hoarding of good ideas within departmental walls must be a thing of the
past as people share their knowledge and experience in the search for greater collective
success. The target for transformation is the entire organization and everything it does.

Leading Change as a Core Leadership Competency :

"The rate of learning by individuals, teams, and the company as a whole must meet or
exceed the pace of change in the external environment." (Michelle Darling)
Given the level of competitiveness and the pace of change today, leading change has become a
core leadership competency, and the ability for organizations to learn, grow, adapt, and change
has become a core organizational capability.

Transformational leaders are able to identify the need for major organizational change,
and then get people involved in making the change happen. Using a variety of skills from
the other leadership approaches, they are able to lead & manage change initiatives of all sizes.
They are usually very good at selling their ideas, building powerful support networks, organizing
various experts around critical projects, and keeping them focused and energized until the
transformation is complete. These leaders know how to take action; get things done; initiate and
complete projects effectively; and deliver results. Transformational leaders make things happen.

"Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely."

Why transform? Some examples from the Industry …

There are several reasons why organisations change, evolve and transform. Transformation
could be induced by internal or external factors. Internal change may be driven by the need
to continuously improve performance, year after year, quarter after quarter. External changes
may be driven by competitors, changing business landscape, governmental regulations, global
factors, etc. For instance, the business model of Indian software giants like Infosys, TCS, Wipro,
et al, have undergone transformation in the nearly two-and-half decades that they have been in
existence. And as we approach the billion dollar mark, they are working to roll out a
transformation plans which will address the landscape of the twenty-first century.

Business transformation could be gradual or abrupt too. Take the example of Motorola that
started business in 1928 making battery eliminators for radios. These eliminators helped users
run radio’s directly using household electricity instead of a battery. During World War II the
company started making equipment for the military and by the fifties became a major player in
the micro-electronics’ business. The company has transformed and evolved in the nearly a
century that it has been in business with nearly 37 billion dollars in earnings today, employing
about 147,000 people across the globe. Though the core competence of the company remains
micro electronics and communications, the company has gradually transformed its line of
business.

In 2002, Fujio Cho, then president of Toyota Motor Corporation, kicked off a transformational
program called Global Vision 2010. On one level, it was a surprising move. At the time, Toyota
was not only Japan's No. 1 carmaker; it was the third largest manufacturer of automobiles in the
world and the top-selling foreign brand in the United States, with the most envied balance sheet
in the industry. Cho's reason for shaking things up when business was so strong? "Any
company not willing to take the risk of reinventing itself is doomed," he warned. "The
world today is changing much too fast"

Simply put, today's success is no guarantee of tomorrow's. Yet too many companies wait
too long to transform, doing so only when they are already facing big problems. In today's
punishing business environment, once the signs of trouble have become obvious, it is probably
too late.

I leave you with a quote from Charles Darwin, which is as applicable to businesses as it
was to nature. “It is not the strongest of the species who survive, not the most
intelligent, but those who are the most adaptive to change.”