Evaluating Organizational Transformation Readiness for a Future in Innovation

Organizational transformation is the process of—you guessed it—transforming your existing corporate culture to achieve a competitive advantage. In terms of innovation, it can produce sudden and noteworthy changes to the way you do business and how consumers experience those changes.

It sounds like an incredible idea, right? Because it is! And we'll tell you why in a moment. But first, understand that it won't happen overnight, and it’s important to understand if your company is even ready for such a significant change of direction. It would be convenient if there were a checklist for evaluating organizational transformation. If only somebody had one put together that was easily accessible.

Stay tuned.

Why Does My Company Need It?

Your company needs organizational transformation for many reasons. Plain and simple. "Like what?" you ask. For starters:

1. To succeed and grow.
2. To maintain (or recapture) a competitive advantage.
3. Keep up with the ever-changing market.
4. Save time and resources.
5. Increase productivity.
6. Employer branding.
7. Continue attracting great talent.
8.  Do you need us to keep going?

Trends are changing. Technologies are changing. The economy is changing. And whether you realize it or not, your company is changing, but if it's for the better will be entirely up to you. So move forward or keep sliding backward.

When you decide to move forward, follow these five steps to determine your company's readiness for the transformation.

5 Steps to Evaluating Organizational Transformation Readiness Effectively

Get prepared, make sure your team is ready.. Evaluating your company's organizational transformation readiness doesn't have to be complicated. Just follow the steps below.

1.   Define Your Goals

As you know, it's essential for your company to identify the vision, objectives, and goals for making the transformation—and the challenges you could face. If you don’t have a target, you’ll be left blowing in the wind and completely lost. Also, it means failure.

To determine what exactly your company is hoping to gain out of this, ask questions. Here are some to get you started:

• What are our hopes for the future?
• How will this impact our business?
• Is our focus on productivity? Growth? A competitive advantage?

Framing a clear vision helps everyone in the organization understand what's going on and why. In fact, according to BCG, "The rate of transformation success rises by more than 80% if a clear purpose is defined." This is the most critical step to readiness. That's why it's first!

2.   Make a Plan

You are most certainly not ready for an organizational transformation if there isn’t a clearly defined, reasonable plan. Changes and challenges on such a large scale aren’t implemented successfully by going in blind. While that would be impressive, it’s better to play it safe with this step.

We can't make a plan for you since we aren't your company, but here are some guidelines to keep in mind.

• Start with the end goal in mind.
• Consider working backward.
• Keep everything on a detailed timeline.
• Prioritize phases.
• Be realistic.

The more effort your company puts into devising a detailed plan, the easier the process will be. It should act as step-by-step instructions from beginning to end.

3.   Set a Budget

Determine and do your best to stick with a pre-set budget before starting the transformation. Many expenses need to be considered, such as new technologies, new tools, employee training, and the emergency fund for surprise interruptions.

Shit happens. We get it. And going over budget isn't uncommon in business, but if your company can avoid it, then, by all means, take advantage of such a blessing. Sometimes leaders downplay the possibilities and amounts of going over budget. So save yourself the stress and crunch those numbers.

4.   Communicate Effectively

Defining your goals and letting everyone know what they are is a good start, but it needs to expand beyond that. All employees, stakeholders, executives—everyone needs to be constantly updated and aware of all the changes rolling out. Since an organizational transformation can’t happen all at once (although that would be cool to see), it means it’s going to happen in stages over an extended period. To prepare everyone, they should be aware of the plan. Not only do employees need to be aware, but they also need to be convinced.  A company continually reorganizing will have unmotivated employees, and we know how that ends up.

Let’s imagine a scenario where your company is not communicating effectively while on the brink of transformation. It won't take long. Half your employees are in the dark about when the change will begin. The C-suite isn't on the same page, so one leader is directing everyone left while another is going right, nobody knows what the hell is going on, and boom. Everyone’s confused, including you, and you’re stuck pushing back execution dates even further.

That would be bad. But it’s easily avoidable. Just keep giving everyone the inside scoop.

Oh, and it also gives everyone the chance to submit feedback—a keystone of successful innovation.

5.   Designate Champions

You must identify champions from your organization who will support the transformation process. They’re typically members of the leadership team, which makes sense. As leaders, you have a powerful influence on how the rest of the teams will react to the transformation.

Be the innovative leader that creates a ripple effect of:

• Positive attitudes
• Efficient processes adoption
• New technologies adoption
• Openness and honesty

and create a lasting cultural change that your organization will thrive from. Innovation, transformation, adaptation—all key ingredients.

Technology and innovation aren’t the future anymore. They’re the present. Large organizations everywhere are not acting fast enough to adapt to today’s market and are feeling the effects hard. An organizational transformation, when done correctly, can impact your business for the better and ensure a long, bright future of success, growth, and sustainability.

rready for Transformation