Business Transformation
If you want to thrive in today’s volatile and uncertain business environment, you need to transform your organization and reinvent yourself. But how do you do that successfully? According to a new McKinsey Global Survey on transformations, there are seven actions that can increase the odds of achieving and sustaining performance improvements and establishing a lasting competitive advantage.
The survey results, based on responses from transformation participants across the globe, suggest that four broad elements underlie transformation success: will, skill, rigor, and scope. Will is an ambitious, shared aspiration to reach the organization’s full potential. Skill is the capabilities and tools of the organization as a whole, as well as those of the individuals who make up the organization.
Rigor is the performance infrastructure of the transformation effort that enables the disciplined execution of individual initiatives and the sustainability of the effort’s overall impact. Scope is the range of outcomes that the transformation aims to improve, such as EBITDA, working capital and cash, customer experience, employee health and safety, or greenhouse-gas emissions.
The survey also identified seven specific actions that are most likely to increase the chances of a successful transformation. These are:
- Role modeling: Leaders demonstrate the desired mindsets and behaviors through their own actions and interactions.
- Moving quickly: The transformation team launches initiatives rapidly and delivers results in short cycles.
- Striving for holistic impact: The transformation team pursues value creation across multiple dimensions, not just financial performance.
- Communicating continuously: The transformation team communicates frequently and transparently with all stakeholders, using multiple channels and formats.
- Involving the front line: The transformation team engages frontline employees in designing and implementing initiatives, and empowers them to make decisions.
- Learning and adapting: The transformation team collects feedback, monitors progress, and adjusts plans and actions accordingly.
- Building capabilities: The transformation team develops the skills and knowledge of the organization and its people to sustain the change.
The survey found that transformations that implemented all seven actions were more than twice as likely to outperform their peers than those that implemented none or only one. Moreover, these transformations were more likely to create value across multiple dimensions, such as customer satisfaction, employee engagement, social responsibility, and innovation.
Faith at Work: The followers of Jesus can help organizations who are struggling with change. Transformation requires changing your mind and acting differently. That is what Christians know as repentance.
If you want to learn more about how to gain and sustain a competitive edge through transformation, you can read the full article here:
Digital Business
Good point: “Transformation requires changing your mind and acting differently. That is what Christians know as repentance.”