Why Transformation Fails
If the aim of enterprise transformation is to reshape the organization into something fundamentally different by the end, then it’s critical to understand how things got to their current state. One major factor is company culture.
Some of the more obvious areas to transform could be technology or digitization of business or even how the organization is structured. But how many times have companies reorganized only to find that the systemic issues are still there? According to McKinsey, around 70% of transformation efforts fail—often due to cultural resistance and unchanged behaviors. Without shifting the underlying culture, it can feel like putting the enterprise into a blender—everything moves, but nothing truly changes.? You need to look at changing not only the structure of the company but also the culture, the habits, the paradigms that exist that perpetuate the underlying needs for transformation.
The Cultural Drag
You can take all the paper processes in the company and replace them with the perfect digital platform and show some incremental success, but if you’re not changing how the company collaborates, solves problems, defines accountability, and demonstrates authentic leadership, then the transformation remains superficial—modern on the outside but unchanged at its core.
Company culture can be an invisible anchor, slowing every aspect of the transformation—which in turn raises the cost exponentially. So while you define success criteria for the initiatives of the program and commit to value delivery targets, include steps to adapt the company culture—the thinking-way—and find ways to be intentional about moving forward in a way that models the behavior your organization needs to reduce friction and change for the better.
Modeling Change from the Top
There is not going to be a formula for this because every company is different. It begins with ensuring the executive leadership team is willing to be painfully obvious and take bold, unfamiliar steps to lead the way. Identify what the cultural behaviors your organization should be as a target, internalize them yourselves, model them, and make very clear to the organization that the new normal is here. There will be friction and pushback, but the more you push through with tenacity, the more you will begin to see a shift.
If you can begin to operate and emulate the new behaviors while you’re transforming, your organization will see how to solve problems and achieve results in the new way of working.
Unfurling the Sails
Don’t let the invisible anchor of company culture sabotage your transformation or slow your value delivery—unfurl the sails of culture change and chart a bold new course. It’s time to hoist up the anchor and set sail.
Michael Light 