Why Starting with Yourself is the Secret to Achieving Lasting Organizational Transformation
Unlock the secret to sustainable organizational transformation with the “Conscious Transformation” approach. This method prioritizes personal growth and development, beginning with leaders, to foster a shift in organizational culture.
Organizational transformation can be a significant shift in an organization’s structure, processes, values, culture, and mindset. This change can have a profound impact on the organization and its stakeholders, but it can also be complex and challenging. According to McKinsey, 70% of transformations fail. I believe it is underestimated. One of the main reasons for this failure is the lack of attention given to step #8 in Kotter’s model for change management — anchoring the changes in the organizational culture. (1)
As an enterprise agile coach, I’ve seen firsthand the challenges of leading organizations through transformation. One example that stands out was a client, a huge product development organization, who decided to “go agile” and implement a well-known framework. The goal was to boost productivity, quality, and speed to market. When I asked why they wanted to “go agile”, the answer was “it is a central decision”. I should have understood already then.
I was on the ground, working as an agile coach and trying to figure out why we were facing resistance from middle management, top management, and leaders. Despite attending training courses, they simply did not understand the true essence of Agile and failed to change their mindsets and beliefs. And since they failed to change, they could not coach, mentor, challenge, and support the individuals in the organization to change, and obviously not the organization itself.
The problem was that our vision, the community of agile coaches’ vision, of Agile, was not shared by the leaders. They saw it as a process change and we had limited ability to help them grow and comprehend. They were too busy with their day-to-day responsibilities and lacked the time and courage to truly change the way they worked. They believed this was just a new process and organizational change.
To achieve success in an agile transformation, it is important to define the desired outcome clearly and understand the reasons for change. This requires a commitment from all managers and leaders within the organization, including taking the time to address cultural and leadership issues and being willing to make necessary changes.
Cultural change is a critical component of organizational transformation and starts with changing the way people think and behave, starting with the leaders. Leaders play a crucial role in the success of any organizational transformation, and it is important that they have a clear understanding of what they need to change and why. The transformation process requires a commitment from the leaders to invest in the cultural shift and to be fully on board with the desired outcomes.
We are working on an approach, Conscious Transformation, where we believe that change starts with the individual. By focusing on personal behaviors, ways of thinking, mindset, values, and principles; leaders, managers, change agents, and coaches can inspire others to begin their own transformation journey. With a bit of mentoring and coaching, the change spreads to the organizational level, leading to the creation of shared values and shared beliefs, ultimately resulting in a cultural transformation. By starting with the individual and fostering authenticity, lasting cultural change can be achieved, and the organization can transform to a higher level of consciousness.
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References and further reading
1. Kotter, John. Leading Change. 1996.
This article was orginally published at Medium, Jan 31, 2023
Last updated Dec 17, 2024