Why transformation flies or dies

Written by Kate Hodsdon, in conversation with Ketan Patel.

 

Ketan Patel has spent twenty-five years leading technology at board level within the consumer and private equity verticals, from luxury retailers through to global FTSE PLCs such as Sainsburys and Marks and Spencer. With a successful track-record in both leading commercial teams along technology organisations and expediting technology-enabled change within fast-paced, dynamic, and complex landscapes, Ketan has the insight and experience in why transformation either flies, or dies.

 

Innovation is messy because it involves people

 

The creation of an innovation culture is hard, not because the strategy itself is necessarily complex, but because of our human relationship to change, and what it brings on a personal level.

 

When we look at evolution, humans are wired to be creative and out-reaching which enables us to connect with others, and grow together. This I see as a non-prescriptive change: it's intrinsic, mission rich, and grown from a personal vision.

 

Of course, some of the factors behind these stem from external drivers, like family. culture, religion, the media, and so forth. They bring with them a moral obligation with personal repercussions. Fundamentally we've learnt from studies that these are tribal, and link to an implicit fear of rejection from our tribe. When we're faced with the dilemma of living up to these expectations, by morphing who we are into someone that we intuitively know we are not, we have a choice about whether we embark on that journey, or stay as we are.

 

This level of autonomy and personal choice is rarely the case at work. When you're part of a corporate entity, choosing to change is often out of your control. Primarily adaptation and change are driven by innovation of some kind.

 

I want change but don't make me change anything

 

What I've seen as a CIO leading change and transformation, is that they often stir up a deep fear in people which is tied to our human need for belonging and security.

 

There are always challenges around staff adopting change at the pace that we need them to. A common theme I've seen is that people react in three ways: they either opt to stay as they are and resent change, withdraw but follow begrudgingly, or grow through transformation.

 

This is a cultural pattern with an impact that all leaders must be aware of from the start. and keep an eye on when innovating.

 

In my experience, every organisation undergoing change will meet friction, miss deadlines, expect twists and turns halfway through, or see their innovation goals flunk completely, which comes down to one overarching fail: a lack of clarity and direction in how the mission, vision, and purpose of transformation is communicated.

 

Getting these to resonate with every single person in an organisation is one of the toughest challenges for leaders today.

 

It's why I like to compare transformation to rowing a boat. You've got to get from A to B as smoothly as possible, or you sink. This analogy is perhaps too simplistic for some, but it's an example I've found everyone can grasp when considering any kind of change in direction implicit in innovation.

 

The coxswain who leads the team faces forwards as a focal point so that everyone moves their bodies to rhythm and rows in unison. But before they begin to move, the coxswain has to be crystal clear about where they need to row, how they should best position themselves, and assess who's best as the front row, and who's best as the rear row.

 

This is meticulously planned in advance, a fundamental investment upfront, so the team knows who's doing what, who's leading who, why that's the best plan, and critically, where they need to get to in the first place. It might sound rudimentary when we talk about the complexity of business transformation but innovation fails to engage when the mission, vision and purpose of a new direction is not clarified in basic terms everyone can grasp.

 

Without an end goal that feels tangible and relevant communicated from the top down, achieving one unified mindset, one clear direction and one consistent speed of change will ultimately fail - because this is the central people piece, it's always the most complicated for leaders to get right. During any point of the journey to the end goal it is imperative the whole team can see behind them and ahead and remain convinced it's the right journey.

 

When leaders first ask which one major challenge their people face day to day - and then openly listen to what is said - transformation starts on the right foot, and reduces the risk of an unnecessary fail.

 

Why CEOS must be great storytellers

 

Simon Sinek's TED Talk Start with Why is something that resonated with me since I first watched it, back in 2014. Sinek's ""golden circle" has become a golden rule in branding and communications, and has reached over sixty-million views on YouTube alone. Yet I rarely find it is known about by transformation leaders.

 

In his talk, Sinek explains that people don't buy what you do, but rather, why you do it. To me, his explanation of this is flawless: start by explaining why you're doing something. Then how you'll be doing it, and only then. go into what this means in reality. In it, he compares the way Apple positioned selling computers, to the way Dell did. It's well worth a watch.

 

This is why I believe great CEOs must be great storytellers; especially when pitching buy-in for transformation.

 

In the simplest terms. CEOs need to outline what they are trying to achieve; why they want to achieve that specifically: what the results are going to be; and how this ultimately serves everyone's needs, including clients, staff, and shareholders, if relevant.

 

However, what I've come to appreciate with innovation is that only spelling out what the positives are, doesn't necessarily win people over. Acknowledging what some of the growing pains might be along the way, and the impact these could have, offers reassurance and nurtures trust in the process and helps the teams actively seek solutions to the humps in the road they are likely to encounter.

 

Obviously, you can't please everyone all of the time. Yet when I see CEOs tailoring their story so it is relatable to their teams, it creates a sense of unity in the vision. It's this unity that can make or break an innovation's success.

 

When the "why" is believed, the most important part of the innovation journey takes root: shepherding people through the inevitable anxiety and discomfort that change can evoke.

 

Only when genuine care steers transformation can the potential positives be felt. If evolving and innovating to keep a business alive and growing amidst market disruption offers longer-term job security, then leaders must explain this with kindness and patience to those who at first might not be able to see the wood for the trees.

 

One team. One direction. One objective.

 

When thinking about the delivery of their vision, leaders do best when silos are removed. Transformation involves technology but if it's only perceived by people as an IT project, an immediate disconnect will appear for those who don't understand, or have much time, for technology.

 

Successful transformation should have one budget, one team, and one hierarchy. When there's a gluey harmony of shared buy-in. so divisions that often come with a change agenda are greatly reduced.

 

Goals for each business unit must be clear. What those goals are, and the milestones to meet them are then fairly easy to agree. From here. project roles are identified, and the right tools resourced, and the necessary skillsets allocated so the transformation's focus is understood and accepted by all involved.

 

Without these, I see project politics fester time and time again, as people try to protect their personal agenda, team resources, and budgets - which ultimately focuses their minds in the wrong place.

 

When this cultural toxicity bubbles up. transformation stagnates as people lose sight of what they were trying to achieve at the outset.

 

No matter how good a leader you are, when you end up managing the project, rather than managing the outcome, you'll be straddling two very different camps. The result is a cultural disconnect that leads to chaotic working, self-preservation, and silos.

There is no change without behavioural change

 

Managing the potential conflict of behavioural change is less a science or process, and more an art that transformation leaders must cultivate. Success here doesn't come from merely analysing data, giving innovation a massive budget, or bringing in a market leading CTO. It comes from a leader's willingness to learn why humans behave as they do, which requires empathy more than anything.

 

Any CEO can give a shiny sell about ""our great new future" at a company conference, but that is not enough if it sounds like a personal quest.

 

When leaders don't start by seeking first to listen to, and then acknowledge, the challenges their people face, and then commit to supporting and serving their needs, it'll be lonely at the top when no one buys into their vision.

 

The bigger the organisation, the likelier it is that this disconnect will eventually arise.

 

Successful transformation is when inspiration and operation are in sync

 

Actual operational needs must be first and foremost on a transformation agenda. Otherwise, why bother?

 

It is so easy for leadership teams to sit in board meetings and look at the competition. or market trends, and project what they can do to keep shareholders or investors happy. This is lethal and why innovation so often fails. It's the wrong starting point.

 

Leaders have to start with a tangible ""why"" when considering outcomes that offer measurable value. Again, I might sound like I am stating the obvious here, but personal opinions based on uneducated assumptions are disastrous to transformation. Asking ""stupid" questions at the outset are fundamental to any system change (and in my experience, there's no such thing as a "stupid" question).

 

Whether this approach is called agile working or design thinking is irrelevant. The principles behind both are essential for leaders to understand and respect.

 

This is why people working in UX, digital transformation, cultural change, or systems engineering almost always have one thing in common: they do not just accept a vision or an idea. They are critical thinkers who value iterative feedback loops that either prove a hypothesis has ground or not. Working this way creates open-thinking because it isn't driven by ego or stubborn attachment. It is rooted in first principles and a respect for testing and learning that's quintessential to innovation.

 

Now, some leaders might argue against this and refer to Henry Ford's famous quote: "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses" and not his then bizarre idea of a car replacing horses as the future of transportation.

 

To that I'd say, you're talking about an outlier, who is not your average corporate CEO.

 

Henry Ford had been tinkering with mechanics as a child, and trained in engineering before he began thinking about what a replacement for horses could be. He built, iterated. redesigned and rebuilt, what became the first car over a six six-year period. But he didn't even build a car at first, he spent years designing and building a prototype that was its predecessor - the quadricycle.

 

Even when the first quadricycle was finished. he hadn't got the measurements right, so had to hack off parts of each side to get it out of his garage in Detroit and test it on the road. Then when he did, people thought he was barking mad!

 

That being said, what he did have, and transformation still needs today, is a vision that ties to a real-world need.

 

That vision, little by little. needs to be tested in small, component parts, so that one by one they each add up to something that works and carries value. Whether big or small, an innovative idea is only successful when the innovation itself works.

 

It took time for people to trust in Ford's innovation. For a long time, he was seen as rather odd by those around him. Culturally, he didn't have the smoothest path to adoption.

 

It reminds me of self-driving cars today - there's potential there - but we're far from having a car that people trust, has a viable path to market. Still the idea carries weight and is a start even if it has years of iteration. testing, and pivots ahead. The investment will only succeed when we can buy into its actual value and earns enough trust for us to shift our deeply ingrained notions about driving.

 

Internal mission versus external observation

 

When leaders have been in an organisation for many years, and grown within it, they're likely to have a somewhat biased view of the business.

 

This is where having an external perspective that is non-emotional and impartial helps bring an objectivity to leaders contemplating transformation, but who are not exactly sure where to start. Interim experts are often invaluable at this stage.

 

A board must have a degree of humility and openness for this to work, but do well when they start such conversations early on. Walking through the vision, mission, and purpose with an honest, outside assessment of the pros and cons might kill an initial idea dead. Nonetheless, if they save money, internal disruption, and reputational damage in the market, to me this is not a fail, it's a learning curve that can pave the way to future success. Rejecting ungrounded idealisation is crucial to innovation.

 

Having an external expert team who are skilled in challenging or validating the thinking behind the direction of a transformation makes business sense on every level, only if the board is prepared to listen and shift focus.

 

It might be their vision is too bold to reach in one leap. There might not be the budget, resourcing. or time to do everything required. However, what change experts are brilliant at doing is interpreting a big vision and breaking it down into smaller parts, which little by little can meet those goals, and lowers risk along the way.

 

As a PLC or firm that's raised millions in investment, at some point, they'll want an ROI. If growth for growth's sake is left to run wild, as we see so often in tech, it can ruin a company.

 

On the other hand, when growth-driven innovation is founded on objective goals that make commercial sense, that's where transformation has the potential to truly transform an organisation.

 

Getting comfortable with discomfort

 

Success in transformation demands a razor sharp focus on what that end goal is, whilst appreciating that in the end it may need to pivot. This is where CEO's and tech leaders often clash.

 

We live in a dynamic world that is ever- changing. Think about Covid. Did anyone foresee just how it would forever change the way we work? No. If they had, they'd be richer than Bezos, Musk, Gates and Zuckerberg put together.

 

Embracing the agile way of working fundamental to transformation brings both a pressure and ease on businesses today. If leaders can accept that only 70 or 80 percent of their vision is probably reachable over a three-, four-, or even five five-year stretch, then forecasts, timelines, product quality, and launch plans will be ready to ride the storm and jump over the bumps of a world in flux.

 

When the messiness of innovation becomes the norm

 

This requires a resilience in leadership and a means of giving your people a chance to embrace new ways of working. Did anyone use Zoom much pre-Covid? International teams maybe, but it wasn't part of day-to- day life for most of us. Had anyone heard of Whereby except freelancers and start-ups who couldn't afford a Teams or Zoom for business account? Probably not, but they sure have now.

 

Whilst the disruption that massive, often heart-breaking global changes like Covid brought, when you're open-minded, caring, and take hold of the reigns as a leader, you can show your people how to ride the sea of change.

 

You might get a headwind during troubled times - if you were Zoom, Monday.com. Slack or Miro, then the overnight move to home working resulted in a boom in demand. Or your business might have got a sidewind by being able to recruit the type of talent previously unavailable because of the need a daily commute demanded. If you did get hit by a downwind, it might have forced a slow-down in growth that proved more suited to longer- term survival.

 

However, where the huge blow that Covid brought economically to those who fell between the cracks, we can only hope that governments learn to be more agile in their policy making, and innovative in their responses. Only by learning from past failings will there be smarter decisions in the future.

 

Where culture wins and innovation is slim
 

No can ever be sure they'll win, all of the time.

 

Sensible innovation investing often takes the shape of spread betting, which those in funds and private equity take as a given when building their portfolios. Not every investment can back a wild card, because risk needs to be mitigated, so that the overall fund sees a return. Sometimes the best investments are low on innovation but sit safely in a market where consumer behaviour and everyday culture just doesn't shift that much- such as Warren Buffet investing in chewing gum during the 2008 global crash, which became a mega-merger in the confectionary industry.

 

Why did he do that? As a boy. Buffet started selling Wrigley's door to door, and did better than most kids with the pocket money he earned. When asked by CNBC why he bought a 10% share of Mars so they could then buy Wrigley's, he said: "I've been conducting a 70-year taste test since I was about 7-years- old on the products... and they met the 70-year taste test."

 

One last thing...

 

Innovation, investment, and transformation unite over one thing: listen to people, watch what they do, and watch what they don't do. Use both your intuition and the reality of data to move into the space where you see growth as an opportunity that either aligns with, or moves with, culture.