A recent survey of companies around the world has confirmed that the majority of corporate culture change and transformation initiatives don’t achieve their objectives. However, the companies that were successful in their transformational initiatives tended to do certain things well, whereas the organisations that weren’t successful tended to not do those things, or not do them well.
3% – 6% complete success
It’s been well recognised during the nineties and the naughties that the success rate of large scale organisational culture change and transformation projects is less than 40%. The recent survey involved over 1500 companies worldwide that had engaged in corporate transformation initiatives in the past 5 years. Only 6% reported complete success with their initiative, and 32% reported that their initiative was ‘mostly successful’. The remainder stated that their attempts to transform their organisations were ‘somewhat successful’ (33%) and varying degrees of ‘unsuccessful’ (29%).
Success was measured against improving the organisation’s performance using factors such as profitability, return on capital, market value and inventory reduction. The success rate was even less (3% ‘completely successful’ and 27% ‘mostly successful’) when measured against the success of the initiative at equipping the organisation for sustained, long term performance (organisational health using measures such as a positive shift in organisational culture, upgraded capabilities, closer relationship with customers or suppliers).
Success factor – mobilising and maintaining energy
Some of the findings of the survey were that:
• 55% of the top performers reported that they were completely or mostly successful at mobilising the energy of their people (compared to 30% of overall respondents) and
• 57% of the top performers reported that they were completely (5%) or mostly (52%) successful at sustaining that energy, compared to only 28% of total respondents.
• 64% of the companies that were less successful at effecting the transformation were also less successful at sustaining organisational energy during the transformation.
Which mechanisms were used to successfully mobilise personal and organisational energy?
The respondents whose transformation initiatives were ‘completely’ or ‘mostly’ successful applied the following elements significantly more than the unsuccessful respondents:
• offered an inspiring vision of the future
• integrated goals into budgeting, performance management and recruiting and other key processes such
• used compelling stories of transformation as their communication process
• acknowledged successful transformation activities on a regular basis , and publicly
• built new capabilities
• created new incentive systems
• established a team to implement and monitor the change process.
Other factors
They were also significantly more successful at the following activities compared to unsuccessful respondents:
• significantly raising the bar for future performance
• improving short term performance
• engaging people at all levels of the organisation, from front line to top management
• designing a clear, coordinated change process
• demonstrating substantial, observable changes
• building strong capabilities for delivering future high performance
• enabling the organisation to operate at a faster pace
• aligning people’s mind-sets and behaviours with transformation goals
• creating recognisable themes for channelling the various change initiatives into the thread of the transformation story
• ensuring that leadership capabiliy existed at all levels in the organisation.
Negative and positive emotions
As would be expected, negative emotions such as anxiety, confusion, frustration, fatigue and resistance were experienced to a greater extent by participants in the unsuccessful initiatives than by those in the successful initiatives.
On the other hand, positive emotions such as a sense of focus, enthusiasm, feeling of momentum, hope and confidence were experienced substantially more by participants in the successful initiatives.
Energy as a key factor
I was pleased to see that survey, as it focuses on some of the key factors that make corporate transformation initiatives successful. In particular, it highlights the importance of energy being raised, directed and maintained.
That might sound like ‘new age’ waffle, but it is, in fact, one of the most important factors for success in transformation initiatives. The energy may be difficult to define, but it is palpable when you walk into an organisation that’s doing it the right way. By raising energy in the organisation, the organisation can more readily change state to a much higher level of performance.
Have no doubt – high performance is a function of state of awareness. High states of performance produce phenomenal amounts of energy.
If done correctly (with less effort as opposed to massive effort) the process builds energy without burnout. Instead of depleting personal energy, it replenishes energy. Watch an athlete in a peak state of awareness and you’ll see a personal best performance, in ‘the zone’. The same thing happens in any sphere of human endeavour, including business.
The sad fact is that most companies miss the point and put a lid on that power. That lid costs the company a great deal of money – money that will never be seen because it remains as unfulfilled (or lost) potential.
A German pensioner caused havoc in the sewers of the northern German city of Kiel recently when he flushed nearly Aud$50,000 worth of deutschmarks down his toilet in the mistaken belief that the currency was worthless since the introduction of the Euro.
legal education generally does not include questioning skills, especially the skill of asking questions on non-technical issues, which form by far the majority of issues both in and out of legal practice.
