The entirety of human history is marked by evolution and growth. What began simply as the dawn of human civilization has revealed itself as perhaps the most glorious journey ever undertaken. The evolution of humans in every aspect has given meaning to not only the very idea of existence but has made life, in general, more meaningful and our interactions more purposeful. At every stage of human evolution, change has always been seen as something alien and unwanted and has almost always been resisted; however, in retrospect, it has been the very change that was initially resisted that has led to progress, growth, evolution and the birth of modern human civilization. Beyond any doubt, change is the only constant in life, and while this sounds applicable to individual lives alone, the constancy and inevitability of change apply to every single aspect of human interaction and existence; including businesses. The global economy has been one of the biggest things subjected to changes that have come at times with considerable benefits and at times major challenges and problems.
While the global economic fabric changes tremendously each year with consistent acceleration in growth and productivity, the organizational climate continues to become more and more vulnerable and volatile. Under such conditions, businesses have to do their utmost to remain stable and even profitable despite the constant exposure to risks threatening disruption and instability. Each day brings potential losses and profits for a business in the form of change but what determines if a business sinks or thrives under pressure is the organization’s ability to manage the changes, minimize the negative outcomes and maximize productivity. Considering our in-field experience and considerable knowledge of what works and what doesn’t for businesses in today’s turbulent economic climate, we offer tailor-made corporate solutions for your transformation vision. With meticulous care taken in identifying what the organization needs and the current operational shortcomings, we help you create a roadmap for your business that guarantees organic and sustainable success and helps you compete with industry incumbents. Having gathered substantial experience in helping businesses introduce and manage comprehensive and realistic corporate transformation models, we have identified the following ten failures, the occurrence of any one or combination of which can not only disrupt growth but can also entirely de-track the organization from any path to stability, profitability and sustainability.
1.Failure to establish a sense of urgency:
Over the past decades, theorists and experts on organizational change have gathered plethora of evidence on how organizational change can be efficiently incorporated. Many of these theorists including Kotter have been famous for mainstreaming the idea that no change can be effective or productive unless an overall sense of urgency is created. Creating a sense of urgency entails prioritizing transformation at each level of the hierarchy and in policy and practice so that all operations can be designed bearing in mind the concentrated goal of the envisioned transformation. Unless the organization completely ‘buys into’ the change the initiatives will be in disarray with no clear objectives and an overall failure to compete in the marketplace.
2. Failure to create a bold vision
One of the most important things when it comes to organizational transformation is clarity. Unless the desired goals are envisioned clearly, the activities designed in light of those goals will also reflect the ideological ambiguity and will help achieve no clear targets and will not be productive. While most companies focus more on the ‘harder’ execution based operations, we at Noman Husain acknowledge just how important ‘mapping out’ a vision for change is. By creating a bold vision only can organizations plan activities and initiatives that help pave the way for transformation.
3. Failure to create a guiding coalition
Whether it is project revival or organizational restructuring for growth, no sustainable change can be achieved without involving the stakeholders and making strong partnerships. A major reason why organizations fail to transform is that the change process, vision and activities remain confined to a select few in charge of ‘managing’ the change. Without forming strong coalitions inside and outside the organization concerned, no true concentrated change can be achieved. Understanding how important it is to form coalitions for pursuing change within the human and financial resource brackets at hand, we help you form guiding coalitions that put your business on the path to sustainable growth and success.
4. Failure to recognize resource needs
Often businesses struggle to either manage operations within the available resources or inefficiently manage the resources having to acquire more, later increasing the operational costs tremendously. This failure to recognize resource needs represents the utter lack of planning in the design phase of the operations. Recognizing resource needs accurately will ensure no disruption once the change has been introduced with each activity being performed within the budget range leading to productivity and cost-effectiveness. We help your organization identify your resource needs just right with neither any surpluses nor any shortages once the transformative process has been initiated.
5. Failure to communicate the vision
Sometimes organizations restrict and confine the change process and planning to specialists such as a learning and development specialist or change manager. This not only creates an overall top-down culture of communication, but it also rules out any innovation by restricting feedback and by turning a blind eye to ground realities. Once the change has been planned, it has to be communicated to each stakeholder so that all activities can be in line with the change and so that there is room for improvement and innovation through constant bottom-top dialogue and communication. Similar to the running of an engine, each part of the whole needs to pursue concentrated goals which can only be done when the vision is clearly communicated creating a sense of responsibility and ownership for the change.
6. Failure to stay focused to the vision
An inability in communicating the vision with the stakeholders and employees will eventually and inevitably lead to unclear goals and inefficient performance. The only way employees can stick to the vision is by ensuring free-flowing two-way communication adopting the essence of a learning organization where each employee has a stake in the project and ownership in the transformation process.
7.Failure to engage and mobilize people
At Noman Husain we believe that more important than any other asset is an organization’s human capital. Without mobilizing people with stakeholder engagement initiatives such as communication and feedback (through surveys, focus groups etc.), no true change can be pursued let alone achieved. Transformation is a tough process and long process which without the commitment from the employees is practically impossible. No stakeholder or employee will be willing to commit to a transformation process they’re unhappy or underwhelmed with or simply don’t believe in. ‘Softer’ issues such as engagement and mobilization require short-term sacrifices but are processes that determine the long-term success and survival of the change process.
8.Failure to create short-term wins
Structural transformation for an organization takes time and without creating short-term wins and celebrating them, the change process is bound to lose efficacy and commitment. With the costs being directed to change initiatives in the initial phases, net incomes and benefits tend to reduce leading to dissatisfaction among employees and lowering commitment to the change. In order to combat all that we help organizations actively create short-term wins for their organization that reflect the achievement of specific and clear goals, objectives and targets. These short-term wins not only help keep motivation levels up among stakeholders but also are effective tools for regular monitoring and evaluation of project activities and employee performance.
9. Failure to scale success
Businesses often get complacent when short-term or relatively long-term goals are achieved and transformation is seemingly institutionalized. This complacency, more often than not, kills momentum and compromises quality, disrupting the change process and making it unproductive. We understand that the change process can be painstakingly long which is why when we join hands with your organization, we’re in it for the long run and help scale your transformational success and take it to the next level.
10. Failure to anchor cultural change
Despite being seemingly successful projects and businesses can often regress back into old practices and policies, the very practices they spent resources trying to change. Understanding, that while third-party facilitators and transformation specialists can help put you on the right track, they must equip the organization with strategies that lead to sustainability in operations and policies and must step back after some time. Change will only be adopted and sustained if it becomes a part of the corporate culture. In order to truly become the change, the individual attitudes and corporate culture must exclusively adopt those ideals in order for them to become the norm. At Noman Husain, we help you help yourself; by not only putting you on the path to success but also equipping you with the right tools to truly become the organizational transformation itself.
