The Driving
Strategic Context for Transformation.
Modern organizations operate in an increasingly complex
world that is changing on multiple dimensions at increasing
rates. Trends in globalization and the implications
of the post-industrial information age are driving
fundamental changes in the "strategic context" (Friedman,
2005).1 In turn, this strategic context
is driving change in modern organizations that must
operate ever more effectively within this context.
High transaction rates, advances in cheap, available,
powerful information technology, and the application
of speed as a competitive advantage affect every kind
of organization—including commercial, government,
and national security agencies.
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This article was published
in the Winter
2006 issue
of Perspectives.
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 The power of the Internet, the "Googlization of the
World," and Web-based service architectures change everything.
Changes in markets, constituencies, and workforces are producing
turbulence and more opportunities and challenges. Incrementalism,
organizational rearrangements of deck chairs, and continuing
to argue the strategy "if it ain't broken, don't fix
it," will be inadequate responses.
The Transformation
Imperative.
Few organizations will escape the impact of these
trends. Success in this new world order requires nothing
less than a rethinking of the way we do business. Quoting
Abraham Lincoln's address to Congress
in 1862, Vice Admiral (VADM) Cebrowski2 challenges us with
his imperative for transformation:
"The dogmas of the quiet
past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is
piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.
As our case is new, so must we think anew and act anew."
Cebrowski continues: "Lincoln's caution is worthy of repetition—we
must think and act anew. This is what transformation ultimately
is about—new
values, new attitudes, and new beliefs and how those
are expressed in the behavior of people and institutions."
VADM Cebrowski is referring specifically to transforming
national security, but the need, challenge, theory, and practice
of transformation are equally applicable to business and
civilian government. We hypothesize that leaders of every
kind of organization in virtually any domain—whether
the domain is national security, global business, or public
institution—can benefit from a transformational strategy
and the application of it to their organization. If you are
not in a position to transform the entire organization, you
can apply the same ideas of transformation to your project
or your suborganization and lead by example.
Thinking anew
and transforming people and institutions to change their
behavior in substantive ways are not for the faint of heart.
They require courage and intellect, but they also can be
made more doable with the advent of relevant tools and
techniques. Transformation, while difficult, is not impossible,
and these tools and techniques can assist the decision maker
in developing a tangible approach to creating desired transformational
effects.
What is Transformation?
What is transformation and how do
we apply this kind of thinking to changing organizations?
Most important, it is a continuous process that never
ends. It is not just about technology; however, technology
is important because it is one area to discover and develop
new sources of competitive advantage. It is a balanced
and intertwined set of changes in concepts, processes, organizations,
and technology. This co-evolutionary approach ensures that
one takes advantage of all domains, and does not become
unbalanced in any one. Any change in one of these areas can
generate interactive effects in the others. By building a
transformation strategy which integrates co-evolution as
a centerpiece, more rapid, balanced change is possible.
Cebrowski proposes the application of an innovation
model from the commercial world ala Eric Beinhocker of MIT's
Sloan School of Management to the strategy of Transformation.
Transformation in this context is about simultaneously pursuing
three thrusts: (1) continuous improvement of your core competencies
relative to your mission, (2) making a series of small exploratory
jumps, and (3) placing a few big bets (Cebrowski, 2004).2
Building a portfolio of initiatives around these three thrusts
is part of the strategy we recommend.
How Do We Transform?
One of the most powerful models we
have found to help think transformationally about what an
organization should do differently is the adaptive enterprise
model, which derives primarily from the commercial world
(see Increasing
Competitive Fitness: Moving Towards the Adaptive Enterprise).
An adaptive enterprise is one in which the primary sustainable
competitive advantage is gained through the creation of flexible,
customer-centric capabilities that allow the organization
to quickly adapt its processes and systems and morph to its
required state with agility in the face of rapid change.
This adaptive enterprise strategy borrows the sense-and-respond
model's theory (versus a make-and-sell model) of how
entities can be more proactive and responsive to customer
needs and wants. It also uses the original work of Boyd3 on
the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act)—how
command and control in a sense-and-respond organization can
work in a highly distributed fashion.
Refer to the reading
list to learn more about
some of the ideas behind the Transformation approach
presented here. You Say You Want a Revolution? describes
the migration from being a Transformational Theoretician
to a Transformational Practitioner. It presents the steps
and the essence of the approach we have successfully
employed with organizations large and small. In practical
application of these theories and ideas to the hard work
of changing concepts and behaviors, we have further developed
a set of practitioner tools to help move forward with
these ideas. These tools, developed in partnership with
our clients, have proven utility and are adaptable to
many situations and domains.
YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION? |
How to transform an enterprise/organization/project
in 10 easy/hard steps, or, what we've learned and are
applying in partnering with organizations to transform
their enterprise. |
• Have an externally and internally
communicable Point of View. Build a Vision and a strategy
for your entity and write it down. Develop a 3- to
10-page paper with a one-page, compelling graphic to
make it come to life.
• Write a Concept of Operations (CONOPS) that
describes the end-state consistent with the Vision,
how the entity will operate after it is transformed,
and the required capabilities to enable the future
effects.
• Build a Master Plan and Road Map to implement
those capabilities. Build aggressive, but feasible
plans to move fast on key outcomes from Concept to
Capability in 12-18 months with
residual initiatives tailing out over a
36-month plan. |
• Use co-evolution,
systems thinking, and end-to-end constructs to accelerate
moving from Concept to Capability and consider the
implications for the entire value chain; focus on clients,
focus on results. Build an adaptive enterprise on a sense-and-respond
model.
• The CEO should charter a small, cohesive,
collaborative group ("the Strategy Cell")
who really "gets it" and is responsible
for making it happen in partnership with the leadership
of the organization.
• Perform a zero-based review of all current
programs, initiatives, and resources, and perform
a gap analysis against the future capabilities required.
Build a portfolio of projects that, together, mitigate
risk, and (1) focus on core missions and capabilities,
(2) take a series of small exploratory jumps, and
(3) place a few, big, calculated bets. |
• Think out of the
box about how to innovate. Do outreach, and seek alliances
and partnerships in traditional ways and in non-traditional
ways with industry and academia.
• Rapidly build an open, scalable, operational
IT prototype that shows "the art of the possible" and
allows constituents to see tangibly, and interact
with, the new concepts, processes, and systems. Use
this prototype to evolve and integrate new ideas
and technology.
• Use that prototype as the centerpiece of
an experimentation program to constantly test and
refine new concepts.
• Build an effects-driven, capabilities-based
program with performance metrics and accountability
built into the program from the beginning. |
Review our Incomplete,
Annotated Reading List for Those Embarking on the Journey
to Transformation.
Learn more about ICF International's capabilities in organizational development
and transformation.
1Friedman, Thomas L. The World Is Flat:
A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
2Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski, former Director of the DoD Office of Force Transformation, greatly influences our thinking. Sadly, he recently passed away, but his powerful ideas will continue to shape transformation in all types of organizations.
3Boyd, Col. John R. Patterns of Conflict. Unpublished
Lecture, December, 1986.
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