The Secret Sauce of Transformation, part Deux

Like I wrote about a while back,  we know there’s no secret sauce. Well, at least we know there’s no secret. But, we do know there is a sauce, listed in Part I (Jan 09), and I’m here to tell you that even though it is difficult to make, it is absolutely delicious when you serve it up with the three-course-meal of transformation: People, Process and Tools.

A dab, nay – a smothering, of humility, discipline and hard work on all three of those dishes will do wonders for not only how it tastes to the workforce its being served to, but for how it gets digested in the culture of the organizational stomach.

Concerning people, we’ve heard the terms plenty enough – almost iconically emblazoned in the vernacular of modern business imperatives: Get the Right people on the Bus. Which bus – isn’t our domain, but getting the right people may not be enough. Those folks have to do something, you know? And what they do, determines whether or not that bus goes to Buffalo or the Biltmore. What we need is for those people to DO the right things, which means to exemplify the behaviors we need for success in our organization or transformation effort.

We get the right behaviors using the right processes (again, there’s that ‘right’ word), which aren’t happenstance, but intentionally designed to get the results we’ve determined that we need to get. Then we give them the tools to follow the processes and do the work. Those tools might be an actual wrench and hammer or a mainframe or new knowledge and understanding.

But all the people, processes and tools are nothing to us if they are not ‘using’ the right behaviors, and that’s where we come back to our sauce. The sauce is what gets the big three to stick together, to have a similar taste and texture. Without the sauce, any one of our picky eaters out there may spit back the portion they don’t like and disengage from the table with that hunched-over, gagging, “I can’t believe you made me try and eat that” look that I get from my kids when I try to feed them something healthy. Only these aren’t green beans they’re rejecting; it’s change. Vital, business-essential change. (By the way, if its not vital, business-essential change, then why are you doing it? You wouldn’t force your kids to eat junk food, so don’t shove your latest whim and fancy down your workforce’s throat either. If it doesn’t build, revitalize and nourish your business, then its organizational junk-food).

I’ve recently witnessed a transformation project, a change project, where they didn’t apply the sauce. The change was so shockingly different from what they had been ‘eating’ before, that many of the frontline workers just couldn’t stomache it. When the consultants left, so did any hope of transformation. They forgot to look at what these great workers’ assumptions and norms were about getting work done before we decided to change their operational diets. They forgot to look at the culture, and begin with that culture, not the new one. 

Begin with where they are, NOT where we want them to be. Talk about the change pipe dream! No wishful thinking or organizational narcotic will mask the reality that if we don’t begin on the cultural level of what people are used to, they simply won’t cross the chasm. The sauce is what helps them blend the taste of the old and comfortable with the new and essential. The sauce is what makes it all palatable. The sauce is our leadership discipline and hard work. Without that, just write the consultants a check and send them on their way. It’ll save you a lot of heart-ache, and probably a lot of money.

The Secret Sauce of Transformation

“Right, we get the right tools and processes, but how do I know we’ve transformed?” asked the leader of one very large IT organization that I was working with. 

As I watched the consultants stumble to answer, he continued, “But you’re not telling me anything different from anyone else. I just don’t see the secret sauce. Where’s the secret sauce to this whole thing?”

It may not be the same words, but I guarantee you that this same conversation has been had over and over, in office after office, between endless sets of senior managers, management staff and consultants – all over the world. 

 

How do we know if we've transformed?

“Yeah, we know all this change stuff, but how do we make it stick? Where’s the secret sauce?“

 

The funny thing is, I’d bet that if I told you what the secret sauce is, you still wouldn’t be able to use it, let alone taste it. In fact, I’d bet that most transformation efforts are ended before they’re fully implemented. Why? Because, and legitimately so, the business imperatives change. 

In the space of just a few years, we go from “Customer First” to “Nothing but Quality” to “Best in Class” to “Innovation” and on to “Cost-Effective Operations”. And its not that we have business-initiative-attention-deficit. Or maybe we do. But the environment, customers, regulations, wall street, etc. – continuously flux and change. And so we respond with … whatever seems to be the “urgency-dejour“.

However, like the latest fad diet on on any given New Year’s day, we say we’re going to do it, but we never address the heart of the matter: change. A new diet isn’t about recipes, exercise, ingredients, intake or losing weight. Its about changing behavior that will lead to changes in the other things we are seeking: the results. 

While we proclaim the “new me” for the new year, we fail to address the issues that are made redundant in nearly every large business – that change is not made up of proclamations. Change is made up of behaviors. And unless we get our transformation efforts out of the strategic planning sessions and into what Mintzberg calls the “operating core”, then it doesn’t matter what we call them, because we’ll get the same results from every one: nothing of real substance.

“So what about the Secret Sauce?”, you ask? 

There is no secret sauce. Transformation is no secret. But there is a sauce, and its ingredients are Leadership (consisting of equal parts Humility and Discipline), accountability and flat-out Hard Work. That’s it. No surprises, no secrets, no spying on the Colonel to see what he puts in his chicken. Its all there on the table. 

You need to create leadership by having the humility to face your own shortcomings and recognize the need to change yourself and your leadership core before you ask your workforce to change. Thicken the leadership paste with the discipline required to work on that individual change in yourself, day after day after day. Hold yourself and others accountable, regularly and often. Then add working hard to the mixture, to do the right things, not the easy things, to lay the foundation for the future changes to take place.

No secrets. No proclamations. No mission-statements. No banners, t-shirts, laminated cards, no guiding principles. No way. You don’t get great change by talking – you get there by doing.