Successful Transformation Archives - txgnosis

Consulting Business Growth Pains and Digital Implementation Case Study

cncrzz — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:52:00 +0000

How a Consulting Business Leveraged Culture for Digital and Proposition Growth

A sustainability consulting business had growing pains. It based its central propositions upon reducing both energy costs and carbon emissions. The executive team and founders could see the opportunity, but their different styles caused friction to the extent that the company’s future was in jeopardy. Additionally, to realise their vision, they needed support to embrace the digital opportunity that would extend their service offerings.

Creating a Foundation

We embarked on a process to address the acute cultural issues within the executive team. Each executive was given clear responsibilities with autonomy, to ensure that effort was as productive as possible. Alongside this, we also instilled the need to be accountable. This led to greater freedom and trust. It became clear that each executive brought the same values but different skills to the business. From this much more robust platform, the road to expansion became clearer and frictionless.

Embracing Digital

We then reviewed the opportunity to embrace digital. For a consulting business, this can be a mixed blessing, and there is often a fear of commoditising expertise. We countered this with an inclusive dialogue with the professional teams. In doing this, we formulated a data strategy and machine learning plan to supplement skills and increase the consultants’ value to both their customers and the business. A technology team was created and integrated with the professionals. In little time mini-mum viable products were produced. A positive RoI was achieved in the first 12 months, operating on a secure, robust, scalable platform.

New Propositions

In turn, this created opportunities for new propositions. Together, we implemented a new proposition process and the digital transformation of their service lines. A unique flagship proposition was launched to leverage the consultants’ skills so they could add insight and interpretation to information produced as a result of the data strategy. In turn, this made each consultant more valuable, moving them away from data reporting to advising. Revenue per employee significantly increased.

Culture Again

By tuning the culture to embrace the principles and the proposition of the business, we catapulted digital into the front line. At the end of the programme, the digital platform supported 90% of the business’ revenue, created new propositions, increased revenue per employee, integrated digital into the culture, captured millions of data points daily as the foundation for consulting insights, and contributed to staff retention and expansion.

But even more importantly, it changed how their clients could improve their businesses to reduce carbon emissions and energy cost.

Download the Sustainability Consultancy Case Study.

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The Seven Signs of Successful Business Life

cncrzz — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 15:47:00 +0000

The Seven Signs of Successful Business Life

We often use biology as a metaphor for business, using such terms as ‘culture is its beating heart’ or ‘let’s bring this initiative back to life’.

To determine whether something can be considered life, biologists use the seven signs of life. Can we also use these to test the health of a business? Do the seven signs of life become the seven signs of business health? If so, what do they tell us about the success of our business?

Perhaps most importantly, how do we harness their wisdom to build a great business? After all, people want to be part of a business that has life in it.

Many of us learn these seven signs at school but, if like me, you don’t remember everything you’ve been taught; here is a reminder of all seven (skip ahead if you know them).

Seven Signs of Life

Respiration – unlocking the energy that we have stored in our body

Nutrition – absorbing food so that we can grow, be strong and be healthy

Growth – progressing through the stages of life but also grow in size and shape – replenishing, replacing and enhancing the body

Sensitivity – sensing and responding to changes in the environment

Movement – moving to exploit opportunity or counter threat

Excretion – removing the waste products we don’t need

Reproduction – creating offspring to ensure the survival of the species.

Seven Signs of Business Life

When we translate these into our business world, do they show how effective and successful we will be? Let’s take a look.

Respiration – how our business uses resources to produce and deliver its proposition – effectively our business operations (or operating model). But more relevant is how effective and efficient we are at using these resources. Do we waste them, do we use them optimally, what costs do we incur?

Nutrition – how we source our resources (raw materials and people), ensuring that they are the best for our purpose, propositions and operations.

Growth – how we grow rather than stagnate or decline. Growth propels us towards our purpose, fulfilment and impact, as well as the more traditional financial features of growth.

Sensitivity – how we understand our market, knowing its context, direction, dynamics, needs, regulation, competition, etc

Movement – how we respond to the market, how dynamic we are in adapting to these needs

Excretion – how we deal with the un-needed by-products of our business. Along with nutrition and respiration, it has a significant impact on the environment. This impact is measured not just by the value we bring but also by the damage we cause to the environment and people.

Reproduction – how we create new versions of our propositions through innovation, bringing them to market and making them successful. We can take it further to measure how we continually advance to deliver our purpose, instilled with the values that we hold dear.

The seven signs of life provide a valuable view on how successful we’ll be as a business: whether our people will be fulfilled, our customers prosper, and our results flourish.

Harnessing the Power of Wisdom

All businesses are a combination of People, Propositions, Practices and Performance. We can use our seven signs to measure our attitude towards and success across these 4Ps. And as such, the seven signs are good indicators of the health of a business.

Of course, measuring is not the point of business. What we’re all really interested in is being enduringly successful by relentlessly driving towards our purpose. Measures allow us to understand where we are on that journey.

Moving from measures into action, here at txgnosis, we use a range of 24 factors to guide businesses towards success. In our eyes, a successful business is unstoppable, captivating, thriving, boundless and eternal. We call this the irresistible business.

These 24 factors give greater resolution than the seven signs of life that we’ve discussed here. We group them into four key areas: Context, Culture, Capability and Control. Together they are the 4Cs. As we guide you through the framework, your business becomes unstoppable, captivating, thriving, boundless and eternal. It becomes that irresistible business that delivers perpetual life to itself and all those around.

Becoming irresistible isn’t easy, but it is a whole lot easier using a framework with tried, trusted and proprietary techniques. So we deliver the business where people are fulfilled, customers prosper, and results speak for themselves.

Conclusion

Using biology as a metaphor for business is particularly useful. People can easily relate to it and use it to understand better the dynamics needed to become irresistible. This holds true for the seven signs of life as well.

Metrics, though, aren’t enough. We need to sense the environment and business context, grow through effective nutrition and respiration, move to where the best outcomes will happen, reduce our harmful impact on the world and create improved and innovative propositions.

At the end of the day, people want to be part of a business with life in it.

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Building Agile into Transformation

cncrzz — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 14:13:00 +0000

Building Agile into Transformation

Why agile?

You’re transforming your business. How are you going to do it? You know that large waterfall programmes often fail and through bitter experience (e.g. ERP implementations) the market shifts before you’ve had a chance to make it a success. You need something faster, more responsive – something agile!

Agile is definitely a mot du jour in executive circles. It promises increased speed and improved responsiveness in a world where change is accelerating. But do we become agile in order to transform or do we transform to become agile? How do we get the best from both?

To answer this question, we’ve created a ‘what to’ rather than a ‘how to’. This is more useful in a transformation where start points and complexity are real things that need to be addressed. Indeed, this is a smörgåsbord of experiences that are important and that you need to deal with. There is no set pattern. After all, if you need to visit both Leeds and Manchester which one you visit first depends on where you start from.

Can transformation be formulaic?

Your transformation and move to agile is unique to your company. You need to find your own voice. Expertise and track record counts for something, but as cultural shifts are required the answer will be specific to you. For example, by prescriptively adopting the Netflix culture you’ll not achieve what they have.

In agile and transformation we have two competing ideals. Transformations are large, complex, lengthy initiatives whereas agile has a heritage that excels in small, high performance, tightly-knit teams. How do we reconcile these?

What must we do?

To make agile a success we need to create a culture for it to thrive and we need to integrate agile into our transformation thinking.

But we know that in transformation the ambient culture always fights back. So, unless you become “change cultured” when implementing agile and transformation, your results will be poor. By enhancing culture to thrive during change you will produce the desired long-lasting, sustainable results.

To integrate agile, we’ll take its essence and build it into to our transformation. This is best expressed in the 4 outcomes that agile really values. Here they are repurposed for transformations:

Relationships not transactions
Delivery over documentation – actions speak louder than words
Focus on what is right, not what can go wrong
Responsiveness is completing fast and building momentum.

So, let’s create the culture and embed agile into our transformation.

Become ‘change cultured’

Culture is the bedrock of how organisations perform. If your culture is tuned for change then you’re probably on the right track already. However, for the vast majority of businesses this is not the case.

And culture isn’t just bolted onto the current organisation. A real change in behaviour is required. The DuPont safety culture is a shining example of embedding key behaviours throughout an organisation.

Actioning this checklist will lead you to the right culture:

Embrace change

Most cultures need to embrace change through continuous learning and becoming relentlessly ambitious. This will start to build the agile mindset required to deliver responsive change. Ambition drives the vision higher and continuous learning increases capability to deliver it.

Apply character (values, attitudes and control)

Culture shouldn’t just happen. It must be architected and implemented. To do this you’ll need people that have the right values, character, attitudes and motivations. These are some of the key components of cultural design. When you know the performance culture you want, embed it as part of the transformation.

Grow agile within transformation

Agile produces cohesive teams (like molecules sticking together in a water drop), but the scale of transformation also requires adhesive teams (teams that work together). Resolve this conflict by creating small teams that communicate and collaborate. By orchestrating small teams collectively, the benefits of agile can be delivered across the transformation.

Recruit agile experience

Recruit people that understand agile, who know your journey and can work in your culture. Agile is nuanced and relies on skilled resources. Don’t be fooled by its seemingly simple approach.

Innovate

An ambitious culture will have innovation in its core. Apply different thinking to current processes and new problems – from market requirements through to reception desks. You transform to improve and every touch point will have an impact.

Think differently

Bring diversity of thought and be inclusive so all stakeholders are heard. Employ people with different experiences and ways of thinking to challenge the status quo. Include people so they are valued, feel safe and can excel. Don’t let authority dominate, all voices are important.

Fight fake, insincerity and platitudes

Fight fake, insincerity and platitudes with belief and caring. You know you still have a rump of the old culture when people say the new words but behave in the old way. Stand for what you believe in and care about what you’re doing.

Be clear on accountability

Deploy an accountability tool like RACI. It’s not about command and control but effective decision making. Accountability provides a key piece of group adhesion that binds agile to the strategic transformation.

Trust people to trust you

Be authentic so people trust you. Trust them to deliver to the best of their ability. Ensure the culture you’ve created delivers on this promise.

Transformation is difficult: be open and clear

Transformation is complex and hard enough. Anything less than total clarity and openness is going to confuse and delay. Using the best of agile within transformation will create this openness and clarity. Let’s see how this affects the scale of change, the cadence of change and the need to focus externally.

Scale of Change

One of the challenges in transformation is the sheer scale of change. Whilst daunting, a transformation can be broken down into its atomic parts. At this level use agile. These moving parts can flex and change to suit evolving circumstances. Also, the whole transformation needs to be responsive. Organisationally, behaviourally and motivationally, this is addressed by culture. But you still need a mechanism to propagate the changes across the whole transformation. Here clarity is crucial.

Metrics, understanding and improvement

Build metrics that illustrate and illuminate what is really happening (and going to happen). These are fundamental to understanding complex change. Dashboards, questionnaires, balanced scorecards, retrospectives and feedback loops are really helpful. But be very discerning about what metrics you use, what they actually measure and what you’ll do with the results.

Go the extra mile though and actually change the transformation based on your understanding of the issues. This is a key step in transformation maturity.

Gemba walks

Don’t just rely on metrics. Data Informed Decision Making is more effective than Data Driven Decision Making. Get a feel for the real issues by interacting with internal and external customers. Engage with those who are doing the work so you learn more than metrics can ever give. You’ll understand the impact of what you’re doing with real people. It is culturally astute as well.

Over Communicate

Communicate relentlessly about transformation. But do so in a smart way. The same story told time after time becomes background noise. Keep fresh by creating multiple stories with the same message using different angles. Use emotive language to make people care about success. This level of communication and storytelling builds interest and knowledge retention.

If you’re doing this well it is hard to over-communicate. People are always interested in what will affect them.

Cadence of Change

Build momentum and scale by being very deliberate about the cadence of change.

Digestible time-chunks

Focus on short term themes within an overall plan that can change. Themes allow people to focus on the ‘here and now’ (e.g. the next 3–6 months) and create quick wins to drive momentum and results. Use these results to define and calibrate the next theme. For example: create themes at a high level and sprints at a lower level. Use metrics from the themes to attenuate the whole transformation. Use sprints to provide more granular responsiveness.

Celebrate quick wins

Celebrate quick wins to drive a positive feedback loop generating more wins and more momentum. Sprints provide the perfect platform for this, while themes keep you relentlessly moving towards the goal.

Don’t forget the roadmap

Agile mustn’t be aimless. Focus on the strategic goal with roadmaps. In this way short term responsiveness is combined with long term business architecture.

Roadmaps also stop you covering the same ground. You’re laying the road slab by slab, not covering the same ground again and again. Don’t endlessly prototype organisational design.

Small teams, big collaboration

Small teams increase responsiveness; collaborating teams deliver the bigger picture. Make sure you put effort into the collaboration across teams – you’ll need to be intentional if it is to succeed.

Configuration management

Use configuration management to understand the complexities and dependencies. Going on the journey without it is like sticking regional timetables together and hoping that your cross-country train journey will be seamless.

External focus

Building on a point above, a key to delivering agile transformation is to focus outwards from your own group or team to across the organisation and beyond.

Across groups

Remove tribal behaviour (where people define themselves by who they’re not, rather than the common purpose that binds them). Tribal is tactical and destructive. Be collaborative by working together and being accountable. Build enduring relationships.

And in all work the common good must be king – service-based leadership should be displayed by all.

Address the whole market rather than specific clients. You don’t want to be beholden to the few when you want to scale. In doing so build for your extended enterprise because your stakeholders are throughout your ecosystem. Ultimately, you’ll be able to create new markets and opportunities, rather just fulfil existing needs.

So What?

Integrating agile into transformations brings the responsiveness that so many of them lack. And in doing so you won’t lose the strategic intent of your transformation.

One of the by-products of this approach is that governance will be easier – people will push together in the right direction; trust will increase; scope, progress and authority are clear and feedback loops are in place.

This change culture; scale and cadence of change; and external focus will impact on each other and become iterative and continually improving.

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Using Culture to Drive Transformation

cncrzz — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 17:51:00 +0000

Using Culture to Drive Transformation

During the last couple of decades, the theory around delivering change has become increasingly sophisticated and, in larger organisations, ubiquitous. And yet we still seem incapable of delivering the change we want within the boundaries of time, cost, quality and value constraints. Despite the commoditisation of change skills, the number of tools and templates available to manage or control, and the depth of thought capital, there is something missing.

Cultural Drag

I recently had dinner with a newly retired senior exec of a FTSE 100 company. Someone who had both driven and seen change from the highest levels; understanding how it affects the bottom line, both short-term and sustainably. Among the normal conversation – state of the nation, holiday destinations, etc. – we got onto the subject of transformation and change.

We both felt that the biggest challenge in invoking and cementing change is Culture. It was variously described as ‘permafrost’ and ‘an anchor dragging on the seabed, slowing the ship down’. Melting the permafrost or weighing anchor are decisive in successful transformation.

Those at the sharp end of the business often see the need for change; as do the business leaders. But in the middle, the culture permafrost blocks progress. The trouble is that the culture has ‘always been successful’ and is ‘our recipe for success’, or ‘that’s just how we do things round here’. Changing the culture causes fear and confusion, because people can’t often define or design it, let alone implement it.

Cultural Fix

Every organisation has a culture; whether designed or not. Not addressing culture during change will deliver mediocre results at best.

So, here’s a quick guide to dealing with cultural change:

Implementing Cultural Change

Start at the top – not just at the exec level but at the board as well. Execs and Non-Execs have to start behaving in the way that they hold-up to be right. Anything else comes across as cynicism about the value and beliefs espoused. To put it another way, whatever culture pervades in the board will be felt long and hard by all others in the business. Yet how many senior execs and NEDs actively participate in culture design and implementation?
Make culture the centre of transformation. Why are we changing culture? If we understand the context in which our business works, the capabilities required to execute strategy, the control necessary to drive and measure performance then we need an architected culture that will improve the transformation but also make change sustainable.
Map the Culture. Culture isn’t an abstract notion that somehow binds people together. It is a tangible set of artefacts that can be described, moved, shaped and implemented. Everyone feels how an organisation behaves. Are we saying that we cannot define this? Often times, we just don’t have the tools to understand and describe culture. How do we see culture in the organisation? It manifests itself in the organisational structure, power bases, resource investment, policies and procedures, accountability and empowerment, brand and reputation, diversity and inclusiveness, stakeholder management, communications, supplier management, etc. Ultimately, each relates to specific cultural artefacts that can be understood, configured, implemented, measured and improved. And if this can be done then by definition, culture can be intentional. And that is good.
Understand where culture needs to change – what is being done right and wrong, what needs improvement? Are you held back because of cultural idols and habits? How does culture impact corporate behaviour?
Define the catalysts and carriers to changing culture. What is it that we do to change culture? How do we exhibit and implement a new culture? Stories, role models, heroes, social networks, etc all can be used as vehicles for culture change.
Create a movement to get momentum. Movements start small and with emotion – where the movement starts is important. It needs to be given authority from the top, but have enough independence to carve out the required identity. Often, an acquisition is used to import culture. Remember, just telling people to change culture rarely works – and the ‘ambient culture’ always fights back.
Measure Culture’s effectiveness. How do we measure the impact of culture? How do we know it has changed and what impact should we expect – internally and externally? Reputation; share price; employee attraction and retention; new, expanded and retained customers; productivity? Each measure should map back to the original reasons why culture needed to be recast.
Multiple cultures, common values. How do cultures relate to values? In a successful, but diverse or global business, different cultures will be different expressions of the same values. Poor examples are when different cultures are expressions of different values. In this case it is very hard to bridge gaps between cultures – there is constant friction across cultural boundaries. Imagine the impact of this beyond the business as well. You may well have a supply chain with different cultures, but do you want a supply chain with different values? You should not accept different values – the cost of doing business internally and externally is too high.

Dealing with the cause not the symptom

I have noticed an increasing number of Transformation Programmes now include an explicit “Ways of Working” theme. Often, these initiatives are designed to drive better relationships between discrete business functions, to encourage decent behaviour in the work place. Whilst these might address some obsolete management practices or acceptance of inclusivity and tolerance, they miss the mark and tackle symptoms rather than root cause. Does the recognition that people’s behaviour and working practices need to change, point to a deeper need to recast the essence of the transforming organisation; its Culture?

People have shied away from addressing culture within their transformation programmes simply because of awareness or because it is difficult to architect and implement. For many this has proved to be a catastrophic omission. However, success awaits those that use a framework of tools and techniques. Architecting and implementing culture isn’t hit-and-miss.

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