Strategic transformation comprises
holistic, multi-level, discontinuous and comprehensive changes in corporate
strategies, organisational structures and management systems-
driven by
leaders with a
clear vision of how to take their followers along on a journey to a better
future..
Strategic transformation should be
accomplished through an orchestrated redesign of the genetic architecture of
the organisation, achieved by working simultaneously - although at different
speeds - along the four dimensions of Reframing, Restructuring, Revitalisation and Renewal.
The four R's are to the biological
corporation what the "three R's" of Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic
are to schoolchildren: the life skills it needs if it is to survive and
thrive.
Reframing is the shifting of an organisation's
conception of what it is and what it can achieve. It addresses the corporate mind. We can get stuck in a certain way of thinking, and loose the ability to
develop fresh mental models of what we are and what we could become. Reframing
opens the corporate mind and infuses it with new visions and a new resolve.
Restructuring is a girding of the corporate loins,
getting it to achieve a competitive level of performance. It deals with the body
of the company, and competitiveness - the need to be lean and fit - is the
primary consideration. Restructuring is the domain where payoffs are fastest
and cultural differences are greatest, making rationalisation and the
anxieties associated with it an unavoidable side effect. The payoffs, however,
if invested in revitalisation and renewal, can be used to heal the wounds, if
not lessen their severity. Many organisations seem to stop at restructuring,
cajoled into contentment by their "quick wins". No organisation
however, can gain true health unless it uses those wins to fuel longer-term
transformation programmes.
Revitalisation is about igniting growth by linking
the organisational body to the environment. Everybody wants to grow but
the sources of growth are often elusive, making the process of growth more
challenging and protracted than restructuring. Of all the four R's,
revitalisation is the single greatest factor that clearly distinguishes
transformation from mere downsizing.
Renewal deals with the people side of the
transformation, and with the spirit of the organisation. It is about
investing individuals with new skills and new purposes, thus allowing the
organisation to regenerate itself. It involves creating a new kind of
metabolism, the rapid distribution of knowledge inside the organisation, and
it involves the cultivation of a reflex of adaptation to environmental
changes. Renewal is the most subtle and difficult, the least explored, and
potentially the most powerful of transformation's dimensions.
An organisation is a living organism. Like people it needs
holistic medicine, not organ-by-organ treatments. The four-R model, it is
suggested, represents a uniquely powerful way to tap an organisation's vast
hidden reserves of energy, and transform it into something far better than it
had ever dreamed of being.
The model also provides for a further breakdown into the
elements of each dimension of strategic transformation.
