Of Transformers and Transformation

Hello Human 

In May I guaranteed that my June muse would feature another gem from Paul Sweeney in his eye-opening book, Magnetic Nonsense. I knew I’d be challenged to decide on which of Paul’s topics to focus given his book is so rich in potential content.

 ‘Transformation’ is the topic for today.

Before I get stuck into the topic of Transformation, though, here’s a reminder of what Magnetic Nonsense is all about: The driving force behind this book is the idea that liberating people and organisations from the sea of mindless nonsense we are drowning in at work could be game-changing. The sea of mindless nonsense!

 Let’s dive in… This is not a fairytale.

Once upon a time, I worked in a huge communications organisation. It had a 200-year history of delivering community service while also delivering fairly healthy financial returns to its owners.

Was it perfect? No.

 Did it need to be perfect? No.

 Is any organisation perfect? No.

Did it need some adaptation given the shift in customer activity and requirements? Yes.

That same organisation was, by and large, pretty well led. It was highly trusted. Change was implemented incrementally, and progress was reasonably paced. The humans that worked there mattered, genuinely mattered. Consequently, the humans who worked there pretty much loved working there. Not to be too rose-coloured-glasses of course, it was a workplace, a large workplace, with tens of thousands of people working in it, and we all know how that goes sometimes.

 Workplaces are complex social systems after all - humans being humans.

 Anyway at a certain point in time in my tenure at this once fine organisation, there were changes at the top. And changes at the top of any organisation in the 2000's generally led to one major thing.

Yes you guessed it – a TRANSFORMATION program.

Buckle in troglodytes, you are about to be transformed, like it or not, and whether you need it or not. In a matter of weeks, the organisation was flooded with ‘transformers’. Remarkably, many of them arrived from another very large, less reliable, less trusted, less well-performing organisation. Such is the nature of corporate insanity.

 The piper piped and the followers followed, one might ponder.

Another tranche of transformers arrived from one of ‘the big firms’: “we’re here to help”. Yeah right. And so, the transformation took hold. Narrow perspectives won the day, and the 'dissenting voices' were ignored, silenced, or even worse, called out as 'not getting on the transformation bus.' Legacy knowledge was not required in the transformation.

 Powerpoint, oh the powerpoint, was a thing of beauty, new cultural pillars and values emerged, there were spreadsheets on spreadsheets, meetings about meetings, and committees full of committees. Performers performed performances everywhere. Transformers transformed.

Pretty much everything that had been done previously was wrong. Everything about to be done was right. Anyway, let me pause my transformation trauma here; you can fill in the gaps and write your own ending.

 There’s enough context above for me to leap to Paul Sweeney’s treatment of transformation below.

 ‘The transformation programme can potentially be the pinnacle of stupidity at work.’

 That’s so good Paul, I think it's worth saying again. ‘The transformation programme can potentially be the pinnacle of stupidity at work. It offers the opportunity to combine a broad array of misguided beliefs to ensure the stupidity of the whole is even more significant than the sum of its parts.’ Amen to that.

 The Hallmarks of Transformation:

·       Instigated by an overconfident CEO

·       Planned in stages with pre-defined ‘deliverables’ and ‘outcomes’

·       Based on an oversimplified model of how the organisation works

·       Influenced by the latest management fads created by management consultants

·       Set up to consider any dissenting views as ‘resistance to change’ that must be ‘change managed’ rather than thoughtfully considered

·       Based on a business case focussed on a narrow perspective of efficiency gains that limits the potential for creativity and joy

 And two more from Sweeney that I particularly like:

·        Designed by the same management consultants using context-free methodologies that assume the future will oblige in changing to match their PowerPoint slides, or even better taking the historical Org IP and badging it with their company logo- tick (I added the badging bit based upon actual experiences with large consultancy firm during said 'transformation').

·       Driven by an entirely rational logic, completely ignoring humans’ irrational and emotional nature

 In my own experiences with corporate Australia, I have often found transactional change dressed up as transformational change. Perhaps this is the way that these 'transformers' keep fooling others that a smart new 'outfit' (look) and an overabundance of 'activity' will make all the difference?

The cynic in me concludes that if it is branded, marketed, and imposed on the masses as ‘transformational’ it justifies bigger pay packets inclusive of juicy sign-on and end-of-year ‘performance’ bonuses, it creates more jobs, and consulting engagements for the members of the transformer’s entourage, and creates more ‘look-at-me’ headlines for the 24-hour ‘business news’ cycle.

 There’s real and meaningful progress, and then of course there’s - the delusion of progress.

 Elsewhere in his chapter on ‘the stupidity of transformation’, Paul Sweeney quotes a 2021 Said Business School Study, where the authors say… If our research has made one thing clear, it is that organisations need to treat transformation as dynamic and continual learning processes characterised by periods of shifting emotional energy… calling for a more nuanced, humble and collaborative approach…

These dynamics are not to be managed back into the original plan.

 Transformation that is nuanced, humble, and collaborative.

Perhaps we need to 'transform' how we do transformational change?

Human adaptation, anyone?

 Amen to that too.

 Go Well Human