The Transformation Trap
“Digital Transformation” — the phrase is around for many years and almost every current CEO, decision-maker, politician, etc. at least once in a professional lifetime mentioned it as “the thing we must succeed with in order to stay competitive over [fill in any country, market, competitor, etc.]”.
Some months ago, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted that “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months” due to Covid-19. That’s acceleration by factor 12. Ad-hoc. Without extensive planning or preparation. It just had to happen in order to keep the lights on for organizations around the world, and it hasn’t been a straight line — for some, it certainly felt like a ride on a modern slide running right through the middle of a more than 500 year old building.
Is it still viable to approach a world that is facing events like Covid-19 with a mindset of “Transformation” alone?
Transformation always changes something from one state to another. In Kurt Lewin’s well-known model of change theory, change of a certain artifact like a process or an organization follows the steps of “unfreeze > change > freeze”. This might be true for some change initiatives but most likely not for all of them as it implies that there is a stable (frozen) state to start from or to end with — which might not be the case.
Following three simple steps also feels doable and controllable, but it might also lead to an oversimplified model of the things in the world and their interconnections within the systems we are about to change. It limits our horizon. On the other hand, it’s also harder for us humans to not just consider the next step but 10 moves (or iterations) more, additionally taking into account all the (probably also not so stable or foreseeable) side effects a change might trigger — and acknowledging that in a complex setting these effects are mainly out of our control. Sounds scary, right?
Let’s move over to another often discussed transformation in recent times, the Agile Transformation.
Exactly 20 years after the creation of the Agile Manifesto, when we think about “Agile Transformation”, can we even transform to being agile, don’t we need more of an evolutionary mindset here? Adding “Transformation” might give it a touch of safety, a sense of being-in-charge about what exactly happens when an organization becomes agile. Maybe that makes it easier to communicate to traditional companies and decision-makers as it makes the process seem finite, although it isn’t. It needs constant attention, effort and people working on it (that’s why it’s probably not a good idea to hire an external coach that is removed again after some time when “the transformation is finished”). Being (not just doing) agile is about constant inspection and adaptation of how people collaborate, how value is created, about continuously doing the right things and doing things right — doesn’t that fit more to an evolutionary mindset?
Transformation has a defined end when it’s over, but in reality — agile or digital — change is never over
Individuals evolve, organizations evolve and societies evolve all the time without a specific end in mind, it is a kind of infinite game, as Simon Sinek puts it in his corresponding book:
“In infinite games, like business or politics or life itself, the players come and go, the rules are changeable, and there is no defined endpoint. There are no winners or losers in an infinite game; there is only ahead and behind.”
So why are so many organizations still chasing finite mindsets with their transformation initiatives around the world? Isn’t it time to get ahead?
From Transformation to Evolution
Let’s compare the two definitions, both taken from Merriam Webster and start with “Transformation” as
“an act, process, or instance of transforming or being transformed”
For “Evolution” we find
“a process of change in a certain direction, the process of working out or developing, a process in which the whole universe is a progression of interrelated phenomena”
The economist Eric Breinhocker described evolution from a broader, non-biological perspective as an algorithm or a formula for innovation that creates new opportunities and solves difficult problems by continuous recombination and application of trial and error. Breinhocker furthermore describes organizations as having only a limited capability to adapt and evolve. They can feel the effects of evolution on a market level and may either live or die but they are not that kind of an adaptive organism to adapt to everything that crosses their paths — which is in contrast to biological evolution that is in some cases showing a kind of overcompensation in order to keep some space to also cope with the next (probably a bit higher) stressor that may cross our way afterward (going with Nassim Talebs thoughts in “Antifragile" here).
Taking into account those definitions and thoughts, what sounds more like the aspiration of an agile (or digital) way of working and collaborating (of course depending on how large you define your universe)?
I’ve written about the capability to unlearn some time ago. The concept of unlearning also resonates a lot more with the concept of evolution than transformation as it doesn’t stop, it is a constant flow — once you stop to unlearn and learn you will not be able to evolve as everything around you is changing — sometimes slow but sometimes faster.
Sometimes evolution is slow and sometimes it’s fast
Olsson et al (2004) describe transformation as a process with the three phases “preparing for change”, “navigating the transition”, and “building resilience of the desired state after inception”.
Transformation has a specific outcome, a clear goal (like from caterpillar to butterfly). Evolution’s next step is not so clear yet as it depends on the circumstances, it adapts to what is necessary — what is not necessary anymore resolves itself over time. What if there is (or there should be) no desirable stable stage to be reached with the last step but an antifragile state that is not resilient to external influence but instead profits from uncertainty and change?
Transformation can only be the first step in order to achieve this flow — it’s a kind of transformation to evolution in thinking, sensing and acting in order to (un)learn what you (don’t) need, to be ready for evolution.
Organizations that don’t have the ability to adapt (their business model, organizational model etc.) will, in the end, fail or run extinct when big change comes their way — and sometimes change comes faster as we would assume. I’m again borrowing the words of Nassim Taleb here
“History doesn’t crawl, it jumps”.
Organizations need to strive to accept the nature of evolution in business and prepare for the unexpected or at least be able to react to the unexpected over and over again, on a micro-level (every single employee) as well as on a macro-level (the market an organization operates in and, ultimately, society).
Having read all this (glad you are still with me), where should one start? Some ideas that might help:
- Plan your (transformation) initiatives with evolution in mind; expect — and leave space for — the unforeseeable.* Keep some blank spots for options that can be filled as the systems’ relations unfold.
- Coming out of a crisis — still alive but a bit shaken up — don’t just move forward but look back and try to find out: which actions (taken or stopped) differentiated you/your organization from those that failed in the same situation?
- If a process runs “perfectly” for a longer period it might make sense to add some unexpected input from time to time (on purpose) to check how it reacts and see if it’s still fit to handle it. If the process can cope with it, it might be safe (there is enough flexibility contained) — if it gets totally derailed it might be time to adapt the rules by close observation on how the flow unfolds.
- Start small and simple before you grow large and complex or as John Gall puts it in “The Systems Bible”: “A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work.”
- When planning any Transformation initiative, don’t just sketch out the initiative itself but already think about the second step.
Start your Journey towards Evolution with a first step of Transformation — transform to evolve.
*referring to Robert Martin here making the statement that “fear and discomfort are an essential part of strategy making. In fact, if you are entirely comfortable with your strategy, there’s a strong chance it isn’t very good.” in his 2014 article for Harvard Business Review.
Bibliography:
Beinhocker, E. 2011. Evolution as computation: Integrating self-organization with generalized Darwinism. Journal of Institutional Economics. 7. 393–423. 10.1017/S1744137411000257.
Gall J. 2002. The Systems Bible
Olsson, P., C. Folke, and T. Hahn. 2004. Social-ecological transformation for ecosystem management: the development of adaptive co-management of a wetland landscape in southern Sweden. Ecology and Society 9(4): 2. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss4/art2/
Sinek S. 2019. The Infinite Game
Taleb N. 2012. Antifragile
Taleb N. 2007. The Black Swan
This article was written for Sclable’s blog on Medium.
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