We have identified several approaches that help transform the team into successful transformers:

• Align the team as a center of acceleration;
  
  
• Broaden the team’s thinking and perspective;
  
  
• Assist from the shadows with practical advice.

Align the Team as a Center
of Acceleration
Some organizations have communities of practice or centers of excellence whose dedicated mission is to transform something using whole new ways of thinking and operating.  Such groups sometimes sit back until their services are needed, and then dispense them from on high.  Insist that your transformation team be a center of acceleration (see Insights from The Clarion Institute: Centers of Acceleration vs. Centers of Excellence, January ’05).  Today’s internal staff groups must be excellent, but they must also be proactive and co-creative, especially if they are to be the go-to resource for transformation efforts.  They must get down in the trenches with the business units if they are to be seen as adding value.  They must initiate and encourage and bring the resources needed.  They must make things happen.

To do this, the teams have to reach internal alignment by exploring together:

• Are we clear about our specific charter?
  
  
• Are we clear about the business strategy and how our charter aligns with it?
  
  
• Are we clear about those elements of our charge that are truly transformational for the business?
  
  
• Is our role advisory and exploratory, or are we decision makers and implementers?
  
  
• What are our boundaries? How much freedom and license do we have?
  
  
• What resources are at our disposal?
  
  
• What are our milestones? What are our reporting requirements: up, down, out?
  
  
• What distinctly different value proposition will we need to bring to our work to model the transformation we are trying to affect?
  
  
• How do we need to behave, with each other, and with other areas of the business?

With acceleration as the underlying concept, teams find common ground and they crystallize both their goals and their methods.  They soon prove their value by truly accelerating the changes the business is seeking.

Case Study:  A Not-So-Excellent
Center of Acceleration
The CEO of a large technology company was frustrated.  Although he knew the company’s organization effectiveness center of excellence possessed the necessary experience, the center was not able to share it effectively with the business units to help them drive their growth strategies.  To the contrary, the center actually seemed to be hampering strategic changes in the organization.

The center representatives were:

• Presenting themselves as the ultimate authority and decision makers
  
  
• Dictating to business units what could and could not be done
  
  
• Launching new enterprise initiatives without regard for business unit benefit.

Not surprisingly, the business unit managers had taken to referring to the center representatives as “corporate cops.”  Their visits were met with a sarcastic, “it’s corporate staff they must be here to help” attitude.  Managers in the business units thought of the center’s representatives as overhead staff who were controlling rather than helping.  There was little business value-added from this relationship.

The team needed to revisit its fundamental purpose and how to interact with the organization.  For example, they served their enterprise accountability first, leaving little time or inclination to understand and support the needs of the individual business units.  The team redefined their strategy, structure, and desired behaviors to support the new charter.

They:

• Analyzed their past value to the business and reached agreement on what more they would need to do;
  
  
• Embedded a demanding system of accountability and responsibility;
  
  
• Freed some of the group from their enterprise-wide accountability, allowing them to focus solely on the business units’ needs;
  
  
• Established measures to ensure integration of the strategic activity across the organization and the right linkage of the company’s profit and loss levers.

The group’s clarity of focus, flexible organization structure, and stronger expectation to accelerate the success of the business units, allowed them to contribute directly to the business units’ performance.

Broaden the Team’s Thinking
Intellectual property is a key ingredient for retooling a team into one that can truly help transform the business.

To affect a transformation, a team has to continually expand its perspective as well as those of the managers who are a part of the intended transformation.  The introduction of new mental models, frameworks, and tools broadens the way the team members think.

<< go to page 1  |  go to page 3 >>