The Six Pillars of Transformation

About a 4 minute read

The most challenging and rewarding endeavor of my career has been spearheading and leading an organizational Agile transformation. The learning curve was steep. There were uncomfortable (yet professional) interactions. I encountered numerous scenarios that forced me to be adaptable and propelled my development in the worlds of organizational change and Agile. Through collaboration and refinement, I ended up applying a practical, common-sense approach to the transformation's change management that, looking back on the experience, revolved around six pillars that were independently, and collectively, vital to the transformation's success. As I learned and my experience grew, I found overlap with established change management models and practices. This reinforced that through approaching the transformation with a practical, people focused plan, I was headed in the right direction and had established a strong foundation for navigating a world of change.

The learnings from five-plus years of being at the forefront of an organizational Agile transformation, and over ten years of project management, coalesced in the aforementioned six pillars that are most important for a successful transformation. While it is possible for a transformation (which you can consider interchangeable with ‘change management’) to still be successful in the absence of a pillar or two, the journey will be more stable and a better overall experience for those impacted. To better introduce this pillar concept, take a look at the image below. The pillars are:

• Executive/Leadership Support

• Education

• Purpose Communication

• Plan of Attack

• Ongoing Communication

• Feedback Vehicle

In this post, my goal is to illustrate how the pillars fit within a transformation. I will explore the pillars individually in subsequent posts.

Moving to a new, desired stated via the transformation bridge and its six pillars

Using the included image as representation of the transformation journey, the pillars support the path from existing practices (the sun setting) to a different, desired state (sun rising). The arrow indicates transformation should be a one-way path, always progressing to the desired state. This does not mean the path is a straight line or pieces from the sunsetting practices cannot be carried forward into the new, desired state. In most cases, an organization will have value-adding processes that should absolutely be brought into the new world to supplement best practices, a topic worthy of its own post. Back to the image - the goal of a transformational leader is to get an organization and its people from one side of the bridge to the other. The length of the bridge, the scope of the transformation, will vary, but all changes essentially share fundamental qualities that are supported by these pillars.

If you are a structural engineer, I ask here that you suspend your critique of this bridge's soundness or commentary on the resulting physics from any of the pillars' absence; I use the bridge and pillars as simple illustrative representation. The six pillars again represent the key aspects of a transformation that should occupy both the long-term planning and day-to-day focus of a change leader, and I will restate, that while the absence of a pillar or two will not doom a transformation, the journey will likely be more difficult and time-consuming. To wrap things up for now, let's briefly touch upon the impact of each pillar.

Executive and leadership support is essentially the red light/green light of any transformation. Without support and true understanding of the transformation's goals at the organization's highest levels, there is unlikely to be a unified message to galvanize the engagement necessary for the transformation to progress. Education is crucial in supporting the "why" behind the transformation and in developing any necessary skills for individuals to be successful in the new, desired state. Communicating the purpose for undergoing change, the "why", is one of the easiest ways to get support and cultivate a level of engagement where each person can identify how they participate and impact the transformation's efforts. Of course, having a plan of attack for how to approach and advance the transformation is simply sound leadership, but there must also be a recognition for flexibility in planning, which allows course adjustments as necessary. Transformations will require repetitive and transparent communication, which will be delivered to mass audiences, specific groups, and one-on-one individuals. Lastly, change leaders should never assume they have all the answers or are acing every aspect of the transformation, so having a mechanism to gather and address feedback is important for keeping people engaged.

Unsurprisingly, the pillars are people-focused, because it is through people that change is successful. Looking ahead, I will begin reviewing each pillar in its own post, which will also reflect how I approach these pillars in the context of my own change management experiences.