The Number of Transformational Initiatives Has Skyrocketed :

This piece is co-authored with Elizabeth Cannon: president emerita of the University of Calgary.

This piece is also part of the Essential Readings for the keynote offering, "Committed to the Team, Committed to the Mission."

Canadian organizations are facing pressure to adapt, across all sectors. But up to 70 per cent of change initiatives fail, according to an oft-referenced figure cited by John Kotter. And it’s not for lack of practice: the average employee experienced two transformation initiatives in 2016, and that skyrocketed to 10 in 2022 – almost one a month.

Through our respective experiences with transformations (Elizabeth leading change from the inside, Brooke accompanying leaders through change from the outside) we’ve reached a similar insight: changing behaviours and improving results comes from a mutually reinforcing integration of strategy and culture.

Taking the journey together

In order to be successful, a transformation needs to lead to new behaviours that are consistently applied across the organization and coherent in such a way that they create differentiated value. Transformation therefore requires more than management alone – it requires leadership. There are simply too many decisions that get made across an organization for one leader (or a small group) to handle, delegate and micromanage. That path is just too slow, relative to the pace of change around us.

To transform into organizations that anticipate change and adapt rapidly, we as leaders need to communicate a lot more than we expect. When the University of Calgary developed its Eyes High strategy (which aimed to vault the university into the top five universities in the country and increase its competitiveness for research, operating and infrastructure funding), the process involved:

• Dozens of in-person sessions of varying sizes, collectively engaging hundreds of participants
• Online resources such as social media campaigns, a dedicated webpage and interactive polls, which elicited thousands of responses
• Surveys to gather input and verify understanding, alignment and support for the final strategy

In total, more than 10 per cent of the total population of students, faculty and staff was engaged directly in the strategy process, with more than 30 per cent engaged in its refinement several years later.

For a company of 5,000 employees, this would work out to engaging 500 people in your first stage of transformation with more than 1,500 engaged after a couple of years. That’s how much communication it takes to drive choices “against the tide” of the status quo and it’s why a failed transformation is so much more likely to produce no change instead of the wrong change.

Reducing complexity

We also need to make the new strategy simple enough to be actionable so that it’s obvious which choices contribute to the growing momentum.

This point is especially important in highly dynamic contexts, where ambiguity and information overload make decisions even harder. An effective strategy delineates which information is relevant and outlines clear priorities, reducing complexity so that individuals can filter the flowing torrent effectively and act based on what you’ve helped them to focus on.

Again coming back to the University of Calgary example, creating a line-of-sight between strategy and actions and communicating how these are linked enabled understanding of and buy-in to the future direction of the institution. 

Removing barriers

Finally, it’s important to make the “organizational machinery” consistent with the actions that individuals need to take. Initially, this means at least removing barriers to the actions you want to see. As the transformation continues, it will involve positively reinforcing those behaviours.

This “organizational machinery” includes tools, policies and processes. For example, at the University of Calgary this involved cascading the strategy down to the level of human and financial resource decisions about different areas of work, updating performance metrics and incentives, etc.

Culture also has a part to play here because our old strategic focus will have left an “imprint” on ,for example, the kinds of successes that bring peer recognition and social validation. When the University of Calgary pivoted to focus on increasing impact by elevating respect and recognition on campus, they needed to nurture some new cultural practices around celebrating achievements that were aligned with the new strategic direction. 

Where to begin

If these insights sound useful, and you’re wondering how to get started, here are a few questions you can ask yourself to start the momentum:

• Who are my “early adopters” that I can collaborate with to lead in the early stages of transformation? Make sure you’ve got sufficient representation of senior leadership as well as individuals from across the organization who bring both perspective to the conversation and credibility to its results.
• What are they key behaviours we need as an organization in order to succeed? This includes behaviours we already exhibit and new behaviours we need to adopt.
• How can we provide clarity (of information and priorities) across the entire organization to support effective, consistent decision-making?
• What are the barriers to those new behaviours, structural as well as cultural? 

Finally, remember that starting with a few changes done well will build momentum, generate confidence for further investments and drive deeper transformation over time.