-
Have you ever noticed
-
when you ask someone to talk
about a change they're making
-
for the better in their personal lives,
-
they're often really energetic?
-
Whether it's training for a marathon,
-
picking up an old hobby,
-
or learning a new skill,
-
for most people,
-
self-transformation projects occupy
a very positive emotional space.
-
Self-transformation is empowering,
-
energizing,
-
even exhilirating.
-
I mean just take a look at some
of the titles of self-help books:
-
"Awaken the Giant Within,"
-
"Practicing the Power of Now,"
-
or here's a great one
we can all relate to,
-
"You are a Badass:
-
How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness
and Start Living an Awesome Life."
-
(Laughter)
-
When it comes to self-transformation,
-
you can't help but get
a sense of the excitement.
-
But there's another type of transformation
-
that occupies a very
different emotional space.
-
The transformation of organizations.
-
If you're like most people,
-
when you hear the words "Our organization
is going to start a transformation,"
-
you're thinking, "Uh oh."
-
(Laughter)
-
"Lay offs."
-
The blood drains from your face,
-
your mind goes into overdrive,
-
frantically searching
for some place to run and hide.
-
Well you can run,
-
but you really can't hide.
-
Most of us spend the majority of our
waking hours involved in organizations.
-
And due to changes in globalization,
-
changes due to advances in technology
-
and other factors,
-
the reality is,
-
is our organizations
are constantly having to adapt.
-
In fact,
-
I call this the era
of "always-on" transformation.
-
When I shared this I idea
with my wife Nicola,
-
she said, "Always-on transformation?
-
That sounds exhausting."
-
And that may be
exactly what you're thinking --
-
and you would be right.
-
Particularly if we continue to approach
the transformation of organizations
-
the way we always have been.
-
But because we can't hide,
-
we need to sort out two things.
-
First,
-
why is transformation so exhausting?
-
And second,
-
how do we fix it?
-
First of all,
-
let's acknowledge that change is hard.
-
People naturally resist change,
-
especially when it's imposed on them.
-
But there are things that organizations do
that make change even harder
-
and more exhausting
for people than it needs to be.
-
First of all,
-
leaders often wait too long to act.
-
As a result,
-
everything is happening in crisis mode.
-
Which of course tends to be exhausting.
-
Or, given the urgency,
-
what they'll do is they'll just focus
on the short-term results,
-
but that doesn't give
any hope for the future.
-
Or they'll just take
a superficial, one-off approach,
-
hoping that they can return back
to business as usual
-
as soon as the crisis is over.
-
This kind of approach
-
is kind of the way some students
-
approach preparing for standardized tests.
-
In order to get test scores to go up,
-
teachers will end up teaching to the test.
-
Now that approach can work.
-
Test results often do go up,
-
but it fails the fundamental
goal of education:
-
to prepare students to succeed
over the long term.
-
So given these obstacles,
-
what can we do
-
to transform the way
we transform organizations
-
so rather than being exhausting,
-
it's actually empowering and energizing?
-
To do that,
-
we need to focus on five
strategic imperatives,
-
all of which have one thing in common:
-
putting people first.
-
The first imperative
for putting people first
-
is to inspire through purpose.
-
Most transformations have
financial and operational goals.
-
These are important and they
can be energizing to leaders,
-
but they tend not to be very motivating
to most people in the organization.
-
To motivate more broadly,
-
the transformation needs to connect
with a deeper sense of purpose.
-
Take LEGO.
-
The LEGO Group has become
an extraordinary global company.
-
Under their very capable leadership,
-
they've actually undergone
a series of transformations.
-
While each of these has had
a very specific focus,
-
the north star,
-
linking and guiding all of them,
-
has been Lego's powerful purpose:
-
inspire and develop
the builders of tomorrow.
-
Expanding globally?
-
It's not about increasing sales,
-
but about giving millions of additional
children access to LEGO building bricks.
-
Investment and innovation?
-
It's not about developing new products,
-
but about enabling more children
-
to experience the joy
of learning through play.
-
Not surprisingly,
-
that deep sense of purpose tends
to be highly motivating to LEGO's people.
-
The second imperative
for putting people first
-
is to go all in.
-
Too many transformations
-
are nothing more than
head-count cutting exercises;
-
lay-offs under the guise
of transformation.
-
In the face of relentless competition,
-
it may well be that you will
have to take the painful decision
-
to downsize the organization,
-
just as you may have to lose some weight
in order to run a marathon.
-
But losing weight alone
-
will not get you across
the finish line with a winning time.
-
To win ...
-
you need to go all in.
-
You need to go all in.
-
Rather than just cutting costs,
-
you need to think about initiatives
-
that will enable you to win
in the medium term,
-
initiatives to drive growth,
-
actions that will fundamentally change
the way the company operates,
-
and very importantly,
-
investments to develop
the leadership and the talent.
-
The third imperative
for putting people first
-
is to enable people with the capabilities
-
that they need to succeed during
the transformation and beyond.
-
Over the years I've competed
in a numer of triathalons.
-
You know, frankly, I'm not that good,
-
but I do have one distinct capability;
-
I am remarkably fast at finding my bike.
-
(Laughter)
-
By the time I finish the swim,
-
almost all the bikes are already gone.
-
(Laughter)
-
Real triathletes know that each leg --
-
the swim, the bike, the run --
-
really requires different capabilities,
-
different tools,
-
different skills,
-
different techniques.
-
Likewise when we transform organizations,
-
we need to be sure
that we're giving our people
-
the skills and the tools
they need along the way.
-
[Cronas],
-
a global software company,
-
recognized the need to transfer
from building products --
-
software products --
-
to building software as a service.
-
To enable its people
to take that transformation,
-
first of all they invested in new tools
-
that would enable their employees
to monitor the usage of the features,
-
as well as customer satisfaction
with the new service.
-
They also invested in skill development,
-
so that their employees would be able
-
to resolve customer service
problems on the spot.
-
And very importantly,
-
they also reinforced the collaborative
behaviors that would be required
-
to deliver an end-to-end seamless
customer experience.
-
Because of these investments,
-
rather than feeling overwhelmed
by the transformation,
-
[Chronas] employees
actually felt energized
-
and empowered in their new roles.
-
In the era of "always-on" transformation,
-
change is a constant.
-
My fourth imperative therefore
-
is to instill a culture
of continuous learning.
-
When Satya Nadella became
the CEO of Microsoft
-
in February 2014,
-
he embarked on an ambitious
tranformation journey
-
to prepare the company to compete
in a mobile-first, cloud-first world.
-
This included changes to strategy,
-
the organization
-
and very importantly,
-
the culture.
-
Microsoft's culture at the time was one
of [silos] and internal competition ...
-
not exactly conducive to learning.
-
Nadella took this head-on.
-
He rallied his leadership
around his vision
-
for a living, learning culture,
-
shifting from a fixed mindset,
-
where your role was to show up
as the smartest person in the room,
-
to a growth mindset,
-
where your role was to listen, to learn
and to bring out the best in people.
-
[...early days,]
-
Microsoft employees already know
to shift in the culture ...
-
clear evidence of Microsoft
putting people first.
-
My fifth and final imperative
is specifically for leaders.
-
In a transformation,
-
a leader needs to have a vision,
-
a clear road map with milestones
-
and then you need to hold people
accountable for results.
-
In other words,
-
you need to be directive.
-
But in order to capture the hearts
and minds of people,
-
you also need to be inclusive.
-
Inclusive leadership is critical
to putting people first.
-
I live in the San Francisco Bay area.
-
And right now,
-
our basketball team
is the best in the league.
-
We won the 2015 championship,
-
and we're favored to win again this year.
-
And there are many explanations for this.
-
They have some fabulous players,
-
but one of the key reasons
-
is their head coach, Steve Kerr,
is an inclusive leader.
-
When Kerr came to the Warriors in 2014,
-
the Warriors were looking
for a major transformation.
-
They hadn't won a national
championship since 1975.
-
Kerr came in and he had a clear vision,
-
and he immediately got to work.
-
From the outset,
-
he reached out and engaged
the players and the staff.
-
He created an environment of open debate
and solicited suggestions.
-
During games he would often ask,
-
"What are you seeing that I'm missing?"
-
One the best examples of this came
in game four of the 2015 finals.
-
The Warriors wer down two games to one
-
when Kerr made the decision
to change the starting lineup;
-
a bold move by any measure.
-
The Warriors won the game
and went on to win the championship.
-
And it is widely viewed
-
that that move was the pivotal
move in their victory.
-
Interestingly, it wasn't
actually Kerr's idea.
-
It was the idea of his 28-year-old
assistant, Nick U'Ren.
-
Because of Kerr's leadership style,
-
U'Ren felt comfortable
bringing the idea forward.
-
And Kerr not only listened,
-
but he implemented the idea
-
and then afterwards,
-
gave U'Ren all the credit ...
-
actions all consistent with Kerr's highly
inclusive approach to leadership.
-
In the era of "always-on" transformation,
-
organizations are always
going to be transforming.
-
But doing so does not
have to be exhausting.
-
We owe it to ourselves,
-
to our organizations
-
and to society more broadly
-
to boldly transform our
approach to transformation.
-
To do that ...
-
we need to start putting people first.
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)