I’ve spent my entire career in the world of change and today I’ve been reflecting on “has it been worth it”

Back in the day

From the early stages of my career I was fortunate to be at the start of many discussions that turned into major transformation programmes. I listened to senior, experienced consultants discuss insight and tactics with the C-Suite and personally learnt so much on how to assess data, insight and to articulate strategic change. As part of the back up team I changed PowerPoints slides and improved on the succinctness of recommendations to get the changes approved and the programmes kicked off.

Looking back the changes back then were all very transformational with organisational restructures and the reshaping of the business model as the organisation merged, outsourced and onboarded new partners.

I was in the world of IT but luckily I was part of the business problem discussions and ultimately the programmes of change that followed were organizational and system based.

As I moved on from the C-Suite initiation into the shaping of the multiple projects themselves something strange seemed to happen – the costs of the change programme on the system side went up, the extent of change that was perceived to happen organisationally became somewhat diluted and the timelines for delivery and ultimate impacts to the business result started to move to the right.

I’m sure many of you can relate to the story above, I’m sure it is not unique.

And those that can relate I’m sure equally know what followed next.

The system side of the house exploded into complex programmes with system integrators, experienced contractors, detailed requirements, migration concerns and unforeseen infrastructure challenges far exceeding the timelines and costs expected.

The organisational side of the house restructured at pace with changes in ways of working across the business areas and across all levels of the organisation scratching at the surface of what was really needed to drive the transformation in business performance.

Back then was the change worth all the effort?

Well Change did happen and it was one hell of a personal development journey for all involved. Everyone reflecting back on it may well say that the effort required was far greater and the outcomes were not as significantly felt at the pace that the original PowerPoint decks suggested – but change definately happen – the business model changed the organisational model changed and the system landscape certainly got a battering.

Fast forward to today – is all the change worth it

The world today for those that have inherited the legacy of the early 2000s transformation initiative are facing into changing the corporate in a fast paced digital, social, employee and customer experience era.

The word agile, sprints, epics and 100 day plans are heard many tines within the day and code is cut and proof of concepts established.

For those businesses putting customer experience at the heart of their initiatives, testing concepts early getting insight and flexing plans and approaches accordingly I’m sure change will happen and business improvements in performance will follow.

But for those and I fear there are still some who jump too quickly to complex system projects and mobilise fast with limited customer engagement or internal assessment of what’s proposed then I’m not too sure the effort expended will deliver the results.

You don’t need to build an end to end system to get customer feed back; you don’t even need to build a system with all of its intrinsic features to question a prototype – the paper prototype – the imagine if this happen next or that happen next how would that improve your business outcomes and experiences – more of these questions need to be asked – more of these scenarios need to be played out – yes we all need the tech – the tech can be configured far quicker than ever before and it is needed but please please let’s not believe because we are coding tech we are making progress.

Many businesses have fully embraced the customer and employee experience mentality are looking at personas and business challenges and are desperately trying to simplify and utilise the new tech to design new businesses and achieve new things.

Please make sure you are working with businesses and on projects that are driving change in this way – the effort will be worth it.

How are you personally driving change – are you listening are you asking key questions are you designing for the future or replacing the past – are you making it count – will the change you are spending your career in be worth it?

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