Looking for Real-Life Transformers

We’ve come a long way since the height of the most recent recession but we still have ways to go. Companies have scaled back operations, work force, benefits, and storefronts amongst various things. Companies have also taken advantage of the bankruptcy laws to get out of some real dumb commitments they made when times were good. 

Somebody rightfully said – If you continue to do the same things, you will continue to get the same results. But that still hasn’t stopped people from expecting miracles despite operational status qou! Do not expect the environment to change with you; you need to change with the environment. There, I said it, the word we dread – CHANGE. But we all know how difficult it is to bring about change in an organization, specially the kind that is needed to turn around or transform a large, Fortune 500 sized company. And who do you think has the authority to bring this transformation around? The CEO? COO? Managers? Customers? Government? Maybe they all own a portion of the whole responsibility since they all have a stake in the company. Clearly the first 3 stakeholders I just listed failed to do their job. The 4^th stakeholder, the customer, himself got fleeced by the first 3, and was rendered feeble. That leaves the Government, which finally had to step in and facilitate the much needed transformation. The Government was the much needed Transformer the market was waiting for! Nobody else had the will or the wherewithal to do it. 

But does it always have to be that way? Do things really have to get worse before transformation can be initiated? Not if you have the person with the right idea, with the required mandate, and with the unwavering courage to identify and initiate mission-critical transformation. This is the person we all need in our organizations – the Chief Transformation Officer – or the CXO, where X represents “transformation” and can also be looked upon as the much needed “X” factor every organization needs to change the game in order to win. Typically we all use CXO as a catch-all acronym for everybody in the C-level suite. Think of my version of the CXO as the one who needs to be a bit of everybody in the C-suite – CEO, COO, CFO, CTO, CIO, etc. You see the incumbent stakeholders have vested interests and/or “sunk cost” bias to leave things as-is. Keeping the same folks intact will not lend to any meaningful new or interesting ideas because they will continue to defend and hold on to their actions/decisions. They will continue to patronize their favorite team members and push their favorite initiatives. It’s the transformation officer that can make the difference because they do not have any favorites. They do not have any alliance or agreement or loyalty with the organization functions. Their single mission is to relentlessly seek out the company’s underperforming assets – plant, people, equipment, functions, processes, policies, markets, customer segments – and be the force of change. 

Let’s look at some of these CXOs. Ford brought one from Boeing, Alan Mulally, except that they gave him the CEO title, along with the CXO title. Mulally had a “transformer” reputation from his Boeing days and was brought in precisely for that reason. GM did not want to bring one so Government stepped in and gave them one – Ed Whitacre. Whitacre, while leaving AT&T, told his successor – “Give ‘em hell”. Sounds like a transformer to me. Finally, there is Sony. This is a company that had been the poster child of the world when it comes to electronics – the Walkman revolutionized the world. But they started losing ground to the likes of Samsung, LG, and Apple. Sony understood that they needed to transform their business quickly and who better to lead that effort than a CXO (a newly created position), George Bailey, who they plucked from IBM. Bailey’s famous words were – “There is no place to hide”. 

Money saved from business transformation activities can be invested in valuable R&D efforts that can result in the much needed innovations an organization needs to differentiate, stay competitive, and generate sustainable growth/profit. So what are you waiting for - Go find your CXO!