Successful transformations harness the collective wisdom of middle managers and teams. To increase your company’s chances, you need to: 1) Enlist your very best middle managers. Transforming a business demands a blend of creativity and ingenuity. By setting this challenge you can also test and nurture the next generation of leaders. 2) Empower the middle to sponsor transformative changes. It’s imperative to actively encourage middle managers to bring forth innovative ideas and to provide adequate support when these managers propose significant changes. 3) Reward bold action and results. Successful transformation demands a fundamental reexamination of every aspect of a business to achieve breakthrough results. To achieve this, rewards must reinforce this need for wholesale change.
The conventional approach to business transformation — top-down directives coupled with bottom-up execution — isn’t working. Today, fewer than one in eight transformations yield lasting results, leaving seven in eight lacking sustained impact. While the traditional top-down method may aid in cost-cutting and efficiency, it fails to produce enduring breakthroughs in business performance.
