Transformed Organizational Thinking

Have you recently come across organizations involved in the process of re-branding? If not, this is a common practice not only with SMEs, but also corporate entities. Most often, the organizations spruce up their products, logos and their premises. They redesign as well as re-arrange the furniture and such other niceties. Occasionally, they acquire entirely new premises. Others will re-engineer the business processes too. And to complete the makeover, some organizations will acquire uniforms or badges for their staff. The final stage may involve acquiring full page supplements in the dailies that inform the whole world about re-branding process.

Apparently, the greatest re-engineering in the recent times is the newly launched E- Procurement revolution, a project of the Government. It is no doubt a great milestone.  Indeed,   the public sector too needs to take full advantage of continually advancing technology. This not only helps in improving efficiency in management of resources, but also creates competitive advantages. Thus,   benefits from cost reduction, process streamlining, improved contract compliance and more should no doubt be in focus.

However, Neilson et al. (2000) indicate that bureaucratic, hierarchical structure; organizations should form more flexible, decentralized teams and alliance based networks that allow employees to react to market shifts. On the other hand, Soete and Weehuizen (2003) further support this notion that public sector organizations often lack innovation and are resistant to change. They tend to emphasize conformity and defend status quo instead of focusing on creativity, improvement and change. This is especially evident when implementing innovative information technologies such as e-procurement systems.

However, security and authentication as volunteered by (Croom, 2000) and (Varney, 2011) respectively are two major challenges present in e-procurement. The impacts of technological errors, system constraints and technological failures could further present major concerns for e-procurement. What of tools such as e-signature, e-notice or e-bids despite significantly reduced processing time? What about the process of authenticating bidders? Actually, all these might raise security issues as well as cause costly errors.

In this sense, much of the responsibility of ethical behavior is placed on the vendors.  But, will vendors’ motives of doing business with the government not place additional pressure on the e- procurement process?  What of validation of the integrity of the process, thus need for ensuring transparency?

Meanwhile, the re-branding or re-engineering so far noted are organizational changes inclined towards dealing with the external- stakeholders. But, how can the processes safely ensure that the desired benefits will accrue to all stakeholders? Needless to emphasize, the transformation so far, is an externally oriented change process. It is about crafting the impressions that may be explicit to the outside world. The re-engineering processes too make it more convenient dealing with the outside. But, how have internal stakeholders been prepared on the whole process?

Ideally, holistic organizational transformation happens only when a thorough inside out approach is adopted.  In reality, any organization is as good as the people that comprise it. They are the ones who behave or act on the organization’s behalf. Even if man has achieved great strides of recreating himself through robots, he is yet (if at all) to replicate the sensory system in these androids. The same case applies to organizations of whatever kind.

They are as good as huge robots obviously deprived off use of this powerful sensory system. Essentially, they must therefore rely on that of the respective human capital. It does not matter the size or situation of the organization. Studies in organizational behavior, a specialized area of study in management, bring out clear guides on this occasionally misconstrued aspect of organizations.

In this realization, we have over the years been keenly monitoring the behavior of varying organizations.  We have more particularly been comparing organizational behavior with that of their respective human capital.  Most often, it has been easy to pinpoint challenged organizational behavior. You will frequently notice advertisements of companies, which keep on hiring and firing employees. This means high turnovers of particular cadre of employees or maybe all levels.

In other situations, you will find organizations experiencing adverse publicity that is occasioned by theft by servant. Another clue is frequent customer complaints that go unattended for long durations. These are great signs of organizations whose going concern concept or successful continuity into the future may be of concern. Notably, this age of dynamic technological advancements is endowed with soaring levels of competition, now driven by global dynamics. Will it not be extremely difficult for challenged brands to grow and maintain desirable market share?

Nonetheless, there should be no cause for alarm. Organizations must continue evolving through the different phases of development. More particularly, they must align themselves to the dynamics of the 21^st century. Those of the 20th century may not work in this information age. The paradigms are no doubt different. Lessons from the late Author Stephen R. Covey, a great mentor in matters management/leadership are handy and universal. His views on avoidable conflicts experienced in the 21^st century by those insistent on sticking with the 20th century paradigms are worthwhile noting.

How, for example, can we continue controlling human beings like things and still expect them to be in love with our organizations, just because there is a salary to be earned? How can we continue complaining that people are not performing, yet we are aware that challenged leadership cannot inspire them to perform to our desires? No, wonder the liberated generation X and now Z are no longer keen in holding onto lifetime jobs as was recently revealed.

Luckily, the situation is not entirely out of hand.  We only need to focus towards complete re-branding through overhauling of the existing paradigms. Only then will organizations quickly transit to and adopt the 21^st century paradigms. That will not happen through outside-in re-branding process, but rather the holistic inside-out approach.  With your indulgence, it is possible to illustrate how this happens; especially using an example of one of the organizations that have adopted this high impact approach.

By the end of 2007, a well established company that owns a lucrative building in the city was experiencing some very low moments. The forces of change were hostile to the continuity of the company. The regulatory authorities had threatened to withhold renewal of the license for 2008, a situation that could easily have led to statutory management.  Indeed, the company was in the same category as others that have since succumbed, which can’t be named here.

But for this particular company, the then MD pleaded for time to implement drastic changes that he felt could re-invigorate the company. The first measure involved developing a strategic plan, which provided various guides and causes of action, meant to overcome the company’s prevailing predicaments. Employee empowerment was conceived as one of the strategies.  Somehow, we bumped into the scene and proposed a bottom up employee re-branding process. It was readily embraced and the process commenced in February 2008.

In different sessions depending on seniority, all the 70 or so employees experienced the re-branding process within the year. Strikingly, the MD was very passionate about this whole process. Alongside, he keenly implemented all the recommendations made through the elaborate training/consulting report attributable to the process.    Indeed,   all the recommendations were implemented to the letter.

One year since the commencement of the re-branding process, the company’s scenario had changed for the better. It was able to comply with all the statutory requirements. An astonished regulatory body CEO not only promptly presented the renewal license, but also sought to understand the tricks that had led to the incredible recovery. Subsequently, the earlier troubled company registered a 16% increase in sales turnover. The profit levels went up 3 times, compared to the previous year. What exactly could have led to these improvements?

A training impact analysis that we conducted revealed that soft skills levels had improved by an average of 20%. More still, the company had achieved previously non-existent unity of purpose and direction. Above all, “the employee motivation has noticeably transformed, since the training. In fact, they now feel that they own the company,” wrote the excited HR Manager.

Apparently, effective re-branding and/or re-engineering may only happen when graced with transformed organizational thinking. Alongside, the transformed inside inherently influences the outside. This forms sound basis for sustainable competitive advantage in a volatile business environment.

Meanwhile,

• If you wanted to holistically and strategically transform the fortunes of your organization, where would you start?
• Did you ever know that we can help your organization to completely transform direction for the better in only 2 – 3 days?
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• How about starting with a non committal, one on one discussion on how the transformation can be achieved?

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