by Garvin Heer­ah

The meta­mor­pho­sis of cater­pil­lar to but­ter­fly has been spo­ken about over and over again. Many of the lead­er­ship gu­rus, both at the sec­u­lar and faith-based plat­forms, have ref­er­enced this “move­ment.”

It is in­deed a clas­sic ex­am­ple of trans­for­ma­tion. We ac­cept that trans­for­ma­tion is a pro­found, fun­da­men­tal change that al­ters the very na­ture of some­thing. Trans­for­ma­tion­al change is both rad­i­cal and sus­tain­able.

There­fore, it is im­per­a­tive that the mes­sage is com­mu­ni­cat­ed clear­ly. This mes­sage is—“Some­thing that is trans­formed can nev­er go back to ex­act­ly what it was be­fore.”

Many of us would talk the talk of trans­for­ma­tion, but de­lay, cow­er and creep when it comes to walk­ing the walk of trans­for­ma­tion.

Whether you want to be­lieve it or not, trans­for­ma­tion is a war­fare.

It is a bat­tle. Fought on a bat­tle­field that would in­volve bed­fel­lows, best friends, op­po­nents and en­e­mies.

Sim­ple sto­ry, there was once an open par­cel of land that con­nect­ed two parts of a vil­lage. For years, the vil­lagers would pass through this par­cel of land to get to the oth­er side or con­nect­ing streets. They tra­versed there for so long that a foot­path be­came carved in­to the ground and stones of the land. One day, “the own­er” de­cid­ed to erect a fence and pre­vent the vil­lagers from pass­ing. He went fur­ther to erect a sign, bold­ly stat­ing that tres­passers will be pros­e­cut­ed and the spe­cif­ic law was quot­ed and paint­ed rough­ly in black and white for all to see.

He was met with im­me­di­ate re­sis­tance. There were threats and acts of vi­o­lence against him­self, his prop­er­ty and they went so far as to threat­en his fam­i­ly. They were hooked to the old adage that prac­tice over a pe­ri­od, un­mo­lest­ed, be­comes law.

Un­der­stand­ably, there might have been some truth to all of this. The les­son in this short sto­ry is not what was done, but how it was done. Be­cause there might have been some flaws in the ap­proach, it gave birth to the fu­el of the war­fare, a word that has now been weaponised in so­ci­ety, that word is re­sis­tance.

Why? Be­cause every­body wants change! But no­body wants to change! The mo­ment you be­gin com­mu­ni­cat­ing change and trans­for­ma­tion, those lurk­ing in the shad­ows see an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­sist, cause de-rail­ing, en­cour­age sab­o­tage and would pre­fer to see the plan fail rather than of­fer sup­port.

We look on from the bleach­ers, call out the faults, de­tect the cracks and sin­gle out the cor­ro­sion. How­ev­er, when we are ap­proached to join and lend a help­ing hand, sup­port or give an opin­ion, we go mute. Why? We pre­fer to re­sist rather than change.

So there is a war­fare in trans­for­ma­tion. An en­su­ing bat­tle that can go on and on with­out end, un­less you man up, grab the beast by the horn and im­ple­ment with strong con­vinc­ing lead­er­ship.

This brings me to my next point. Suc­cess­ful trans­for­ma­tion is not on­ly face lifts and im­prove­ments to in­fra­struc­ture, up­grades and de­vel­op­ment to ICT, re­duc­tion in ex­pens­es and sep­a­ra­tion pack­ages. Those are dy­nam­ics of the change process. Some­times, these dy­nam­ics, and there are more, would take years of roll out and im­ple­men­ta­tion. What is most im­por­tant are the three pil­lars of the change man­age­ment process. As or­gan­i­sa­tions un­der­go de­vel­op­ment, the in­ten­tion is to achieve or­gan­i­sa­tion­al ef­fi­cien­cy. How­ev­er, to ar­rive at the point of or­gan­i­sa­tion­al ef­fi­cien­cy ALL or­gan­i­sa­tions MUST un­der­go trans­for­ma­tion.

The key to this trans­for­ma­tion, the door­way to the suc­cess­ful turn­around is, look­ing in­te­gral­ly and sur­gi­cal­ly in­to the lead­er­ship, mo­ti­va­tion and cul­ture of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

If you fail to raise these boul­ders and shake the dust of ha­bit­u­al prac­tices, and make un­com­fort­able some of the com­fort zones of cul­ture, all you will be un­der­go­ing is a clear­ly de­fined cir­cle that will bring you right back to the start point with mil­lions of dol­lars wast­ed.

The mes­sage is clear, if you are prepar­ing for trans­for­ma­tion, pre­pare for the war­fare. Some may see it as a struc­tur­al ap­proach to pro­gres­sive de­vel­op­ment and best prac­tice. Oth­ers may see it as block­ing them from pass­ing through what is not right­ful­ly theirs to so do.

Dur­ing the change process and the nu­mer­ous ex­er­cis­es, be pre­pared to ex­am­ine how the or­gan­i­sa­tion is led. How de­ci­sions are be­ing made. How are crises be­ing man­aged and how are we prepar­ing those be­low us to suc­ceed and as­sume lead­er­ship in our suc­ces­sion plan­ning. A good launch pad would be to ask, “Are our lead­ers trans­for­ma­tion­al or trans­ac­tion­al?”

We must al­so thor­ough­ly ex­am­ine the mo­ti­va­tion­al tem­per­a­ture check. My grand­moth­er used to say, “All skin teeth is no grin!” And she was ab­solute­ly cor­rect. Are our peo­ple smil­ing, or grind­ing their teeth? Are our peo­ple walk­ing around with paint­ed smiles pow­dered with hypocrisy, or are they gen­uine­ly hap­py to be part of this or­gan­i­sa­tion? If our peo­ple are hurt­ing, then...our or­gan­i­sa­tion is hurt­ing.

Last­ly, how do we do busi­ness here? What type of cul­ture ex­ists?

We can work around the clock, in­stalling all the de­vices of change and de­vel­op­ment, and if we fail to ad­dress the cul­ture of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, we will not suc­ceed.

Cul­ture is the ele­phant in the room. It runs so deep that it be­gins to flow in the DNA of our peo­ple, trans­form­ing in­to a way of life and spread­ing in­to house­holds and be­hav­iours of even our stake­hold­ers.

Cul­ture goes way be­yond re-brand­ing and re-de­sign­ing of lo­gos and em­blems, or change in uni­forms.

Nope!!! Cul­ture is re-shap­ing minds and lives. Not every­one is ready nor pre­pared for such a shift. If that’s the is­sue, then their in­ter­est was nev­er in­sti­tu­tion­al, but al­ways self.

The vi­sion must be kept alive, the vi­sion must be clear­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed and the vi­sion must be mea­sured over time.

The re­al­i­ty is—trans­for­ma­tion is a war­fare!!