Strategies for Executives to Ignite Organizational Transformation

Strategies for Executives to Ignite Organizational Transformation
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2014-08-04-Change_Inevitable_Embrace.jpgChange seems to be the only constant in the world -- in every industry. Today's leaders constantly have to adjust to the world swirling around them. In order for organizations to thrive, leaders do best if they embrace and master the art of transformation. To help employees through a constant changing marketplace, the leader must be proficient at self-adaptation to the outside changes as well as leading others through transformational change.

But how do you do it? How do you learn the best way to go through transformation and know that on the other side of it will be a victorious ending? First of all we must learn to not be afraid of transformational change or to change transformationally. Sometimes fear stops us in our tracks -- the old adage "what if I fail" prevails if we let it. The most successful leaders in business have documented failures followed by incredible success. What's their secret? It seems to be about getting up once more than you fall -- persistence pays off. Learning through trial helps executives and their teams to be energized to keep going until the goals are accomplished.

And, transformation of the leader and the organization will be required to significantly move from the current organizational state. If you continue to do incremental change, you may be too slow and you will watch your competitors move beyond you. In almost every industry, there are new players entering the market and competition is fierce. Consequently executive leaders are scrambling to position their business to thrive into the unforeseeable future. Every leader and organization wants to survive, but to do so you must embrace transformation and dramatically move your organization forward.

Where do you begin? There are two steps -- 1) Transform you and 2) Transform your organization. Here are several actions you can take right now to start transforming you!

  1. Evaluate yourself honestly and assess your transformational skills.
  2. Enlist an executive coach or a confidant who serves as a mentor to help you assess your abilities to transform yourself and your organization.
  3. Come up with one or two improvements you can begin with that strengthen you as a leader.
  4. Plan your approach to improve your transformational skill set.
  5. Implement your plan and begin to practice your new skills in your organization.

After you are on the pathway to improving you, then begin to evaluate your organization and determine where it needs to go to thrive. A few key activities include:

  1. Development of an innovative vision for your organization.
  2. Contrasting your current state with your vision in order to articulate the difference to your team.
  3. Creating and executing a plan to carry out the vision. This is includes ways employees can be brought on board to help accomplish the vision and defined metrics to measure success.
  4. Analyzing and altering your hiring processes. In short, if you don't have a purposeful hiring process that ensures you will bring on the best talent, put one into place.
  5. Executing an effective communication strategy to keep your team engaged and inspired about the forward movement.
  6. Sharing the elements of your personal transformational journey as a way to inspire employees of your commitment to excellence.
  7. Celebrating as a team on your collective successes.

Implementing these items allows you to be on your way to helping your organization thrive during these ever-changing times. Move forward with optimism and everyone around you will gleefully follow!

This post first appeared on WallinEnterprises.com. Let's connect: LinkedIn | Twitter

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