Transformation Requires Pruning
A transformation that carries too much excess baggage is unlikely to succeed. Transformations are challenging enough, but they are nearly impossible with excess, undue complication, and vagary. This is why most companies fail to transform their digital or other high-value areas of the operation and why most people don’t become the people they want to be. They don’t prune before or during the transformation. Attempting organizational or personal transformation requires the bare essence to occur, take root, and thrive.
Transformation happens for most people and organizations when they hit rock bottom and have no choice but to make significant changes. Why is this? It is partly because we must be ready and willing to transform, which often doesn’t occur until we don’t have other options. Hitting rock bottom also means there isn’t much excess to transform as a person or organization when there isn’t much left. Hitting rock bottom facilitates transformation on many levels, including being unencumbered by things that otherwise would prevent the transformation from happening.
We see this often in movies and shows where the hero has to regress to progress. Heroes often return to their birthplace, homeland, or remote location to repair, recover, and gain strength. Almost every Rocky movie follows this story arc, for example. Stories get written this way and are believable because we know that for someone to transform, they must remove distractions to attain clarity and focus and execute well. Pruning is an essential part of transforming. We know it, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Even when we know we must give up things to move forward, it is hard, and we often don’t. Personally and professionally, more means power, control, and status. It is a rare person who can willingly sacrifice today to be better and stronger tomorrow. Ownership bias keeps us from being willing to give up things we’ve accumulated because we convince ourselves that we deserve them. The same can be said for thoughts. We become owners of and attached to our thoughts and beliefs, irrespective of how well they serve us.
From an organizational perspective, this means acknowledging that things aren’t a one-for-one. A company cannot maintain its current beliefs, processes, and systems to execute a transformation. Too many companies attempt a transformation without this awareness and the willingness to identify and leave behind the things that aren’t working. A company going through any kind of transformation, digital or otherwise, has to be willing to let go of the historical parts of the company that are no longer needed and maybe never were.
Pruning is scary for most people. The standard perspective is that they don’t want to cut too deep, which prevents cutting deep enough or not cutting at all. When it comes to transformation, a reason for failure is rarely cutting too deep. Transformations require, in fact, demand essence. Transformations necessitate getting to a person or organization’s core. With everything stripped away, who do you want to be as a person or organization? A transformation of consequence is too difficult to carry anything more than the bare minimum.
