CXO.fm | Transformation Leader's Podcast

In his book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" Stephen Covey taught us to begin with the end in mind. He suggested that while we know there's value in setting goals, that the greater value is in leading those goals to fruition. A workforce can’t help leaders drive towards the company's goals unless those leaders also provide the resources, authority, skills, tools, and expectations for the transformation jour...

Project managers really are some of the best candidates to become transformation managers. Because to carry out their typical project management work, they already have to bring together all disparate aspects of theory, reality, vision, process, value, politics and human nature to create successful outcomes. And of courses every project manager has a unique set of strengths and weaknesses, which will determine how well they could u...

The threat of disruption from smaller, more digitally savvy firms has motivated big corporates to launch efforts to build disruptors of their own. A few have succeeded, while many are wondering how to convert new ideas into new revenue. Andy Binns - an Executive Fellow at the Center for the Future of Organization, at Drucker School of Management - explains that most firms over emphasize ideation at the expense of two other innovati...

Transforming an industry also means transforming the way you do business, and digital economy companies like Ocado look very different to others.

When Ocado started, the founders set out to change the way people shop for groceries. 20 years later they’re a world-leader which is growing at an accelerating rate.

Written-off for years by naive cynics with antiquated mindsets, CEO Tim Steiner pursued his vision and has shown us how legit...

A high IQ and an abundance of Emotional Intelligence are not enough for transformation leaders to thrive and sometimes survive for very long in large organisations.

The dynamics that exist both within and across the various business units and functions can be challenging for someone with high levels subject matter expertise, but low levels of political intelligence.

The best transformation leaders have matured their political intelli...

Programme Management is a critical success factor in transformation.

But despite the best of intentions, hard work and a desire to succeed, many people assigned to manage and lead programmes are simply not up to the task.

And a good programme manager will be able to identify the shortcomings in a programme and predict the consequences, long before they unfold. 

Some people are great at managing projects, or an operational part of the ...

While the digitisation of marketing, operations and the workforce is good and necessary, these alone won’t protect a company from disruption.

Every year we’re seeing new innovative business models trigger the slow death of traditional models, that once enabled many companies to become very successful.

But if companies simply hang on to what worked well in the past, as their old business models become obsolete, so will the companies t...

The view of transformation and change can often be one-sided as it takes on the language of the originator and doesn't translate well to those who don't understand that language. This means that a breakdown in communication can happen very quickly. Andrew Ward elaborates on ‘The Layers of Change’, which is a way to model a change so we can all understand it, whether you're from a UX, CX, architectural or business discip...

While offensive strategy in the digital economy is focused on achieving competitive advantage, defensive strategy is focused on fending off attacks from competitors.

Defensive responses attempt to neutralise events that may harm the organisation, and reduce the likelihood of any negative impact. 

 This means using your competitive advantage to keep competitors at bay. After all, it’s important to protect your share of the market in o...

There’s never been a need for organisational change management and a focus on the people side of change more than today, but a lot of organisations still struggle with it. Karen Ferris is the author of several books about Organisational Change Management and she helps organisations thrive in the face of volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous change, providing new tools and approaches for a new age in organisational change manag...

In the past most people had no choice but to serve the owners of companies, and even these days, that's what most people do.

 But what I want more people to recognise is that you don't need another company to take advantage of the digital economy.

 As you know, big companies have lost the monopoly they once had on taking commercial advantage of technology. Because technology is now democratised.

 It's easier than ever for ...

Changing business outcomes requires people processes to change. The problem for many organisations is that they think new technology will do that, which is one reason why change and transformation initiatives have been failing for decades. 

Max Blumberg - a visiting Professor at Leeds University Business School - explains why you’d better get input from people on what changes would be acceptable and what changes would be best. Other...

Most organisations today don't need to be convinced of the need to transform, but they do struggle with how to do it. The harsh reality is that despite the best of intentions, and billions spent in pursuit of successful transformation outcomes, the vast majority of programmes fizzle out, falling well short of what was anticipated. 

In this episode, Professor Michael Wade - author of the books ‘Orchestrating Transformation’ and ‘...

While a business case is traditionally seen as somewhat of a justification-to-invest, it also helps shape the manner in which transformations unfolds.

Talking about strategy, vision, values, aims and objectives can be a very positive process, but they're often nebulous and meaningless if their value isn't monitored and evaluated.

The painful consequences of transformation without business cases are usually felt several months...

It's been less than five years since most companies started talking about transformation.

 As the years have gone by, an increasing number of companies have closed down, and the poster-boy disruptors like Amazon, Uber and Apple have served as free education to leaders that finally began to sit up and take notice of what's actually happening to the economy they compete in.

 But while most people have accepted the need to trans...

When strategy defines a direction and innovation defines the exciting unknown, how can you combine the two? 

 Innovation Capability enables organisations to generate, identify, assess, and realise new products, services and processes facilitated or driven by digital technologies and management practices. 

 It’s the Seed of Competitive Advantage, and without innovation, efforts at digital business transformation are likely to lead to ...

Whereas traditional business has been done by one company selling products and services to a customer, the platform changes the traditional dynamics of doing business.

Platforms uncover new sources of supply and demand and create network effects. This empowers exponential numbers of buyers and sellers to engage through the platform. The more users on the platform, the more powerful and valuable it becomes.

There are many manifestatio...

When teams don't have one common language to engage in transformation, so much gets lost in translation.

Ambiguity, confusion and the struggle to collaborate are just some of the words to describe the undesirable outcome of not having one common transformation language that the entire organisation can use.

So it's essential to have in place something that can provide this common transformation language. A shared framework for...