Braving the Storm: Organization Transformation

The most enjoyable and challenging part of my sales career has always been driving change. In my earlier years, this simply meant a major tweak to a current "way of working" for example; a new method of negotiation or a multi-functional approach to a process (i.e. joint business plans, commercial alignment meetings etc... ). The outcome, of course, would be to achieve a result efficiently while ensuring the commercial alignment.

Efforts such as these are all initiated to ensure the company stays true to the overall vision. Big concept words like Sustainability, Synchronized execution, Customer & Shopper-Centric are typically in-bed into a company's vision and then trickle down to the business objectives, strategies and tactics.

I recall numerous workshops, endless meetings and dry-runs as ways to cascade what appeared to be strange changes. Some initiatives were easily accepted by employees while there were those initiatives that had to be pushed-down and swallowed like a bitter pill. One innovative method to get the attention of the manufacturing team was to use the Comic Strip format as a medium to reach and communicate a major business planning process which was earlier misunderstood as a plant closure. Although the factory closed two and a half years later, it was certainly not the key objective of the process change. Another clear example of a tough top-down change was the Development of a Standard Trade Term Matrix and the succeeding negotiations thereafter. These region-led workshops were done at a time when key customer and distributor discounts were disproportionately spread. In those days, there was no logic to explain the difference; save to say that these are historic trading terms. The sales team resisted to the hilt until the Sales Director had to step in and committed that discounts would be aligned for the entire sales team! The tough negotiations with customers did eventually happen and compliance to the Discount Matrix was achieved. The following then happened as a result; Trade discounts were made transparent and significantly reduced; Gross Margins increased while some funds were plowed back into advertising to boost consumption, brand awareness etc...but key was an established rationale for providing discounts that are a balance between variable and fixed.

In my view, these mentioned process changes that lead to some part of the organization evolving to a better state, work because the company has a skilled, capable and enabled team to execute the plan. The hurdle in this type of scenario is always tackling mind-set change first and perhaps some minor technical training to follow. So much for process-led organization transformations.

The reason I mentioned earlier that the most challenging and enjoyable part of my sales career was driving change, stems from a more fundamental basis. Here I am talking about transformations of the most delicate type, and those are the ones that involve people.

You will be tested and stretched as you execute the company direction. But pull through with success and you join the ranks of true leaders (at least in my opinion).

It has been documented that any organization going through a transition will follow these stages: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. The first two stages are crucial to ensure the a smooth transitions to the norming and performing stages. I will therefore focus on Forming and Storming.

My organization transformation experience involved a re-structure of first,Trade Marketing group and second, an entire sales team. Both required personal leadership and resilience. I would like to share the key factors that drove my success while forming and storming.

1) Build your own management team

For those without this opportunity you will have to do a great job at convincing your incumbent manteam on why changes need to be made. So prepare your rationale and selling story well. At best you will need only one strong ally to help you spread the word.

If you are given the privilege to build up your team then choose those that can you feel can be trusted to execute without your presence, when in doubt use your gut to make the call. Another way is to hire people you have successfully worked with in the past. Although it is healthy for a team to have conflicting ideas. For transitions it is best that all are aligned and single-minded in approach. Take note, people will be looking up to you and your management team. It does not send the right signal if you are not aligned.

2) An unbreakable belief that you will achieve your Vision

Like it or not, we have to face the reality that the business must continue to operate. Of course there are always risks, however, these should not come at the expense of losing sales while in transition. So craft your your vision and make sure it links to the overall company vision, print it out and post it where you can see it, then share it with your next level managers and ask them to do the same.

When times are trying your team, refer back to your vision and use this to motivate the team.

3) Prepare a ready pool of Talent & get involved in the hiring process

How does one transition an entire department? It would help to have two to three or more head hunters on stand-by with your newly written job-descriptions. Let them accumulate a talent pool which will need to be siphoned for ideal candidates by you or key managers aligned with the ideal competency requirements for the roles to be filled-in. You only get one chance to bring in the right talent with the right skills aligned to your vision so best to get involved at the hiring stage. Finding-out a hire is not the right fit once regularized becomes complicated with legalities and is way more difficult to undo. Remember employees need at least thirty days before they can make a leap so plan well in advance of your D-day.

4) Obtain full-support and involvement of the Executive Team.

There will be noise on the sidelines and rumors will quickly spread. It is essential to keep communicating the vision and reasons for your re-structure. But more importantly Heads of different departments must be aligned and made aware of the changes to happen so that they can help manage their own teams as well. I would like to highlight the importance of a strong collaboration with HR and Legal. You are dealing with individuals and the last thing you would want are lawsuits filed against the company.

5) Communicate the Vision

If there are remaining incumbents, it's best to start talking to the Middle managers and get them on board. At this point your selling story must be bullet proof and a set of FAQs would surely help. Once this is out of the way then you can move on the remaining front-liner incumbents. Also, at the hiring stage, use the vision to lure and entice incoming candidates. Good Talent are always looking for challenges and contributing to an organization re-structure is surely an achievement that can be bragged about. Last and most important is to inform the customers. This is done to ensure business continuity in-case there are those that decide to "drop the ball" when the re-structure is announced. When I transitioned the General Trade Team, I was surprised to find out that all front-line Distributor Managers had decided to leave the company, it was a good thing that my middle managers had personally spoken to each distributors to explain the changes and then to ensure orders are placed and processed during the transition.

6) Consider Organization Transition Timing

I had earlier talked about business continuity and that there should be no disruption during transition unless there are no stocks to sell. Therefore, when to execute the organization re-structure must also be considered. Do you begin at the start of the year, do you avoid peak seasons? At times you will have no choice but to pull the trigger; in these situations, you will need to ensure steps three and four are firmly in place. Another important factor to think about is the speed of transition. The faster a transition is executed the sooner the organization reaches the norming or stabilizing stage. The idea is not to get trapped in the storming stage too long.

So there you have it, what for me are the crucial steps to organization transformation and hopefully by keeping these in mind when the time comes you should be able to do the same.