Transformation: The Holistic-Path Approach

By Sam Lee

Organisation transformation success relies on a well-planned process and structured implementation. Many organisations have attempted but success rate is still low. This book is intended to provide the fundamental understanding of transformation and how holistic path concept is applied in the transformation process. It is structured to ease the implementation by first establishing the understanding of the concepts and followed by the steps in planning, implementation and highlighting the critical success factors to help orgnaisations who want to implement transformation.

The concepts is developed with empirical evidence of its application and the support of various theories to support its validity and generalisability.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Nov 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543754506

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Copyright © 2019 Sam Lee. All rights reserved.

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ISBN

978-1-5437-5449-0 (sc)

978-1-5437-5451-3 (hc)

978-1-5437-5450-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019918591

11/25/2019

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TRANSFORMATION

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The Holistic-Path Approach

SAM LEE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Foundational Understanding

Opening Statements

Introduction

Building the Foundational Understanding of Holistic Path Approach

What Is Transformation?

External Factors

Internal Factors

Why Transformation?

Transformation Contexts

Dimensions of Transformation

Scope and Magnitude of Transformation

Path Concept

Why Path Concept?

Holistic Approach

System Perspective

System Structure

Process

Subsystem and System

System and Holistic Approach

Holistic Path Approach

Interconnectivity and Intraconnectivity

Transformation as Path-Dependent

Goal Setting, Objectives, Measurements, and Feedback

Chapter Summary

Chapter 3 Planning for the Transformation Process

Introduction

Defining the Strategic Direction of the Organisation

Determining the Strategic Gaps

Classification of Issues

Mapping of Issues

The Starting Point

Determine the Path

Influences of Path Determination

Path Design

Preparation for the Start of Transformation

Define Process Changes Needed on a Limited Scale

Identify the Process Linkages

Determine the Resource and Structure Needed

Assessing Readiness

Identify and Minimise Resistance Factors

Identify Starting Team

Determine the Measurements Linked to the Process Change

The Leader

Attributes of a Leader

Chapter 4 Implementation

Introduction

The First Step

Importance of Process Orientation

The Next Phase

Chapter 5 Sustaining and Critical Success Factors

Introduction

Leadership Factors

Organisational Factors

Implementation Process Factors

Initiating Momentum

Sustaining the Transformation Process

Follow the Path

Managing Inertia

Task versus Process Orientation

Pacing

Organisational Culture

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Some of the Changes in Ways of Doing Business

Table 3.1 Categorising the Hierarchy of Issues

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Path Illustration for an Effective Supply Chain Implementation Stage 1, 2 and 3

Figure 2.2 Illustration of a Simplified Path by Hierarchy of Level of Competencies

Figure 2.3 Types of Path

Figure 2.4 System Hierarchy

Figure 2.5 A Macro View of an Integrated Business System

Figure 2.6 Selecting Customer Order Processing Subsystem

Figure 2.7 The Micro View of a Sub-system and Connectivity in Customer Order Processing

Figure 2.8 Path Dependency of Cycle Time Improvement

Figure 3.1 Linking Strategy to Transformation

Figure 3.2 Illustration of Issues Mapping and Their Linkages

Figure 3.3 Different Forms of Trajectories

Figure 3.4 Types of Path

Figure 3.5 Illustration of Path Phases

Preface

How often have we heard people saying that business is getting tougher by the day? This is a statement of the truth across almost all businesses. Many enterprises began their businesses through the exploitation of an identified business opportunity. Most of these enterprises encountered some form of difficulties during their growth process. This can be due to a variety of reasons, such as complexity arising from growth, customers’ changing needs, and competition in addition to other external environmental changes.

Organisations today face the ultimate choice of change or demise, yet few organisations are prepared for the magnitude of change that is required of them to survive and thrive in the future. Fewer still understand the nature of changes and how to manage these necessary changes.

In today’s competitive business environment, organisations are being challenged to a magnitude of aspects. They need to improve performance by improving processes, minimising costs, providing better-quality products and services, increasing output, increasing their capabilities through the adoption of new technologies, and so on. Such changes can only be made by looking beyond traditional management systems. Continuous improvement (CI) and total quality management (TQM) have been the focus of recent organisational improvement initiatives. However, in many ways, the results have not been as dramatic as desired. Others may have tried business process re-engineering (BPR), which focuses on innovation and creativity in redesigning processes in an effort to meet customers’ needs and expectations, but the success of the implementation has been less than desired. Lately, many organisations also adopted lean manufacturing concepts to improve performance. These are great programmes that help in improving the performance through incremental changes and are on a selective-function basis. However, these are not effective if a radical change is needed. To cope with the competitive demands, organisations may require transformation that involves multiple disciplines that change from one state to another. In short, they need a holistic approach with a well-designed path.

Most of today’s organisations were built to conform to the classical twentieth-century business model, not based on current and future needs for survival and achievement of competitive advantage. Driven by the ongoing information age revolution and the competitive challenges, the nature of change itself has to be changed. No longer is incremental change good enough. Rapid and dramatic change is the order of the day. Not simply constant change, but a need for an ever-accelerating rate of change. To survive and thrive, organisations must remodel themselves to align to the environment of constant and transformational change. Under the new conditions, companies that do not innovate and transform will evaporate.

Many organisations are finding the old policies, rules, and procedures no longer working, and they have to change to a new way of doing business. Some of these examples are illustrated in Chapter 2. Fundamental to such change are leaders who hold a vision of the need for a new way of doing business and who can create an environment that supports this new way of doing business.

The purpose of this book is to provide the understanding of what transformation is and how transformation can be successfully implemented. It is not intended to be used as a cookbook with solutions. This is because each organisation’s situation is different. However, it is intended to provide the methodology on how to analyse the organisation and determine the planning and implementation of the transformation process. The first part of the book deals with the basic understanding of the concepts used in this book. It focuses on defining what organisational transformation is along with the concepts of holistic path approach. Following this is the planning, designing, and configuring the transformation process. Once the planning is completed, it can then move on to the implementation process. The final part of this book covers some of the pitfalls and the critical success factors for the transformation process. This book uses simple terms and applies many analogies to show the application and help readers understand the content.

The concepts used in this book are the convergence of some of the existing relevant theories with added empirical evidence to relate to their relevance. As there is no single theory that is sufficient in describing the holistic path transformation, various relevant theories are adopted in making this concept relevant. These theories are used to strengthen the validity of this concept and not intended to be used as an educational tool. The theories are embedded within the concept as such. Rather than describing these theories, they are being used in the methodology based on their relevance. Validity is important for any concept. To ensure this, there is a need to have strong theoretical background and support. Empirical evidence is used to demonstrate that this is a practical concept. The empirical evidence is important as it lends support to the theories. Various empirical studies over a wide range of industries are made and are intended to make this concept generalisable to both manufacturing and non-manufacturing organisations. This is not just a book for academic purposes; it is written more for the purpose of helping organisations in managing their transformation process. The style of writing is tuned to application focus, is reader-friendly, and has empirical relevance rather than educational.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

After years of working in various types of organisations and being involved in lecturing to both MBA and doctoral degrees, I felt compelled to write this book to guide management practitioners, who may find this useful in helping to implement organisational transformation. While there is no shortage of books and journals describing managing organisational transformation, what makes this book different from others is that it is both empirically tested and has theoretical support. Furthermore, it is made simple to adopt and implement the transformation needed. Both the concepts of holistic and path approach are not totally new as many authors have written about these two concepts as discrete approaches in books and journal articles. Integrating these two concepts is rare, and most describe them in the form of their respective theory.

With the rapid changes in the business environment fuelled by competition, customer demands, and globalisation, organisational transformation becomes a necessity for survival. Organisations must develop the flexibility and be able to respond to the competition and market changes. They need to