What Is Organizational Transformation?

In a section of his book Out of Crisis entitled, Principles for Transformation of Western Management, W. Edwards Deming wrote, “Western style of management must change to halt the decline of Western industry, and to turn it upward… There must be an awakening to the crisis, followed by action, management’s job… The transformation can only be accomplished by man, not by hardware (computers, gadgets, automation, new machinery). A company cannot buy its way into quality.” These prophetic words have a more poignant ring of truth today then when they were first published by the MIT Center for Advanced Engineering Study in 1982.

As defined in the business literature, organizational transformation refers to deep, fundamental, (often radical) changes in an organization’s mission, strategy, structures, systems, ways-of-working, and culture, as opposed to incremental improvements. Transformation efforts are normally used to respond to the forces and demands of the business environment that require an organization to change how it does business in order to survive in the market place. Over the last 25 years, the process of organizational transformation has been called many things including, reengineering, rightsizing, and more recently culture change. But the basic goal of all these approaches has been more or less the same; e.g., to make fundamental changes in how an organization structures, organizes, and uses its human, material, and financial resources to act on (and react to) changes in the business environment.

Organizational transformation has two elements: change and transition. The change required to align an organization’s structures, systems, and resources around a new mission and strategy that increases the value delivered to customers is situational and tends to happen quickly; e.g., functional “silos” are consolidated with new leadership, reconfigured org charts, and directed to achieve even larger goals with fewer human, financial, and material resources. The transition element of organizational transformation is a protracted cultural and psychological process that people go through to learn new ways-of-working and to let go of the old organizational reality and identity that they had before the change took place. Over time, managers and staff members must gain ownership in (and come to terms with) their new role in the reconfigured organization. The most important lesson to be learned from hundreds of documented transformation initiatives is the necessity to manage both change and transition throughout the entire organizational transformation process.

The Breckenridge Institute® is a management consulting firm that helps leaders and managers transform their organizations and the people in them. The Institute uses its expertise in the areas listed below to help leaders and managers become catalysts for positive change and organizational transformation:

The Breckenridge Institute® has extensive experience working within the Department of Energy (DOE) complex, and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nuclear weapons complex (Nuclear Security Enterprise) in the areas of organization development, organizational transformation, and organizational culture.

Since 1995, Breckenridge Institute’s staff of technical and business professionals has been providing the highest levels of service, competence, quality, and value to clients by combining our extensive expertise in organizational transformation and organizational development, with our portfolio of research-based methodologies and validated assessment tools. The Breckenridge Institute® is a member of the Association of Test Publishers (APT) and the Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG). The Breckenridge Institute® is a GSA approved contractor, with a MOBIS Schedule 874 and GSA Advantage Number GS10F0232L. The Breckenridge Institute’s areas of expertise are classified under NAICS Code 541611 (Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services).

Does Your Organization’s Culture Act Like an Invisible Bureaucracy?

Most managers struggle against the flow of overly complex systems and are frustrated by an invisible force that undermines their attempts to make positive change. Their instincts tell them that the organization’s structures, systems, and culture are preventing them from getting the results they want, but “culture” has remained one of the least understood aspects of organizational life because it can act like an Invisible Bureaucracy™ that frustrates and undermines organizational performance. The day-to-day reality of Invisible Bureaucracy™ manifests itself in a number of recurring and troubling questions:

• Why is it so difficult for some organizations to make decisions, and why (once made) do so many decisions go unimplemented?

• Why do most organizations have a gap between the formal rules for how things get done, and the informal rules for how things really get done?

• Why does vital business information get filtered, altered, or stopped as it moves up and down through the organizational structure?

• Why do projects that seem to have the full support of top managers and key personnel die a slow death and no one knows what happened to them?

• Why are some organizations able to change in the face of forces and threats from the external environment while others seem to have “Blind Spots” about these issues and fall prey to them over and over again?

• Why do the universal principles of organization development seem to work in some organizations, but not in others?

• Why do change initiatives so often show failed or marginal results?

• Why are so many organizations driven by fear, rather than being motivated by trust?

Understanding how the forces of Invisible Bureaucracy™ actually work helps leaders and managers become catalysts for positive change and organizational transformation. Many of the principles, practices, methodologies, and tools of organizational transformation are described in Mark Bodnarczuk’s book, Making Invisible Bureaucracy Visible: A Guide to Assessing and Changing Organizational Culture.

Making Invisible Bureaucracy Visible is available on Amazon.com, or at your local bookstore.