What is ‘Transformation’?

The word “transformation” has become ubiquitous in the world of organizational change. But what does that word really mean?

Most generally, you could say that transformation is a qualitative shift in a system’s capacity to operate gracefully and effectively within a completely new landscape of possibility.

The transition from the caterpillar to the butterfly is an example of a transformation. The equipment (mainly that which permits flying) of the butterfly opens up entirely new possibilities for action that simply are not available to the caterpillar.

Evolvagility envisions the use of this word in a specific way. For us, transformation is a qualitative shift in people’s ability to generate unprecedented outcomes in the face of uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Outcomes that are not merely adaptive to a current reality. But rather, outcomes that generate a new reality.

Such a definition recognizes the fact that today’s organizations thrive not by merely adapting their actions to current business and techno-social conditions. They thrive when their actions generate the very business and techno-social conditions in which they can thrive.

Evolvagility is not about helping organizations to adapt. It is about helping organizations evolve. It is about helping organizations have the power to envision a new landscape of possibility, and then become the kinds of people needed to make that new landscape real.

Organizations that operate in this way have a distinct competitive advantage.

Sensemaking: The Vehicle for Evolutionary Transformation

what happens when people see the world from a perspective that permits greater complexity, nuance, inclusiveness, and awareness… and are able to take action from that place, naturally and organically.

Actions that are, by and large, a better fit and a more complete response to the situations they are intended to positively impact.

Transformation, defined as such, is a key organization-wide capability in today’s post-VUCA world.

Without transformation, there is no movement toward the kind of readiness of response needed in today’s world. It simply won’t happen (and, if you’re reading this, you already know this).

From the perspective of leadership, Evolvagility is a set of distinctions and practices by which leaders of all stripes facilitate, and otherwise catalyze, transformative change in people.

Those of us who see ourselves as transformation leaders eventually arrive at the blunt recognition that, in order to catalyze transformation around us, we must also catalyze transformation within ourselves.

Personal transformation, however, is, as they say, “not for sissies”. It entails a willingness to take an honest look at ourselves. To see beyond what we already “know”—about ourselves, about others, about the world. To embrace unfamiliar paradigms of thinking.

To stand in the essential embarrassment and hesitancy that grips us when we’re with groups, and to act from a place of personal authority and commitment.

To see the whole as distinct from any personal desire we may have to “do something” to it.

This is, we believe, what Steven Covey meant with the term “sharpening the saw”.

Most of our impact as transformation leaders arises from who we are being as much as “what we do”.