Transformation from Within

The market is disorganizing, iGen is replacing the gen C, new regulations are launched all the time. It’s the formula of life, the only constant is change. And as corporate leaders, we understand that it’s not the big that eat the small, it’s the fast that eat the slow! Corporations need to transform quickly to adapt to changes. They need to lead the change and inspire others and win the competition.

In order to make transformation happen, leaders need to build the support from the organization and ensure that all employees support the transformation before they announce to the world that they have changed into something better. There’s no point campaigning about “rebranding” or “corporate transformation” when the employees are still stuck with the old attitude and values.

One very interesting example of transformation is the transformation that a multinational fresh drink company did. When this company had a decline in sales and earnings growth for several years in a row, they held a “Manifesto for Growth” which spawned the transformation campaign “Blog Blast 2006.” It’s really interesting to see how the transformation was done from the bottom to the top of the organization. Let’s learn from this campaign and see how we can.

Insights  

“Global Insight Survey” revealed that various external changes caused many challenges within the company. The company decided several transformation priorities based on the analysis of the survey. Blog was then chosen because it’s very democratic. Everyone, from office boy to CEO, could create their own blog. The objective of Blog Blast 2006 was:

-To accelerate the transformation of the business by improving inspiration, commitment and passion of the employees

-To involve employees in business strategy development and build understanding of the importance of each employee’s role in establishing the corporate success

-To organize collaboration with all employees to establish the values that make the company unique and competitive

Campaign preparation  

To build support and participation from the whole organization, the global campaign committee conducted:

– Intensive education about the problems faced by the company and how each employee can contribute to become “agent of change” in facing these problems.

– Education about blogging and the personal benefits for employees and company

– Intensive promotional campaign conducted by a global campaign team whose members are spread throughout the coverage area of the company to localize the language and build support from local employees.

Execution

By the time Blog Blast began, all employees received an email indicating the opening of the blog blast, and inviting all employees to write about business values and behaviors needed to win and grow rapidly. The Blog Blast was moderated by two executives who commented on every blog created and sent questions every day to initiate conversation. Polling was held every day to dig in employees’ perception on various discussion topics regarding the business culture that had been prepared beforehand.

Result  

The result was very satisfactory. The Blog Blast successfully triggered 29 discussion themes of 41 types of unique behavior associated with the business values. The input was internalized in the SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) and performance management processes. 2,409 employees in 45 countries participated, producing 136,862 web pages.

The post- campaign research showed that the company successfully worked on the priority transformation areas previously taken as challenges with higher scores. It has successfully made the top management understand the employees’ needs and views on sustainable business growth. Value stocks also rose higher than what Wall Street prediction for 8 consecutive quarters at the time.

Well, are you ready to do transformation from within? Market and industry changes occur very rapidly nowadays. In today’s era of “People Power”, there is no other way but to empower all parties in our efforts to contribute to the progress of the company.

In case of franchise companies, it is becoming more important because the internal parties involve not only the employees but also independent business owners who need to jointly uphold the vision, mission, business culture and values as the major factors of the employees’ uniqueness and excellence. There is no other way but to empower all of them to be “change agents” who are well aware of the importance of their involvement in the transformation process to achieve a collective victory.