When Is It Time for Transformational Change?

TIFFANY SAUDER

 

Video Transcript

One of the questions you might be asking is how to know whether or not youโ€™re in a moment that actually requires transition, like transformational change. And thereโ€™s five different market forces that I see, after 20 years of doing this, that generally means youโ€™re probably in a moment of pending major transitional change, transformational change

The first one is new leadership, oftentimes an inflection point for an organization. Second might be that a competitor has done something thatโ€™s changed and shifted the marketplace and you need to respond. New product or market launch, totally new marketplace, totally new industry, totally new customer that youโ€™re going after may signal a need for a transition. And another is acquisition or divestiture that oftentimes is materially changing someoneโ€™s positioning in the marketplace.

Those are signals. Those are business cases. Those are times when your organization is likely coming up on a moment of transformational change. So the question is,
what do you do about it? How do you react?

From a brand perspective, which is where Iโ€™m coming at with you today, is really to say youโ€™ve got to do two things. One is youโ€™ve got to realize that the past still serves you. How do you look back and understand what part of your history, what part of your culture, what part of what got you to here is important for who you are becoming? And itโ€™s important that you take forward.

The second is to understand and look at, youโ€™re really a totally new company, youโ€™re a totally new team. And so the past will inform where youโ€™re going. You canโ€™t not consider that as you move forward. But to look at everything as something new. How do you take what is today and imagine it into the next ten or 20 years?

I hope this helps a little.