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 you’re in a moment that actually requires transition, like transformational change. And there’s five different market forces that I see, after 20 years of doing this, that generally means you’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 that’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 you’re going after may signal a need for a transition. And another is acquisition or divestiture that oftentimes is materially changing someone’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 I’m coming at with you today, is really to say you’ve got to do two things. One is you’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 it’s important that you take forward.

The second is to understand and look at, you’re really a totally new company, you’re a totally new team. And so the past will inform where you’re going. You can’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.