MY CREDO. There will always be bumps in the road and the plan and its goals needs to be refined and adjusted on an ongoing basis. With the right purpose defined, the change and development not only become easier as you have the direction set, it also becomes more motivating for your enterprise and colleagues. The methods, tools and content of the change and development therefore need to be adjusted to its context of the purpose. The purpose should be defined jointly by the people involved in and affected by the change. Why jointly? Well…

It is the actors (e.g., the business, the actors in a process, users of a system, your colleagues, customers, stakeholders, people affected etc.) that creates the true business value, as they execute the process that produces value aligned with the defined purpose. The solution is the tool used in the process - it is not the process per se (although many business processes today have arisen from the solution), as value is something humans (i.e. not solutions) define, perceive and relish. 

This implies that the solution needs to be designed accordingly to the needs and requirements of the actors. By focusing on the jointly defined purpose (and its goals), and understanding how the different actors come in and together contribute to the true business value, the thick brick walls between the organizational units can be torn down and obstacles can be cleared. Valuable change is achieved by focusing on the jointly owned purpose and understanding its goals, processes and actors. 

Is it simple and straightforward? No, it is not. According to "the Chaos Report" (The Standish Group, 2020), the vast majority of projects fail to deliver true business value. Ever since 2011, the report has shown that only about 30% of projects are considered successful. Managing changes, motivating colleagues and creating true business value together are some of the biggest challenges that companies face today. Yet, these are considered to be the most important employee skills for future projects to succeed (McKinsey, 2021). 

In practice, this means that a well-facilitated and constantly ongoing process of learning, improvements and communication is needed. Frequent deliveries not only enable directional adjustments, frequent deliveries also prompt the opportunity to show how they contribute to the valuable change we all want and by that becomes an important motivation booster (something that the great speakers Dan Pink, Simon Sinek and Sir Ken Robinson know all about). And by doing the work together, you create a common ownership of valuable business change. A change that is understandable, manageable and meaningful - as we created a sense of coherence (Antonovsky, 1996) by jointly defining a purpose with true business value. A sense of coherence that we humans need. A common purpose.

After all, it is as the wise Helen Keller once said: "Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much" (Keller, 1935).

//Johan Hildingson (formerly Lagerström), enterprise and management nerd