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Learnings

This is a taste of our learnings. More can be found in our book Sustaining Change. Leadership that works, or by contacting us to arrange a meeting.


Sustaining Change. Leadership that works Book summary. Contents and sample chapter. More	Creating a Successful Global Business Our client was operating in 52 countries across the world, and the business had previously been run along Regional lines. The Regional business units had been dismantled and a new Global Leadership Team established with the task of capturing global synergies, standardising operations, and taking the business to a new level of profitability. More	Moving forward at pace “All hands on deck” When the pressure is on to implement and embed complete change rapidly, leaders frequently call for “all hands on deck” in order to move the work forward the best way they know how. However, without a common framework to help “navigate” the change, the result can be an increased level of activity without the required impact. Without a common pathway to help navigate, there can be increased confusion and misalignments amongst those leading the change, and in the organisation. More
Keep on (Re)Searching ...into the nature of change and, importantly, the leadership practices that lead to successful change implementation. Not so much a learning as a fount of future learnings. More	Helping support an energy company to identify and deliver operational excellence within a newly de-regulated market Our client is a National provider of energy within an increasingly competitive and consolidating north western European energy market. Controlling the entire value chain from production through to delivery, they are focused on low cost and high operational excellence. Coming soon	Accelerating Team Development How do you get senior leaders to quickly and authentically ‘join together’ as a real team? And why is this important? We have had two recent experiences where getting newly formed executive teams to fire on all cylinders, as one, was a business imperative. More
Transcend “Emerging Vision“ Change arises out of novel connections. These connections can operate at many levels, for example when strangers meet, when we travel into new territory and encounter “different” cultures, when we link a concept from a philosopher to what we see in the living world around us, and when seemingly unrelated problems in our organisations are seen to spring from a common cause. We can all remember these times – the “aha” moments when life after was different to life before. More	Getting Fit For a Deregulated Market Our client was a national utility provider which needed to improve operational excellence and customer service to survive in an impending deregulated market. The organisation operated within silos, decisions were continually deferred up the hierarchy, and no one felt responsible for improving the processes that lay across organisational boundaries. A new Chief Operating Officer had been appointed to shift this culture to dramatically improve performance and build organisational capability. More	Coaching – understanding the processes of making meaning When our clients come to coaching we help them see what is really going on for them as individuals, as team members and assessing their impact on the organisation. Why is this important? More
2006 Research Survey Summary This paper describes Transcend’s most recent research study into the leadership of change. In particular, it focuses on the nature and impact of “Framcap” leadership: an original synthesis of ‘Framing’ and ‘Creating Capacity’ leadership approaches and behaviours which have previously been identified and correlated with change success. These contrast with a ‘Shaping’ approach to leading change, which has previously been shown to correlate with change failure. More	Change leadership: global energy company Organisations operating on a global basis have wrestled with the dilemma of achieving a balance between global standardisation and local differentiation. Similar dilemmas arise from a review of the literature around the challenges of implementing change successfully. There is, however, agreement that leaders play a significant role in resolving these dilemmas in the process of implementing strategic change within global organisations. This paper explores the literature on global organisations an change leadership. Building from this review, the paper presents the findings from a case study which explores the implementation of a global strategy within a large energy corporation. More	Changing in the Moment Too often we try to make change happen by planning for it and writing up action lists to change mind sets and behaviour. However, the only thing we can change is the present moment, and, if we canchange that, then the future will change. More
Beyond Change Management Many organizations are under enormous pressure to change. But it is commonly cited that some 70% of change initiatives fail, and that the money wasted in the process is vast. One estimate puts the global cost of management time and effort alone at $50 billion per year. How might leaders and managers best negotiate this dilemma? More	Building HR Capability for an Outsourced World Our client was implementing one of the largest global outsourcings of HR transactional services in the industry. The remaining HR function was to be segmented into Services Delivery, Expertise Teams and HR Business Partners. More	Leadership is Contextual While generic leadership models abound, we instinctively know that leadership is there to serve the particular organisational ambitions and contexts in which it is placed. That is why taking leadership models ‘off the shelf’ never really seems to work. More
Leadership, Change and Learning Change is high on the organisational agenda, but successful approaches are hard to find. Leaders have a critical role to play in making any approach work, because what they do affects how much learning can happen. We looked at four distinct ways of approaching change and three different categories of leadership behavior …and which works best. More	Shifting gears to a more commercially-aware organisation Our client is a quasi-governmental organisation intent on shifting gears to be more self-funding, while at the same time increasing the impact it had through the work it did in many countries around the globe. More	Seeing things as if for the first time. All too often we approach and involve ourselves in situations in the ways that we always have… By inquiring and seeing things as if for the first time and owning what you contribute to the pattern, the pattern can change. More
Navigating change successfully In an era of profound change in which some 70% of change initiatives are reckoned to fail, what makes for the successful implementation and navigation of change in large organisations? What approaches and practices might change agents and consultants adopt in trying to support those leading such initiatives. More	Enabling an organisation to understand how it implements change and how to be more effective in doing so. Our client is a multi-national manufacturing organisation that is intent on doubling its operating profit and increasing its value to its shareholders in a very short period of time. Coming soon	Shifting leadership gears Leadership is not a constant. The way people lead often needs to adapt to new purposes and contexts as organisations progress on their change journeys. You don’t get far if you’re in the wrong gear ...leaders need to know when to shift and lead differently. More
2006 Symposium. 1. In conversation – Leading Performance Change We asked the question “Is Change Changing?” We conducted research into the differences in how organisations approached and managed change, and how this translated into success or failure and discovered some very interesting correlations. More	Enabling a team to broaden their role from interpretation of data to trusted advisor and consultant in change approaches. The desired outcome of this intervention was to develop and extend an expert-led service offering beyond the design, delivery and reporting of survey results to effect wider organisational change. Coming soon
2006 Symposium. 2. In conversation – Leadership Stories The purpose of this next session was to move from the rigour of research to its relevance for organisational leadership, by hearing first hand about what actually makes a difference. In conversation with Lynn Elsenhans about her change story at Shell and Sir David Henshaw about turning round a whole city council. More	Strengthening commercial capability. As an essential plank in increasing its competitive edge in deal-making of large complex deals, the CEO of our client (Royal Dutch Shell) decided to establish a world-class commercial “Skillpool”. More
2006 Symposium. 3. In conversation – Intervention Stories Sharing some of our stories about operationalising this change leadership work. How we applied it to support leaders as individuals, how this is evolving to help shift a whole organisational system and how it works supporting a leadership team. More		Some of these documents are credited to Rowland Fisher Lexon Consulting (RFLC)... this was Transcend’s former name

Learnings

Changing change
Deborah Rowland.
In the language of a major client, our four "Change Approaches"
are "touching a nerve in the organisation". Read how they
are telling the story.

Leading change ... be careful what you say Michael Thorley.
Because of the position of
influence that leaders have in an organisation, the language they
use matters. What leaders say is as important as what they do and
how they do it. More

Successful change leadership
starts with you
Malcolm Higgs and Nancy Clay
The success of change depends on the leadership capability of individuals as well as organisations. How do your Change Leadership Practices shape up? Read more and try our CLP self assessment tools

Leadership is contextual. Why taking leadership models “off-the-shelf” never really seems to work. More

News & Events

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Change Leadership Practices ...
self assessment
How good are you at leading complex change? Transcend now offers a suite of tools to enable you to assess and develop your own leadership skills. It starts here

Seminar “Navigating change …for sustainable results” London 29th April 2010.

A half-day interactive seminar working through our Change Pathway model and "Approaches to Change" framework, showing how to get tangible results ...not just a lot of activity. More

See Transcend in Video ...
"The Aha! Moment"
4 minutes of "illumination". More

New Transcend "Field Book"
All our frameworks and thinking in one practical and illustrated guide. More

Transcend appoints ...
... Bente van Alphen to the Transcend Consultancy practice in the Netherlands

Transcend appointed ...
... to a major new change leadership project for Energy leader Essent. More

FT Online
"Leading change is a challenge for Britain's party leaders"
Read Anthony Goodman's article on Transcend research and coding of UK party leaders speeches. More