Mix up the change!
Steve Harley via Unsplash
Introducing the Transformation Mixer — a metaphor to facilitate change.
In the past years we have been fortunate enough to experience and facilitate transformational efforts. When dealing with a transformation, managers are presented with a huge variety of options and supposed imperatives. Some say they should start by moving to agile working methods such as Scrum or Kanban, others say that the leadership mindset has to be changed. Or should they start by putting together interdisciplinary teams? What about corporate processes? The IT-Stack?
The list goes on and can be somewhat overwhelming. To help leaders navigate the complexity, we developed the Transformation Mixer.
The Transformation Mixer is a metaphor — structured food for thought or a thinking model that allows leaders that want to support the transformation to reflect multiple dimensions of change and get into the habit of continuously tweaking the operations system and transform the organization.
Structure of the Transformation Mixer
Just like a mixing console that is used in recording studios or at live events, the Transformation Mixer has multiple channels. Each channel represents a specific dimension for change — and area of your organizational setup.
For example:
Workflow: How do teams and departments work together to create value? Are functions split across departments or silos or do teams have the capabilities and the mandate for end-to-end value creation?
Teams: What type of groups typically work together to solve problems? Do they consist of delegates from different departments that represent the business goals of that department? Or is the team completely free? Are the team members full time dedicated or is the project a side hustle?
The dimensions of the Transformation Mixer can be added or grouped as needed to fit your current reality, although it makes sense to include even dimensions within your organization that may feel out of your control (more on that later).
We have created a base layout for a Transformation Mixer based on our work for the environment we were in at the time. This can act as a good starting point for you, but will probably need some tweaking to fit your needs.
The Transformation Mixer — our generic base model for you to customize…
Levels
As a manager or leader of any kind (scrum master, team lead, VP or C-level) that supports the team(s) in the transformation, you act as the sound engineer for the transformation. Together with the teams it is your task to continuously adjust the levels of the Transformation Mixer to create the best sounding result, based on the environment, input and the ambition.
In music, this would be the members of the band, the type of music, the venue, the audience and so on. In business, the environment is the market, other departments, the teams, your strategic goals, current challenges and so forth.
The further up the channel can be pushed the more it is setup to solve complex problems — in theory. That being said, the mixer is not supposed to be an assessment tool to determine how “agile” or “lean” or how much “new work” a company is. Just like you cannot tell how well the audience enjoys the show by looking at the levels on the mixing console.
Moving the levers — changing the sound
Unlike a real sound mixer, moving the lever of a “channel” in your business takes more than simply pushing it up. This is where the transformation work begins. Movement of any lever is induced by changes to the operating system of the business, department or team. This can be done by introducing new or changing existing practices, agreeing on new guidelines or principles, by creating a new platform for exchange or learning. Some of the changes will take their time to actually make the knobs move, some will require effort and create costs. All will require work.
Depending on which lever you decide to work on, the work requires different competencies and skills. Transformation is a team sport, and you will need the expertise of others. If you are working on the “Team” dimension, trying to move towards more self-organization, you will need someone who is strong in team development. Trying to shift your “Delivery” dimension towards more incremental and iterative delivery will require a good agile coach. And work in the “Customer Centricity” dimension might need to supported by someone with a UX background.
Deciding which lever to move
Since your goal is to create the “best sound” for your company, simply trying to push everything up will probably not help. Even though the higher up the lever moves the more fit for complexity the dimension is, it may not be necessary for you, or not possible at the moment to move the lever. There may be dependencies to other channels or factors, or you might decide that you currently do not want to take action in that domain.
So where do you start? There is no simple answer other than “it depends”. Then again, as you are aiming for smaller movements, any channel may be a good starting point. Experiment! Create mechanisms to reflect on what is currently working and what isn’t in your organizational setup. Suitable mechanisms could be feedback channels, discussions, retrospectives, internal conferences, or even external assessments. In the end, you need to continuously ask “What is holding us back? Where are we not living up to our current ambitions?”.
Try out changes to the dimensions — maybe at a smaller scale, or in otherwise safe to try settings. And if you don’t like the sound you created, dial it back again and try something else.
Declaring the changes as experiments and defining them appropriately (Data, Hypothesis, Setup, Duration, etc.) can also help getting colleagues to support the changes. Others may find it hard at first to work on experiments — after all most of us are used to plan and execute based on expertise, not experiment based on humility and not being able to predict the future. Start with changes that don’t feel to experimentational. As an example, changes to the way you meet and manage your work are often a good starting point, or any other dimension that will not cut right into the core expertise of the people involved. Make sure you develop a way for your changes that everyone involved can get used to. Establish a common ground for what “safe to try” actually means.
Developing your “best sound”
Just as with a real mixing console, it hardly makes any sense to copy over the lever settings from a concert that was great, or a record that was successful. A lot of business transformations fall short of achieving the desired outcomes due to copy and paste. You will need to develop your own understanding of what your sound should be. This means working on your strategic vision or purpose. While it may be possible to start by simply looking at what is currently holding you back, once you have eliminated the obvious problems, the next steps require an idea of where you want to go. We like to look at the vision or purpose as another dimension on the Transformation Mixer - it can pull back the other levers if left behind.
Acknowledging dependencies
To create the best sound, the channels need to be in harmony — they need to fit together. This means that it either will be pointless, or even impossible to move one dimension all the way up while leaving the others behind. We like to think they are connected by a rubber band which will pull back the lever if the tension gets too high.
This means that keeping externally controlled dimensions visible on your mixer can be helpful to understand your entire system. If these channels are out of balance with the rest of your mixing board, you will at some point have to tackle the issue and therefore it is important to keep them in sight.
Mix up the change!
We believe that for businesses to be successful in the long term, they will have to get into the habit of continuous transformation. As the world keeps changing at an ever growing pace, so will the businesses need to adapt to stay in the game. The Transformation Mixer can help you continuously reflect on how your business is currently functioning and where it is about time to mix it up a little!
If you have thoughts, criticism or any other feedback to the mixer or just want to say hi, we would love to hear from you!
PS: Deep dives into working with the mixer, experiences by teams and leaders working with it and more are in the works…
The Authors
Tatiana See helps companies and teams pursue true transformation with agility and facilitation as a transformation coach.
Johan Hacklin is a transformation coach supporting organizations in their journey towards a more outcome-, complexity- and people oriented way of working.
Some further reading:
If you would like to dive deeper, here are 3 books that I find inspiring. Interestingly, I read all of them after the mixer metaphor had emerged in a discussion about how to convey what transformation means in a leadership meeting. Nevertheless, they very much support or complement our approach.
Aaron Dignan — Brave New Work: Are you ready to reinvent your organization?
Joost Minnaar & Pim de Morree — Corporate Rebels: Make work more fun
Erik Korsvik Østergaard — Teal Dots in an Orange World: How to organize the workplace of the future
Also to be mentioned is the seminal book on organisational learning: Peter M. Senge - The Fifth Discipline