By Thornton May
Futurist, Senior Advisor with GP, Executive Director & Dean - IT Leadership Academy

Transformation is an unnatural act. Extinction is not. Organizations do not, a la the caterpiller, cocoon and butterfly emerge effortlessly “transformed.” Transformation is an act of will, vision and courage.

Transformation Lesson #1: IT Leaders Don’t Have a Choice
Whether we like it or not, IT executives do not have a choice regarding transformation. The IT organization – what it does, the competencies they marshall/master, the technologies they cause to be deployed and the metrics by which they are measured are transforming. The IT world is changing rapidly.

Transformation Lesson #2: Transformation Must be Planned
Transformational leadership and transformational programs are required. And yet 90% - 90% of the Global 2000 is adopting a business as usual posture. They of course don’t say this. But this is how they behave. LESS THAN 10% of enterprises have actually commissioned a real, new IT strategy – where they have gone off site; have gotten their people together and crafted a REAL IT strategy. Real IT strategy making takes time - probably no less than six months. Real IT strategy is both a top-down and bottoms-up process. Real IT strategy requires stepping back and really thinking about what the world of the future will look like. Most of the exercises currently being touted as “IT Strategies” are, quite frankly, nothing more than tweaking or updating in-place annual budgets. “Annual budget” and “IT Strategy” have conflated. “Budgeting” and “strategy making” are not synonyms.

Transformation Lesson #3: What Got You Here Will Not Get You There
The “typical” IT organization today has evolved via a series of knee jerk whack-a-mole reactions to excel at baby-sitting ERP systems/vendors/contractors, cutting costs and getting dated CRM systems to work. Most of the on-the-job CIOs today can deliver projects on time. They have an outsourcer they are fairly comfortable with. They know how to plan, build and operate their systems. They know how to do consolidation of data centers when the next merger occurs. They know how to police standards/make sure people are doing it and they know how to adjust budgets. These are competencies that used to define IT excellence. These skills are no longer differentiating.

William L. McComb, who served as the CEO of Fifth & Pacific Companies (formerly Liz Claiborne) from 2006 through 2013 is unambiguous about transformation when he explains, “Mere tweaks wouldn’t save us; transformation was the only course.”

The IT game has changed. We have moved on from an age when IT was primarily responsible for delivering systems. No one cares about systems anymore. They care about the business or mission outcomes the systems deliver. 62% of the CIOs in the data set are now directly responsible for revenue generation.

Transformation Lesson #4: Transformation is the New Normal
There is a misconception that transformation happens only to organizations that have been mis-managed to the edge of extinction. Transformation lies in front of every organization in every vertical market. McComb at Liz Clairborne is convinced that “The reinvent-or-die challenges that used to be rare catastrophes in business have practically become the new normal.”

Transformation Lesson #5: Transformation Requires “Progression Planning” – Not “Succession Planning”
Succession plans are wonderful in times of stability. What organizations really need is a “progression” plan. What are you progressing to? Succession plans tend to replace like with like. The world the executives who follow you to the helm will live in is going to be fundamentally different.