The Transformation Playbook

The Transformation Playbook is the third in a series of books the Brightline Initiative has produced in partnership with Thinkers50. As with the first two books – Strategy@Work and The CSO Playbook – we have gathered together insights from an array of practitioners and thinkers. They are a truly global and inspirational mix.

The aim of The Transformation Playbook is to ignite debate and thinking. Gone are the days (if they ever truly existed) when there was one single best answer to a business challenge. Now, there are a profusion of different approaches, tools and techniques. Ideas abound. And, reassuringly, so too does inspirational practice. Among the great transformation journeys recounted in the book are those of Michelin, Li & Fung, CenturyLink and the Department of Planning and Development in California’s Santa Clara County.

The linking theme to these stories and the ideas that fill the following pages is simple: people.

Our work at the Brightline Initiative has looked at strategy execution and the barriers that frequently prevent great strategies becoming brilliant reality. The biggest barriers are human. The human side of transformation is a recurring theme throughout The Transformation Playbook. One way or another, the purpose of transformation must be to enhance people’s lives. To make this reality demands that people are galvanized into dynamic action. Transformation is not a neat theory, but a human imperative in our fast-changing times. Transformation has never been more important and the human side of transformation is now, at long last, being fully appreciated.

We hope that The Transformation Playbook will challenge your own ideas about what it takes to transform organizations. And, we also hope that it provides useful and practical suggestions as to what to do when you start on your own transformation journey.
Start now!

Ricardo Viana Vargas
Executive Director, The Brightline Initiative

Table of Contents

• Preface
  • Ricardo Viana Vargas
• Foreword
  • Sunil Prashara
• The human side of digital transformation
  • Behnam Tabrizi, Ed Lam, Kirk Girard & Vernon Irvin
• The fundamental problem with transformation implementation
  • Roger L. Martin
• A purpose-driven transformation
  • Murat Bicak
• The digital transformer’s dilemma: how to sustain success in the core while building a new digital business
  • Karolin Frankenberger, Hannah Mayer, Andreas Reiter & Markus Schmidt
• The new era of change management
  • Reinhard Messenboeck, Grant McCabe, Perry Keenan, Jeanne Kwong Bickford & Michelle Stohlmeyer Russell
• Preemptive transformation: fix it before it breaks
  • Martin Reeves, Lars Faeste, Fabien Hassan, Harshal Parikh & Kevin Whitaker
• Schein on change
  • Georgina Peters
• Using crisis as a catalyst for transformation
  • Edivandro Carlos Conforto, Ricardo Viana Vargas & Tahirou Assane Oumarou
• Four transformation traps and how to avoid them
  • Claudio Garcia, Kaihan Krippendorff, Zachary Ness, et al
• Transformation in the 21st Century: how not to implement change initiatives
  • Alexandra Levit
• A roadmap for creating digitally-enabled organizations
  • Fabrizio Salvador
• Fear: The big inhibitor of innovation and transformation
  • Edward D. Hess & Donna Murdoch
• To out-transform your competition, activate internal entrepreneurs
  • Kaihan Krippendorff
• An unlikely case of successful digital transformation
  • Thales Teixeira, Leandro Guissoni & Frederico Trajano
• Kotter on change
  • Des Dearlove
• From transformation insanity to enterprise instancy: catalyzing an adaptive leadership system
  • Tony O’Driscoll
• The role and functions for transformation
  • David Kallás, Carlos Afonso Caldeira & Fabiana Cherubim Bortoleto
• Transforming culture
  • Peter Bregman
• The I.AM framework
  • Deborah Rowland
• The A to Z of transformation
  • Andy Vesey
• The discipline of change
  • Susie Kennedy & Andrew Bray
• The human side of transformation
  • Tendayi Viki
• Kanter on change
  • Stuart Crainer
• Opening up to transform
  • Christian Stadler
• The transformation: how Michelin redefined the twenty-first century industrial corporation
  • Isaac Getz
• Sensemaking and interpretation in transformation
  • Alf Rehn
• Resilient transformations
  • Verena Stingl, Morten Wied & Josef Oehmen
• Digital transformation: make people first!
  • Paul Dinsmore
• Digital execution: what it takes to succeed
  • Robin Speculand
• Are you ready?
  • Rita Trehan
• Can caterpillars fly?
  • Sharon Olivier & Frederick Holscher
• Making sense of the transforming power of AI
  • Mark Esposito & Terence Tse
• What can the survivors teach us?
  • Tiffani Bova