Change vs Transformation: What's the difference?

One of my Leading Successful Change online students recently asked: what’s the difference between “change” versus “transformation”. And though I’ve done plenty of blog posts on Organisational Change Management vs IT Change Management, Project Management vs Change Management, Change Analyst vs Change Manager, Buy In vs Engagement, and Change vs Comms, I’ve never really defined Change vs Transformation.

So here I go…

Definition: Change

I would define "change" as a single, sole, discrete organisational change related to a project that is almost like a tweak or improvement to the way things are currently done. For example, it could be a system upgrade, or a shift in roles and responsibilities or 1-2 jobs being made redundant, or a change to a way of working. I'm working on an office refurbishment at the moment and it's just a change, it's not a transformation because there's some new furniture and meeting rooms and stuff being added, we're doing a comms campaign around ways of working principles, but it's not vastly different, just tweaking and reinforcing what's currently in place.

Definition: Transformation

But a "transformation" I'd define as a complete shift in the way things are being done that will fundamentally impact operations, operating model, market position, culture, and/or ways of working etc. It's usually a collection of projects and programs or a really big program of work with lots of moving parts that is going to have a fundamental strategic impact on the business' growth or opportunities. For example, an enterprise resource platform (ERP) isn't just a system upgrade. It's often taking away several systems, manual reports, manual workarounds and processes, and then often leads to such massive shifts in operations and/or customer service that it can lead to operating model changes where whole teams may be restructured to align to the new operations and ways of working.

An operating model transformation may be completely changing divisions from individual countries to regions, or product lines to country lines or vice versa, or positioning around a category type or customer group.

A cultural transformation would target the very vision, mission, values, strategic principles and ways of working of the company.

A ways of working transformation could be that an entire workforce is moving from fixed desks to hot desking, or from regular operations to an agile way of working.

These are complex, multi-level, multi-layered changes that can take 1-3 years, but are exciting because that's where real business growth and opportunity can be unlocked. It's important to not oversell changes as "transformation" and not undersell transformations as "simple changes" because stakeholders, leaders, and teams can get frustrated, overwhelmed and annoyed if things are over/undercooked.

So that’s my definition of each and the difference I see between each.

I’ll be talking through and sharing real-world examples of both changes and transformations I’ve worked on and how you can lead both in my upcoming Leading Successful Change Live program on 18-19 August in Sydney.

CLICK HERE to find out more about LSC Live and secure your spot

How about you? What do you see as the difference between Change and Transformation? Send me a DM on LinkedIn and let me know.

Lata xx