Transformation, the buzzword

A new mission statement is not a transformation. A reorganisation of the IT function under a different SVP is not a transformation. Replacing one vendor with another vendor whose logo looks more modern on the slide is not a transformation. These are tweaks, sometimes useful tweaks, occasionally even necessary ones. But the deck-chair metaphor exists because the deck-chair phenomenon is depressingly common, and rebadging it as transformation does not make the ship any less likely to take on water.

What the word usually conceals

The interesting question is not whether transformation is overused, because that is a settled question. The interesting question is what the word usually conceals when senior people deploy it. In my experience there are three answers. The first is a reluctance to be specific. Real change is concrete. It has costs, named owners, and people who lose something they had before. Transformation as a slogan lets you skip all three.

The second is a preference for symbolic over structural action. A new operating model document is symbolic. Cancelling the project that everyone privately knew was a mistake is structural. The first one is easier to put on a slide. The second one is what actually moves the organisation. The transformation framing tends to inflate the first kind of action and quietly ignore the second.

The third, the most uncomfortable one, is a reluctance to admit that the previous direction was wrong. Transformation lets a leadership team change course while pretending they are merely evolving, which protects ego at the cost of clarity. A simple "we tried this, it did not work, here is what we are doing instead" would be more useful. It would also be more rare.

What real change looks like

When I have seen genuine change in an organisation, it has rarely been announced as transformation. It has usually been a sequence of small, unglamorous, locally-justified decisions taken by a few stubborn people over several quarters, and only retrospectively assembled into a narrative that sounds heroic. The narrative comes after, if at all. The work itself is mostly tedious.

If you have to call it transformation in advance, you almost certainly are not doing one.

I am not arguing that the word should be banned. I am arguing that hearing it should make you more curious, not less. What is actually being changed? Who is paying the cost? What does success look like in twelve months in concrete operational terms? If the answers come back in the same vocabulary as the announcement, you are looking at a slogan, not a programme. If they come back in plain language with named owners and unflattering trade-offs, you might be looking at the real thing.