The Secondary Effects of Transformation

Our company (The Center for Business Transformation) is focused on helping business improve their business processes and transform how they run their business and how they ensure the success of their people. The action of transforming a company is extremely exciting. I have both consulted and been through a transformation at CTI Molecular Imaging (now part of Siemens Medical Systems). One aspect of transformation has always fascinated me, the aspect of secondary effects.

The secondary effects of transformation are exhibited in areas not directly under transformation. Our direct transformation efforts focus on operational improvement, sales improvement, supplier and customer relations and company management development. The effects seen, though, extend throughout all aspects of a company undergoing transformation. I believe the motivation for these secondary effects comes from the fact that, once improvement starts in a company, that the entire company becomes engaged in improvement. The company learns to positively question all aspects of the company and work to excel.

A classic example of this occurred at a client recently. The company in in the midst of transformation, with a focus on operations and business management. Improvement, though, was driven throughout their HR department, as they started asking and answering the right questions out how their HR processes worked. Significant improvement in retention, employee happiness and benefits were realized. The improvement in operations and business management had a lot to do with the improvements in HR, as measured by the employees, but a concerted effort in HR also yielded dramatic improvements.