Candidate for transformation?

In any change process, being open to change and receptive of new ideas is more than half the battle !!!

From whatever organizations I have attemped to work on transformation gigs at, it seems like large organizations that are extremely big and slow to change are the ones that want the most dramatic changes and in the shortest possible timeframes.

Granted that in order for the transformation effort even to start it needs a strong push from someone at the executive level within the organization. This is definitely one of the strong requirements for any change effort to even start within an organization. This is something that I have seen the large organizations get right.

Now lets talk about the other side of the coin. That normal employee that has to bring about the change in their daily life and way of working. Does anyone stop to think as to what is it that will motivate an employee at such a company to change? The most common way for these large organizations to incentivise the learning is tying ones bonus to the 'effective change'. Then you get into the area of how to measure 'effective change'. Is tying an employee's bonus really the best way to motivate an employee? Shouldn't we be asking a more basic question? Does an employee need to be motivated to change or is it a more intrinsic affair?

We all know that the change has to be bought into at both the ground level and the executive level. The only way the organization will change is the people within the organization want to change. This in turn will only happen if they feel a strong sense of ownership to the change. And I am not talking only about the executive but every member of the team. Everyone has to have the motivation to go through the steps of understanding the values and practices, practicing it for an extended period, internalizing it and then changing it to fit their specific needs. For people to have the commitment to make such an investment in learning, they need to have a great degree of belief in bringing about this change.

Based on some of my learnings, here's what I think will make a good candidate for organizational transformation:
1. Small product organization of about 20 odd people in size.
2. Have control over processes and product decisions within the organization
3. Have control over technology decisions
4. Have felt some pain due to inefficiencies in the process and practices
5. Have enough money in the bank to eat up the slowing down due to learning and apply new practices

Such a company would have the right attitude in people, both at the ground level and the executive team, the money and the internal motivation to make things better.