The Still Transformer

Following the figure of the pyromaniac firefighter, we can identify in organizations a type of profile that we call, copying this concept, the stationary transformer. 

Like firefighters who cannot overcome their addiction to fire and spend their lives setting fires, hoping to put them out later, there are those responsible for transforming organizations or their departments, but beyond digital posture there is no real execution of said transformation. They light the flame that they themselves then put out before the possibility of being involved in a plan, with objectives and a follow-up.

The Roman moneylender and senator Marco Licinius Crassus (c. 115-53 BC) in 60 BC. C., he formed the first triumvirate, with Pompey and Julius Caesar. He organized what has been considered the first fire service in the city of Rome. This would be positive if he, moreover, had not organized a group of arsonists that provided work for the other group, as well as huge profits. His services were conditioned by a strange rule: when he was notified that a house was on fire, he would first buy it from the owner, and then put out the fire. If the owner didn't want to sell it to him, he let the house burn down. Crassus died at the battle of Carrhae, assassinated by his Parthian enemies, when going to parley, introducing molten gold down his throat, alluding to his greed.

It is what we could call the immobile transformer, a profile with easily recognizable characteristics.

On the one hand it is usually in relevant positions in organizations or their departments, especially very away from execution daily and customer needs.

Conclusion great communicators both inside and outside the entity, and being away from customers and daily problems, they must have other means of incorporating content into their speech. The consultant or consultants who contribute their periodic studies on trends, startups, purchases and sales, funds, etc. play a key role there. All this sprinkled with a loose article in some general media outlet.

In spite of everything, said transformer must give content to its function and for this there are basically two axes in which objectives can be displayed. On the one hand the standards generated from the evolution of the organization and society: reduction of paper impressions, increase of mobile users, cost reduction. The other of the two axes are those that have to do with the Proof of concept, whose result can always be how much we have learned from said test, but in which a great effort has not been made to move away from the execution.

This entails a clear and established budget, which is quite strange from the perspective that if we do not know what we have to transform into, how can we be so clear about the final budget without leaving room for new trends. In this aspect, it usually has the support of other departments that base their activity on the continuity of the existing model.

The question is, how to avoid falling into this orbit? Or, going further, how to take advantage of the existence of this position in the organization to promote our initiatives?

The answer in complementarity of objectives. Our initiatives have to contain all these requirements if we want them to arouse the interest of:

• They generate discourse
• They generate brand image
• Understandable by the organization. Generating culture in the organization
• Tracking metrics that support the overall transformation metrics
• tangible successes

Do you have this profile in your organization? Share your experience