Change is inevitable. Transformation is a choice.

Every organization changes. Not because it decides to, but because the world around it doesn't stand still. Customers change. Competition changes. Technology changes. If you do nothing, you still change—just not in the direction you would have chosen yourself.

That is change as a passive phenomenon. It happens to you.

Transformation is something else. Transformation is the conscious choice to become faster, better, more effective, or different than you are now. Not because the environment forces you to, but because you have decided where you want to be in two years and what needs to change to get there. That choice is the beginning of an OGSM, and its creation is often underestimated.

What belongs in a plan and what doesn't

A marathon runner who wants to improve their time from 4:10 to 3:45 doesn't write down that they are going to run. That’s what happens anyway. What they do write down are the interval sessions and their frequency, a new running technique, or adjusting nutrition in the final x weeks. Choices that change what this runner does. Things that make the difference between the same time and a better one.

When I read existing plans at the start of a project, it is often the exact opposite. Activities take center stage, while the real choices are missing. "We are going to conduct customer interviews." "We are going to audit the processes." "We are going to strengthen collaboration." That is describing how to tie your shoelaces while lacking a focus on a concrete finish line.

Run the business versus change the business

There is a useful distinction between what an organization does to keep itself running and what it does to improve itself. Operations, service delivery, and daily tasks continue regardless. The organization doesn't need a plan for that.

A healthcare institution that wants to shorten its lead times doesn't write down that it is going to treat patients. It already does that. It writes down that it wants to redesign the triage process so that the waiting time from registration to the first consultation is halved, and which choices it is making to achieve that.

What a plan captures is that other part. What are we going to do differently by design? Where do we want to be faster? What needs to be more effective, and what choice are we making to get that done?

The urgency of the choice

Transformation begins with the willingness to name what is not good enough right now. What is going too slowly. What could be more effective. That honesty can sometimes be uncomfortable, because it implies that the current situation is not sufficient. But it is what distinguishes a plan from a to-do list.

An organization that describes what it is going to do manages its own status quo. An organization that chooses what it is going to do differently steers its own future.

That distinction, between managing and steering, is exactly what an OGSM is for.

Curious about how we do this with our clients? We would love to walk you through it.