The disciplines to Enterprise Transformation success vary depending on the context, time available, nature of the transformation and resources allocated.

However, if you apply all the appropriate processes and techniques, then success will look like the following:

• Your project, new system, new business initiative, strategy or whatever the change outcome was will have been implemented effectively and successfully.
• Your project, new system, new business initiative, strategy or whatever the change outcome was will have been implemented on time and on budget.
• Your people will feel they know why the change was required.
• The change will integrate effectively and efficiently with all parts of the organisation and stakeholder environments that it’s meant to.
• All of your people will feel comfortable they were involved in the change journey and had plenty of opportunity to contribute and make any comments they felt were warranted.
• There is a feeling of a shared common purpose and desire for the change to happen.
• During the change program, everyone knew what they were meant to do.
• Everybody will be skilled and trained in using the new processes, as well as all of the systems that were underpinning your change initiative.
• Consequently people will feel supported, capable and comfortable in accepting the new processes and systems, as well as any other components of the change initiative. They will feel part of it all, as opposed to feeling like they are standing outside looking in.
• There will be ample and adequate documentation and induction processes for new people who join your organisation. This will include information explaining what the change was all about and the benefits those changes delivered. Access to training material on the organisation’s Intranet (where available and practical) will be made easy and its use will also be easy and effective.
• People will be experiencing a more effective way of doing their work: a better way, a more efficient way, a more meaningful way - with more accurate information available to them.
• Risks were managed well.
• There were no rogue issues.
• Information about the change was readily available and accessible by all who needed it.
• As a result of the change journey, your people will feel they contributed value. This will enhance their self-esteem, enhance their motivation, and will engender a more ‘respectful culture’ within the organisation.

Modern corporations find that transformation and change is the new 'normal', thus their ability to manage change becomes part of everyday operations - not part of the abnormal or unusual.

If change or transformation does not contribute to the corporation's KPOs, then it shouldn't be undertaken. Therefore the ability to handle change and transformation becomes a key criterion of managerial competence.

Goals are achieved though people.

It’s common within organisations to observe managers who think that all they have to do to change things, is to announce the change and it will happen.

Rarely, if ever, is this the case.

What managers are increasingly learning is that most change within organisations affect people. If you change the way a person does his/her work, or change who he/she reports to, then you are changing the way that person thinks about what they do and who they report to, among other things.

These aspects of a person’s work life are instrumental in shaping the way they regard themselves. It shapes their self-image, their feeling of value and worth, and inevitably, their sense of security. It’s not surprising then, that changing a person’s context can have enormous impacts on them. Some people can handle well the change and the unknown, while others are impacted enormously.

When that happens, and if the people being changed don’t understand why you are doing it or how it will affect them, they will respond with some type of psychological reaction – some reactions will be noticeable and some not. Some reactions will be supportive of the change while other reactions will impede the effective implementation of the change.

However, most of these reactions are unsurprisingly negative, at least initially, and may generate stress in the employee or may trigger serious dysfunctional behaviour – either at work, at home or socially.

The management of change discipline is intended to help the organisation manage these impacts on people. At the most basic level, an effective management of change strategy:

• Prepares people for an intended change
• Explains the purpose of the change
• Explains how people will be affected by the change
• Explains how people will benefit from the change
• Explains how the work that people do will be affected by the change
• Trains people to be effective after the change
• Provides on-going feedback on how the change is performing

Therefore, an effective management of change strategy should have the following impacts on a change initiative – it will:

• Increase understanding across the organisation
• Increase understanding of the change by external stakeholders
• Decrease resistance to the change – internal and external
• Decrease stress and dysfunctional behaviour on change-impacted people
• Increase skill-preparedness of change-impacted people
• Increase confidence and cooperation
• Decrease re-work
• Decrease time needed to deal with resistance and objections

As with most things in life - there are very few absolutes.

It might be convenient to suggest that management is about the here and now and that leadership is about the future.

However, there are many situations where 'managers' must show 'leadership' in their area of responsibility.

A manager who is faced with significant operational challenge in the here and now, for example, must be able to demonstrate leadership to transition his/her area to a new context.

That involves, creating the future vision for his/her area of responsibility, helping  develop the transition plan to achieve it, selling the vision and its benefits to his/her people (and up the organisation) and then steer the transition so that the future vision become the reality.

Similarly, a 'leader' needs to be able to envision, and then deliver it. Just developing a vision is NEVER enough.

In the same way as effective leadership needs to operate equally comfortably in the right-brain and left-brain spaces, a leader needs to be able to see the future and then manage it to realisation. A CEO must do this across the entire organisation, while other executives must do it across their area's of responsibility.

Thus, in most  organisations, effective executives need to display both capabilities. Certainly some executives in some contexts display more of one than the other, but they must have capabilities in both realms to provide overall effectiveness.

"Activist Investors" is not the same as "Active Investors". The former generally act for all shareholders while the latter, generally act in their own interests. The two are often confused.

As long as directors and managers "proxy" ownership of the corporation away from shareholders and to themselves (but leave the cost and risk of ownership with legitimate shareholders) then it is reasonable to expect those shareholders to agitiate against the board and management. It has been long demonstrated that both directors and managers act in their own self interest.

Although shareholders should provide both positive and negative feedback, the reality is that the majority of shareholders are unlikely to make the effort. That does not mean they don't care about outcomes - they do - that's why they put down real money into the company.

The problem, in my humble opinion, is not with shareholder inaction, but with boards and directors. The for-profit corporation exists for the benefit of shareholders while satisfying legal and stakeholder requirements. If that is the case, then why is it that not one single publicly listed board has asked all of its shareholders what they want as a result of their investment?

You are right that shareholders have differing expectations. However, if you establish a company's shareholder metrics, (i.e. bell-shaped curve - value, benefit, growth and risk expectations) then the range of shareholder expectations prior to establishing those metrics will be wider than post-metrics. If you monitor the changing shareholder objectives over time, it will enable a much better match between corporate aspirations and owner aspirations. This is because people will invest in those companies that "share" their objectives, i.e. the company will pursue those outcomes that the majority of its shareholders want, therefore you will invest in those companies that want what you want. Over time, the outliers diminish.

The challenge for both the board and management is to resolve the dilemma of different objectives and perceptions in a way that satisfies the owners. Currently, both board and management establish a policy and a direction for their company without a real knowledge of their shareholders’ objectives.
The Shareholder Metrics process provides them with better information but does not absolve them of their responsibility or accountability.

Where they perform the task well, and satisfy many/most shareholders, then those shareholders will value that stock more highly and are less likely to quit the registry. Conversely, where board and management fail to satisfy shareholders then they will quit the registry, change the board, or change management. Isn't that the ultimate assessment of whether shareholder approve or disapprove of management performance?

These three options are currently available to shareholders (albeit some more easily achieved than others).

Over time however, it is anticipated that it will become easier for the board and management of a shareholder-centric company to solve the above dilemma, as the Investor Profile will ensure that extreme mismatches between differing owner objectives will occur less frequently.

Finally, and for whatever it's worth, I don't believe that shareholders trust directors and managers, even if they concede that both are well meaning and try to do their best. The trust is lost because of director and management subjectivity, bias, assumptions and arrogance.

If you provide additional tools to "aid corporate governance" then you will probably use the tools to make boards and management more accountable. Directors are the ones who would approve the use of such tools thus are unlikely to approve them since it would make their life more difficult and more transparent.

I have first-hand experience with this - it's a catch-22 situation - very sobering and very depressing.

When one talks with chairmen, directors and CEOs about "in the shareholders' interest" I am amazed that they subjectively decide "what the shareholder will get" and not what the shareholder wants - they don't ask their shareholders. Their actions do not match their rhetoric - and generally, perhaps with well-meaning intent, as a group, they are profoundly arrogant in their myopic view of the "value to shareholders" algorithm.

Furthermore the various director associations have more great inclination to support such worthwhile enhancements for the same reason.

Such tools are needed but unless governments impose such accounatbility, it's unlikely to happen - despite its need.