Product Transformation - Create and align on your transformation vision

How do you communicate clearly what a major journey of change is about? How do you ensure that your transformation has the staying power and persistence it needs to not fizzle out at the first sign of difficulty? What can be done to go beyond justifying the change to actually mobilize initiative and engagement?

In order to answer these questions senior leaders need to align on a transformation vision, and become ready to create and tell a clear and credible story. Where are we going, and what is this all about? What will it feel like to be a part of the changed organization - and why will it be different?

Such a transformation vision can be created through three components - two lenses, which are linked into a desired future by a story.

• An objective lens that envisions what desired capabilities or properties your organization will have in the future.

• A subjective lens that envisions the future everyday first-hand experience in your organization for employees, partners and customers.

• ...and a narrative that explains the context for change that offers a reasoning and gives meaning to why exactly these changed capabilities and experiences are worth pursuing.

The Objective Lens - Capabilities

A capability is a form of collective asset, and as such it requires real world evidence. It is not an abstraction, but something your organization evidently can do and displays.

A capability is typically also a property of your whole organization. That is, something your organization is capable of that no part of your organization can do by itself.

As a senior leader you share responsibility for the company and are accountable for large scale results. Therefore, you are not only responsible for setting and communicating goals. You are also responsible for developing an organization that can make those goals become real.

One of your key responsibilities is therefore to identify what capabilities are most important to reach your company goals and to ensure that your organization has or develops those capabilities.

‍“What capability do we need to develop that is a great fit and will improve our chances of success?”

This means describing and communicating clearly those capabilities most in need of development.

Examples of desired capabilities in strong product companies

There are few limits to how you could describe the capabilities that could make the most difference for your own company. Here are four examples that I wrote up, just to offer an illustration.

Each description includes testable qualities that can be developed into metrics to measure progress of capability development.

‍Attracting and developing talent - Our company is recognized as a highly desirable place to work, with strong retention and consistently high employee satisfaction (e.g. eNPS). Our emphasis on developing people means we typically promote talent from within, including into senior roles, and when people move on, they thrive in other product companies - reinforcing our reputation externally. As a result, we attract strong candidates and are seen as an outstanding place to grow and contribute.

‍Integrating results focus, speed and intrinsic motivation - We operate in a way that rarely forces trade-offs between results, speed and engagement. Clear focus lets us match demand to capacity, stay sustainably effective and set ambitious yet achievable targets. Our well-earned track record builds confidence and trust across teams, enabling everyone to contribute intelligently and with lasting motivation.

‍Creating value through product investments - We consistently create new value through our products, reflected in customer demand and financial growth for new offerings. We focus sharply on market opportunities where we can solve high-value customer problems better than competitors, ensuring both differentiation and speed. This focus enables new revenue streams, customer loyalty and sustained growth - making our product investments reliably outperform comparable alternatives.

‍Innovating for unique product qualities - Our engineers and product teams deeply understand customer needs, enabling them to spot where emerging tech can solve meaningful problems. This enables us to consistently use new technology to create distinctive solutions that add real customer value. By combining customer insight, technical creativity and business awareness, we deliver innovations that competitors struggle to match - giving our products novelty and a clear edge, strengthening both growth and brand.

Your capability needs are determined by your context

Your organization is real and as such has real context of what matters the most. Your own situation may be a combination of some elements from the above, and most likely several other attractive qualities that combined would offer you much better odds of reaching your goals.

Remember, when developing your transformation vision your objective lens is for highlighting the organizational ability aspects of your destination. So focus on what those new or different capability elements are, and how we would know that our organization is developing them or not.

The Subjective Lens - First person experience

This part of your vision is all about engaging people through their hearts and minds. It is where you help people see how their daily experience will be different and better. What will they experience and feel when creating great products in your envisioned organization?

As in the section on objective capabilities, you need to pick the subjective elements that you assess as most valuable given your context.

"What first person experiences will enable us to reach our goals?"

Possible desired experiential elements of strong product companies

Here are a few examples for illustration purposes, each exhibiting and highlighting subjective qualities.

‍Helpful participation by solving problems - We work on challenging problems in direct contact with customers and users, thus gaining the intrinsic reward of seeing our products succeed in real life. This gives us fulfillment, joy and pride from creating something genuinely valuable to others.

‍Meaningful work - We know our everyday contributions make a real difference for the people our products serve. This sense of purpose gives our work lasting meaning.

‍Development, challenge and personal growth - We grow in a supportive environment where strong work is met with new challenges and greater responsibility. Here, I both receive and offer coaching, mentoring and opportunities to develop. The talent within me and my colleagues is recognized, nurtured and allowed to reach its full potential.

‍Competent colleagues of character breed confidence - I collaborate with fantastic colleagues and learn from people stronger than me in many disciplines. Together we thrive toward a worthy purpose. Having great talent and diverse skills at hand makes us feel unstoppable - confident that, given time and effort, we can take on any challenge.

‍Shared belief in “makers opportunity” - Everyone, at every level, believes in learning what the market truly needs and in giving teams room to create the best solutions. We share a “makers opportunity” mindset - the belief that we can always craft something remarkable and valuable for customers and users.

‍Shared financial success - We combine intrinsically rewarding work with a share in the financial success of our products. What people risk and contribute are balanced fairly, giving everyone real ownership — not only of customer and product outcomes, but also of the financial results our efforts create.

A Narrative - that offers reason and meaning

This is your story that brings it all together. Being a story, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. There are people, characters and challenges to overcome through striving and persistence. There is leverage and meaning, the reasons the characters have to take on this uncertain journey. And there is a destination that brings rewards and hope of closure.

Perhaps most of all, there is the shared sense of camaraderie that connects us on the path that will fuel our resolve. Beyond the scope of the journey, there are also glimpses of new beginnings, of new chapters waiting to be discovered, of how the journey may change us, beyond the hills we see ahead.

Functionally, while your objective and subjective lenses are ways to target your vision as a clear destination, your narrative is how you anchor yourself in reality and from there plot out a path towards that envisioned destination.

This is what makes your narrative authentic. It becomes a story your organization can believe in, connect with, and use to make sense of the transformation - fueling engagement along the way.

A real world example

A strong narrative emerges naturally from your company’s current context and your assessment of it. For an illustration, see the example section in my previous article “Identifying your drivers and leverage”.

Summary

A transformation vision is a powerful way to set a clear and engaging direction for a significant journey of change. It typically consists of an objective capability lens, a subjective experiential lens and an explaining narrative offering reasoning and meaning to the vision.

A strong transformation vision will offer the needed energy, staying power and persistence over time to your transformation.