Engagement and Transformation

How can we engage people in transformation?

My friend and mentor Joe Pine recently released The Transformation Economy. In it, Joe makes some fundamental points:

1. People ultimately want transformations

They might be small or large. It might be that I buy a bottle of water to transform myself from thirsty to satiated, or that I do an MBA in order to be better at business and more able to secure a strong role.

Either way, we are looking to go from a "before state" to an "after state".

2. We guide transformations

For those who want to make such transformations happen, we need to know that we don't make people transform. We don't deliver transformation. We guide it.

It is a partnership, and we are like a sherpa leading someone up that mountain of transformation. It is also fluid — we never quite know the outcome.

3. Experiences are the raw materials of transformations

It is in having experiences that the raw materials are presented, from which a transformation is formed. Sometimes what transforms us is the composite of all those experiences, and other times it's very specific moments.

4. Transformation is found in the follow-through

There is the popular phrase of "follow-up". But transformation is more about how we follow-through — how we continue to guide the transformation in the integration over time.

This is more than a one-off email.