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So What Is Transformation Again?

career leadership and influence Nov 14, 2025

Welcome to another edition of Transformation Leadership

Many transformation practitioners learn transformation on the job. So did the ones they learned from. Unfortunately, with the limited and scarce credible educational resources that teach what transformation is and how to achieve it, many are left learning on their own, from people who learned the same way.

On-the-job learning is beneficial as it builds judgment, context, and experience.

However, without a solid foundation, the right mindset, and a clear understanding of transformation practices, this apprenticeship becomes a copy-and-paste approach. We repeat patterns that appear to be transformations but aren’t.

What Transformation is not!

Change is not transformation
Project/program management is not transformation*
PMOs and strategy formulation are not a transformation

Unfortunately, in many organisations, “transformation” is this complex, multifaceted project with numerous workstreams. It promises the world and delivers a tenth of it. Over time, the word "transformation" gets diluted, then frowned upon or even forbidden. I’ve seen that first-hand.

*Nothing against project management, that's where I started from, but transformation is a whole different ball game.

Why does this matter?

• If you are asking, what difference does this make?

Well, for the organisation, it could be the difference between shrinking the business and thriving. In today's landscape, the challenging, fast-paced, and multifaceted future, transformation is not a nice thing to have. It is also not just a "high-profile project" that receives attention while still being treated as a project that is solely focused on delivery, with change added on top.

• If you want a better ROI, then you need real transformation.

I’ve seen a 1,000-person organisation running 66 projects, half of which are badged as “transformational” within a BAU-heavy environment. The result? Disjointed outcomes, a more complicated landscape, good people leaving, disappointing year-end results, and resistance at an all-time high. Imagine instead funding 1–2 true transformation programs; deep, sequenced, and resourced without overloading the business. That’s where ROI, customer value, retention, and capability growth compound.

• There are no winners when we promise transformation, and all we get are stacked deliverables and systems.

This mindset of transformation is just a project focused on delivery and a bit of change to "support it", doesn’t just hit the “transformation team”; it spills across the system:

- Change leaders often end up doing bits and pieces, trying to stitch them together, hoping the change will land while knowing that deeper work is needed, and their hands are tied.

- Delivery teams are tasked with translating vague strategic plans into actionable work that brings outcomes to life. At the same time, those outcomes are unclear, incomplete and keep changing.

- Business stakeholders are promised solutions and often receive less than half of what they were promised, resulting in tasks that could have been done themselves.

• A wider set of consequences

- Compensation drops as transformation leaders are rebranded as glorified project/program managers and effort coordinators. I am heavily involved in the transformation talent space, as I help organisations build internal talent and hire strong transformation leaders. As I work across continents, mature markets, and organisations, I can see the pay gap, which is sometimes quite significant. Unfortunately, I see job ads here in Australia for transformation leaders with salaries of $150,000-$ 190,000 when, in fact, they should be at least $260,000.

- Misreading what transformation is leads to under-scoping the work. The discipline is trivialised, and the “transformation lead” is recast as admin: meetings, slides, wrangling, status. Their value is real, yet the business perceives them as absorbing the coordination overflow so BAU can continue untouched..

- Because in some cases, transformation managers are perceived as project management and effort coordination, everyone feels entitled to have a say on what transformation entails, how to approach it, and how it should be implemented.

- Because the practice of transformation is often unclear, it is almost always the case that transformation is under-resourced and given an unrealistic timeline with parallel deliverables that should be sequential, in an attempt to accelerate it. Because of that understatement, we end up with a bloated list of "transformation" projects, which grows to 150+ projects stitched together by dates and arrows.

- When the reputation of transformation starts to take a dip, the disrespect is visible: eye-rolls in steering committees and executive meetings, “just update the plan” directives, nibbled budgets, and hot-potato blame moves across executive team members.

- Everyone is busy; the needle doesn't move much. Staff burnout, boards get frustrated, and leaders reassure themselves that the next offsite/strategy cycle will fix it ... said by many, achieved by a few.Compensation drops as transformation leaders are rebranded as glorified project/program managers and effort coordinators. I am heavily involved in the transformation talent space, as I help organisations build internal talent and hire strong transformation leaders. As I work across continents, mature markets, and organisations, I can see the pay gap, which is sometimes quite significant. Unfortunately, I see job ads here in Australia for transformation leaders with salaries of $150,000-$ 190,000 when, in fact, they should be at least $260,000.

The questions that matter now

Where do you go to learn transformation?
How is your organisation building the transformation/change muscle? The muscle you need most to create the future you want
As an individual leader, how is a shallow understanding of transformation in your organization capping your income, impact, and fulfilment?

One of the reasons why I created the Transformation Leadership Institute is out of rage and frustration. The frustration of the lack of understanding of what transformation is and how to make it happen. Out of rage over wasted opportunities and half-baked solutions that don't just underserve the organisation that is transforming, but also give a bad reputation to those who can do real transformation and truly can shift the organisation's future

What transformation is (and is not)

Transformation is a reality creation journey. You take a future worth having and make it real, adopted, and sustained, not just launched.

To do that, you must:

Prepare the soil: every transformation and change lives or dies depending on the soil you plan to plant it in (the culture). These are the beliefs, mindset, incentives, ways of working, decision-making processes, the level of humaneness in the workplace, and power dynamics .. All so the new reality can flourish.
Build people and business capabilities: the human and enterprise muscles that deliver outcomes repeatedly and can evolve their own capabilities with time.
Shift the trajectory: change the nature of results, not just the volume of activity. Measured not just financially but also in how your customers describe your brand and how employees brag about their workplace to their friends and family

And Transformation is not:

A wishlist of everything we wish we could do.
30+ "strategic" initiatives
Projects that focus solely on delivery, with some changes to support.
Adding more to your landscape without fixing deep-root causes, really deep-root causes, even if that means coming face to face with the real business and technology debt that has been building over the years
The various interpretations of a vague strategy.
A way to get on the bandwagon of [...fill in the spaces...], by sticking the new thing as an add-on, not an integrated business capability
The combined agendas of every department, including keeping-the-lights-on projects, compliance, and continuous improvement, all contribute to maintaining the organisation's operations. Those projects may be valid, but they are not the transformation.

If this hits a nerve, good...it means you care about doing the work properly. Comment below and tell me one place your organisation uses the word “transformation” for something that isn’t, or how you are struggling to get your expertise across to help make your transformation a real one. I'll respond with my thoughts.

Insights: What I’m noticing

1. AI space is exploding, but is your business ready for it?

You probably already know that. However, what I have been noticing is that AI, while helpful and carries a lot of promises, it can also be a failed initiative when your foundations and existing people and business capabilities are not ready for AI. I'm receiving almost daily LinkedIn messages from tech vendors who want to sell me AI solutions. Out of curiosity, I engaged in a conversation with a couple to see what they are about. While the technology promise seems reasonable, the tech stack allows for such results (in an ideal setup). However, how would we know if the business is ready or clear on how best to utilise AI, what level of AI to use, what type of AI, and which part of the business is more susceptible to leveraging AI? There was silence; however, the body language clearly signalled that this is the client's job, not ours.

2. Ending the year strong, or so I thought

2025 carried a high level of uncertainty, overwhelm and fast-paced changes that left people just wanting to get to the finish line, even if that meant crawling to it. Instead of the TGIF (Thank God it is Friday), we are going to have TGID (Thank God it is December). The geopolitical changes, the world's injustices and wars, and the higher cost of living have all undoubtedly contributed to a higher level of anxiety, amplifying the desire to play it safe and adopt a 'just keep the job' mentality. No judgements here. However, this shift is real... and CHROs and C-level executives should be mindful and thoughtful of how it will contribute to innovation, quality of work, and the quiet shifting of culture and team dynamics. And of course, customer behaviour and market trends.

3. Checked out mentality and vague strategies.

I am only adding this here because, over the last four weeks alone, I have had individual leaders and organisations engage with me in conversations where it was very clear that the claim of "we have a strategy" was not entirely accurate. It was more of a nice-looking PDF document that you can download from the organisation's website, which was not really a strategy. It was more of the CEO's and the board's wish for the organisation, a vague, high-level set of mandates or some desired financial targets. Nothing that would constitute a true strategy, providing the rest of the organisation with direction and a clear set of choices. The interesting thing was a statement that one COO told me that struck a chord, which was "I think the CEO is in a checkout mentality, just wants us to figure it out and wants nothing much to do with the details"

Inside The Transformation Leadership Institute. My invitation to you!

My invitation to you: If you want to learn transformation, how to sell it to an organisation, how to create a fulfilling career out of it, and how to elevate your leadership and influence through delivering impactful results. I am opening the doors to TLI's Elevate Signature Program. If you want to be an authority in the transformation space and elevate your career to a whole new height in 2026, Elevate is for you. If you have any questions, please do reach out by messaging me directly.

➡️Learn more about Elevate here → Learn about Elevate

➡️Clients’ testimonials here → See client results

Did you know we have a free community inside of TLI? Check it out here: Visit www.TL-Institute.com and click 'Join the free community'. Please ensure that you complete your profile to finalise your registration.

Events

Am running a live Ask Me Anything session called “Real Transformation, Real Talk”.

This AMA is for people who work in or around change and transformation. That includes program and project leads, product, HR, L&D, strategy, executives, and sponsors. If you want practical answers not theory, this is for you. Join us!

📅 Date: Thursday, 20 November 2025

⏰ Time: 7:00–8:00 PM (Sydney time)

📍 Where: Zoom

🔗 Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/wAkejiAYRPGpxoej_jj-aA

Thanks for your time. Till next time,

Jess Tayel

Founder of the Transformation Leadership Institute and People of Transformation membership & community.

Enable organisations to become future-fit through their Transformations & Change efforts.

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