Anand G. Mahindra

I started thinking about how to manage transformations in 1981. I read every book on transformation and distilled their essence by identifying common themes and eliminating outliers. On the basis of this intellectual exercise and personal experience, I created a four-step transformation loop. I use acronyms all the time, so I call this ESEE—because “easy” is the one thing change isn’t.

The first E stands for envisioning. Before you start any transformation, you have to create a vision of the future. You have to say, “This is where the world is going, and this is where I want to take my company.” The vision has to make sense to you; in other words, you must be convinced that your organization fits into the future that you envisage. Then—and I had to do this time and again—you have to create a structure. You have to decide what your company will look like; you have to know how to place your troops—where the generals will be, where the lieutenants will be, what the formations will look like.

The third step is enabling. You have to populate the structure with the right people and give them the financial resources they need. This process is akin to laying the supply lines before a battle. Once you’ve done that, you must get out of the way as the army starts moving. However, as chief executive, you still have one task to perform: You have to energize the corporation, which is the last E. You drop in on dealers to interact with customers and visit plants to meet employees—that galvanizes the corporation. Just the presence of senior executives on the company’s front lines is enough to energize people.

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