From transactional to transformational: teaching people to think big

By William Seidman I’ve been working  on trying to make a transformation inside two organizations that are focused on the transactional.  In fact, they’ve been completely transactional: driven by tactical, daily transactions – daily orders, daily service requests. They quite literally have been pedaling as fast as they can. One is a sales organization, the other is a service organization. Each would like to change its culture to one that emphasizes sustained client relationships.   Organizational psychologist Ron Riggio‘s distinction between the transactional and the transformational applies to organizations, too. The direct customer contact people like the idea of becoming transformational because transformational jobs are much more interesting than transactional jobs.. The managers are having a hard time; most became managers because they were better at transactions than their peers. Now they are being asked to lead a transformation – and they don’t know what to do; they keep trying to convert things back to transactions, which block the change to a transformational environment. Our challenge is to help transactional people to become transformational people, because only then can lasting change occur.]]>

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