Transformation Tuesday Tip #6 - You don’t climb Everest without a base camp
“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” — Sir Edmund Hillary
Why does every profound transformation have a Transformation Office? It’s the capability for agility, transformation, and staying relevant.
Let’s start with a truth: transformation is no longer a special programme that happens every five years. It’s the new normal. And in that reality, your business is either building muscle or burning out.
Most organisations get this in theory. They announce bold intentions, put fancy titles on slide decks, and discuss “strategic goals.” But when you look closer, there’s no real change in behaviour, pace, or performance. Just a commotion. Just theatre.
So let’s say it plainly: if you want to win in today’s disruptive age, where markets shift weekly and AI rewrites the rules before breakfast, then a Transformation Office isn’t optional. It’s your base camp. Your anchor. Your metabolism reset.
Because what you need is not more projects, but a different tempo.
And that’s what a genuine Transformation Office can give you.
It doesn’t run on Gantt charts or governance rituals. It runs on urgency, focus, and accountability. It sets the rhythm. It cuts through noise. It asks, ‘What are we doing this week?’ Who’s stuck? What’s holding this thing back?
That’s the real heartbeat of change—not a dashboard or a roadmap, but a team of people who wake up every morning thinking about how to make momentum inevitable.
This is not about process. It’s about pace.
A great Transformation Office raises the entire organisation’s metabolic rate. It turns strategy from a glossy ambition into a trackable set of outcomes. Transformation now feels like a habit, not a hope.
Crucially, it forces alignment. There are no more silos, no more lost dependencies, and everyone sees the same truth, reads from the same plan, and is held to the same standard.
Some people confuse this with a PMO on steroids. It’s not. The PMO tracks, the TO drives, the PMO reports, the TO delivers, the PMO manages projects, and the TO changes the company.
And the companies that win? They get this.
They build Transformation Offices that aren’t buried in back offices or lost in bureaucracy. They give them teeth. They link them to value. They empower them to coach, challenge, escalate and accelerate. They staff them with a blend of insiders who know the terrain and outsiders who challenge it.
Setting up a Transformation Office demonstrates your commitment to transformation and shows that you are serious about it.
When disruption hits, it will, but it’s not your strategy deck that saves you. It’s the team who’s been rehearsing the pivot all year. The team is ready to go on Monday morning.
That’s your TO.
That’s your base camp.
That’s how you climb.