THE
TRANSFORMATION GUILD

In my career, I’ve been lucky enough to catch lightning in a bottle — twice. The first time, it was in a box. A UPS box, to be precise. In 1996, the internet was in its infancy. Fewer than 1% of the world’s population was online, and Amazon’s annual sales were under $16 million. In that environment, I had the opportunity to help shape how millions of companies would one day participate in what’s now a $6 trillion eCommerce economy. Lightning in a box. Fast forward to 2006, when I joined The Coca-Cola Company. The digital world was moving exponentially faster. Always-on broadband and the personal computer revolution had already reshaped business — but the next wave was forming across Europe and Asia. That wave was Mobile. A phone in nearly every hand promised a new kind of transformation: tracking cold drink equipment, finding Coke-serving restaurants, scanning labels to unlock music and games — even buying a Coke without a wallet, just by tapping a phone to a vending machine. My job was to use the phone in one hand to put a Coke in the other. Lightning in a bottle. Back at UPS, a wise mentor once told me, “You can change the company, but it’s like turning a battleship in the Chattahoochee River.” That stuck with me. It wasn’t until my time at Coke that I began to define the forces required to actually turn that battleship — to transform an organization. I call them the Four Currents of Transformation. Manage them, and you can navigate change. Ignore them, and you risk running aground. The Transformation Guild explores how these currents are shaping transformation across companies, departments, and roles. Our research reveals the often invisible gaps in confidence and alignment within organizations — and how different people can experience the same transformation in very different ways. It might be tempting to dismiss this as “too simple.” But don’t confuse “simple” with “clear”. The North Star has guided mariners for thousands of years not because it’s simple — but because it’s clear.