Leading Transformations

The world and its business environments are in a state of constant change. The reality today is that organizations and their leaders are faced with increasingly daunting demands for change and, unless they build organizations that can keep pace with these fast-changing environments, it will be a challenge simply to survive while, at the same time, continuing to thrive and embrace uncertainty and disorder.

One effective example of a world-renowned company that survived an existential crisis to become one of the most iconic companies in the world: The LEGO Group. In Building a Global Learning Organization (CRC Press, 2014), the authors showed how to develop and implement a global structure for learning based on the TWI (Training Within Industry) methods. In that book, you learned how the LEGO Group worked on business transformation through changes in organizational learning systems, including new ways of working and other Lean transformational initiatives. Great organizations have used that book as a benchmark for global and national rollouts of TWI programs and standard work initiatives.

In this book, you get inspiration on how the LEGO Group met these challenges by developing and implementing a framework for transformations to create a common approach to designing, leading and anchoring change in an effective and impactful way. You get insights into the journey which began by designing the LEGO Way of Change, the process of testing the approach in a bigger transformation which, based on pilot learnings, was implemented in transformational initiatives. This book outlines some of the approaches that the LEGO Group implemented in order to ensure change would be both successfully implemented and sustained, including in-depth guides on impactful interventions with both leaders and people in the organization.

The author discusses personalizing and navigating change as well as designing change in the organization and measuring its impact. You will continue learning more from specific real-life case studies from business leaders focused on different kinds of transformation, from reshaping functional teams to optimizing lead time through improved ways of working.

When it comes down to it, change is about the people side of the equation. It is easy to change strategy, process, or technology, but it is harder to change individuals, people, and their behaviors. This book will provide inspiration and guidance on how to bring the people side of change into play in an effective and impactful way.

Gitte Jakobsen has been involved in organizational and leadership development in the LEGO Group since 1997 with roles both as staff manager and as a specialist. She has extensive experience in the development of complex marketing, production, and people processes based on her experience in creating and leading global activities where she built training organizations and knowledge management activities across LEGO Learning Centers in Denmark, Mexico, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and China. Additionally, she is developing global LEGO programs like World-Class Craftsmanship with the objective of building up LEGO toolmakers and Technology Leaders of Tomorrow. These efforts were outlined in her Shingo Prize Recipient book Building a Global Learning Organization published by Productivity Press in 2014.

In 2009, Jakobsen completed a master’s degree in educational psychology at the University of Aarhus and has since been working as a Learning and Change Specialist providing both practical and theoretical perspectives in her positions as HR Senior Manager and, later, Change Director of Strategy and Transformation. Her core responsibilities lie in supporting the LEGO business areas in selected strategic initiatives for leading change in an engaging and sustaining way.