Spot the Difference and Make the Leap
Many organisations believe they’re transforming. In truth, most are simply making incremental improvements, getting faster, leaner, and slicker, but still anchored to the same assumptions, structures, and behaviours.
They’re still caterpillars – just moving more quickly.
True transformation, what we call butterfly territory, requires a complete shift into a fundamentally new state. It’s not just a change in process; it’s a redefinition of how value is created. And more often than not, it’s messy, complex, and emotionally demanding. The journey is slow to begin, hard to stay the course, and littered with stories of failure.
But when it works, the result is remarkable. The organisation emerges with new capabilities, new ways of thinking, and systems that are not just improved, but reimagined. These transformations allow companies to survive and thrive amid global shifts – whether geopolitical, regulatory, or competitive and respond to technological disruption or aggressive new entrants.
This isn’t a matter of semantics. The tools might be similar, but the approach, mindset, and principles are radically different.It’s the difference between activity and progress. Between clinging to legacy and designing legacy. Between short-term wins and long-term impact.
The Caterpillar Trap
Let’s start with a hard truth: most organisations doing “transformation” are really running improvement projects.
They host optimisation workshops, cut costs, run Lean events, launch TPM pillars, or roll out digital tools but the organisation’s core DNA remains unchanged. The vision might be a step-change in two or three years, but the reality is a slightly faster version of what already exists.
They’re just building a faster caterpillar.
The result? Short-term wins, isolated improvements, and a persistent feeling that something’s still not right. Long-term, the legacy systems and cultures quietly derail or dilute the benefits.
Tools like TPM, Lean, Agile, and Six Sigma are powerful but only when they’re embedded in a truly different way of working. In many organisations, they’re bolt-ons. Activities. Boxes to tick.
And so, familiar patterns emerge:
- Local improvements that don’t scale.
- People doing TPM, but not owning it.
- Digital tools layered on top of chaos.
You can’t ‘kaizen’ your way out of irrelevance. Effort is not the same as outcome. Dashboards get launched, training is delivered, yet nothing feels fundamentally different.
Why?
Because the reasons for change aren’t clear. Outcomes aren’t shared. And the people expected to live the change haven’t been brought along.
Butterfly Thinking
The most effective change isn’t gradual, it’s a leap. Risky, yes. But logical.
Becoming a butterfly means rethinking how people lead, decide, and work. It changes the organism, not just the process.
Butterfly thinking means:
- Identity-level change – new behaviours, new decision-making, new value creation.
- Clear outcomes – a shared sense of purpose and performance ambition.
- Systemic rewiring – not just processes, but leadership, capability, and culture.
It’s not about doing more. It’s about becoming different.
Leadership is central here. Transformation is not a strategy deck, a plan, or a project. It’s a long-term commitment to new conversations, habits, and performance, even if it means ‘faking it till you make it’ for a while.
It’s a journey of learning, unlearning, and reimagining what creates value and what systems, structures, and mindsets are required to deliver it.
Simplify → Enhance → Integrate → Automate
Improvement programmes often follow maturity models, starting with small tweaks and building up to system-level change. It’s logical, and it works, until you need to transform. In transformation, this sequence is accelerated. And it’s paired with shifts in mindset, values, and capability.
The four stages:
- Simplify – Eliminate noise, clarify purpose, and refocus on what matters.
- Enhance – Lift performance in areas that deliver real value.
- Integrate – Align teams, systems, and data around a coherent whole.
- Automate – Once stable and aligned, use tech to scale.
Most failed transformations ignore this order. They:
- Automate broken processes.
- Enhance pockets of performance that don’t scale.
- Integrate before people understand the basics.
- Simplify last – if at all.
Successful organisations treat this as a rhythm, not a checklist. And above all, they stay the course.
One FMCG organisation we work with takes pride in the fact that their TPM programme, now in its second evolution, is the longest-running programme in their global history. That’s not luck. It’s the product of care, consistency, and agility.
Case Study 1: Unilever – A Butterfly in Motion
Unilever is a standout example of full-system transformation. They didn’t just improve production lines—they reimagined how value is delivered, how people lead, and how systems are designed.
TPM wasn’t treated as a toolkit. It became a cultural operating model. Combined with digital twin factories and purpose-driven leadership development, the transformation spanned every layer of the business.
What they did:
- Adopted TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) as a cultural system (WCM model).
- Built a digital twin strategy with predictive maintenance and real-time quality control.
- Invested in leadership development and purpose branding.
- Aligned the Compass strategy with sustainability and social responsibility.
- Shifted decision-making power to frontline teams.
- Prioritised people before tech.
The reason Unilever have been so successful was driving the cultural shift before tech shift, ensuring there were clear outcome ambition aligned with sustainability, and that they empowered teams, not dependent on central rollout.
This resonates with the FMCG organisation we have supported for over a decade, the three primary ingredients at the heart of their success are:
- A robust ‘driving system’ (strategy setting and focusing on targets and goals)
- Consistent and effective problem solving
- Mobilising and engaging large groups of people within the organisation
Case Study 2: Kodak – A Cautionary Caterpillar
Kodak invented digital photography. But they couldn’t let go of the profitable film model.
They improved efficiency, but not direction. They protected the core while the market evolved. As a result, Kodak, once a dominant global brand, filed for bankruptcy in 2012. Their failure wasn’t due to a lack of innovation, but a refusal to transform the business around it.
Where they went wrong:
- Prioritised efficiency over reinvention.
- Clung to old business models.
- Confined innovation to R&D.
- Optimised processes that were becoming obsolete.
The lesson: you can’t transform without challenging your assumptions.
In contrast, the FMCG organisation we support rotates leadership frequently, embraces tech-driven disruption, and continually redefines its benchmark of success.
Case Study 3: Nestlé – Navigating Complexity with Simplicity
Nestlé’s challenge was scale. With operations in hundreds of factories globally, integration was complex.
They didn’t start with tech. They simplified first.
What they did:
- Unified Lean and TPM in a global CI programme.
- Harmonised key processes: OEE, quality, energy.
- Added digital tools only after systems were stabilised.
Their approach:
- Simplify first, then digitise.
- Share what works.
- Empower local teams within a global system.
The Complexity Trap: Cynefin and Leadership Thinking
Nestlé avoided a common trap: applying “complicated” solutions to “complex” challenges. Many leaders reach for best practice when emergent learning is needed or drive certainty when curiosity would serve better.
Sometimes, improvement is enough. But when the performance gap is wide and conditions are shifting, transformation becomes necessary.
The Cynefin Framework helps leaders identify the nature of their challenges:
- Simple problems need the best practice.
- Complicated problems require expertise.
- Complex challenges demand experimentation.
Leaders often jump to tech or external fixes when the real need is time for reflection, deeper analysis, and co-creation. Transformation is emergent – not prescriptive and rarely linear. In complex environments, effective leaders:
- Create space for learning.
- Ask sharper, more insightful questions.
- Use a probe–sense–respond model rather than plan–execute–evaluate.
They invented digital photography… and still lost. Why?
- Too loyal to the past.
- Innovation locked in R&D.
- Leadership that clung to the status quo.
They optimised a dying model.
Nestlé: Simplicity at Scale
Global complexity? Handled.
- Standardised CI across 500+ factories.
- Simplified before digitising.
- Made change digestible and durable.
Big can be agile if you lead with clarity.
These examples show what traditional organisational change models often miss: the emotional, identity-level shifts that make real transformation stick.
The Role of Leadership: From Controller to Coach
Unilever, Kodak, and Nestlé all show one truth: transformation begins with leadership.
If how you lead hasn’t changed – your meetings, your language, your values – then your organisation hasn’t either.
Great leaders:
- Provide clarity of purpose.
- Make sense of complexity.
- Simplify without oversimplifying.
- Model curiosity and humility.
- Build shared ownership.
Culture isn’t what’s written. It’s what’s tolerated. And it’s how leaders show up when things get hard.
Final Reflection
Before launching the next initiative, ask:
- What outcome are we really aiming for?
- Are our people truly with us?
- Are we building new capabilities or repeating old patterns?
- Are we solving complexity or forcing clarity?
- Are we building something that can evolve or something that will decay?
Because here’s the truth:
Where caterpillars push forward, butterflies lift off.
You decide which one you’re building. And that decision is what separates surface-level change from powerful, enduring organisational change models. You decide which one you’re building: an organisation that tweaks around the edges or one that takes flight. That choice is what separates temporary progress from meaningful, enduring transformation.
