Succeeding at Organizational Transformation

Organizational transformations are inherently difficult to achieve in any public or private sector. As such, there has been a significant body of writing developed primarily in business and the military as to how to achieve successful organizational transformations. The intent of this paper is to synthesize these writings down to five key principles that will then be used to examine several recent, western, military transformations. They include the attempt at U.S. unification in the 1940s, the implementation of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, the creation of the Australian Defence Force in the 1970s and Canadian Forces unification in the 1960s. Once these historical examples have been used to test the five principles of a successful organizational transformation, the current attempt at a transformation of the Canadian Forces will be examined to determine if that endeavor is likely to succeed or not.