Transformation Will Never Be This Slow Again
What boards must decide when change becomes permanent
We have talked for years about transformation. What is different now is the pace.
Transformation is happening extremely fast, faster than in the past. And it is not a temporary phase. If anything, we should assume it will never again be as slow as it is today. The only stable reality is a changing one.
For boards, this is not an abstract observation. It has direct strategic consequences.
Europe is navigating a shifting geopolitical landscape while facing rapid technological change: AI, digitization, and cybersecurity at the same time. We are also in a post-COVID reality. Even if we no longer speak about the pandemic, its social implications are still shaping companies: how people work, what they expect, and how organizations absorb pressure.
In this environment, the core question is not “How do we transform faster?”
It is: Where do we want to position the company in this new reality?
Do we want to remain in the current business or move into another one?
Do we want to become the profitability leader in the industry, requiring early and decisive investment in digital tools and capabilities?
Or do we believe traditional technologies still have room to evolve at a slower pace, with a different risk profile and different capital allocation?
These are board decisions. Management implements. But direction, ambition, and risk appetite must be explicit at board level.
This is particularly critical in Europe, where external transformation often moves faster than internal transformation.
Global leaders coming from outside Europe sometimes assume that the pace we see in markets can be replicated inside organizations at the same speed. My experience is that this is rarely true. Europe operates with social constraints and cultural realities that differ from other regions. We are not in a “hire and fire” environment. That has both positive and negative implications but it must be understood, managed, and handled correctly.
And there is another dimension boards sometimes underestimate: people.
Even in highly agile companies, people remain the real operating system. In the electrical and electronic industry in particular, relationships still matter. The handshake still matters. Customers who hear “customer centric” expect real presence, not only processes and dashboards. If you lose that, you lose credibility in the market.
This is why transformation must be designed not only for speed, but for sustainability.
I have seen transformations succeed when three conditions were present:
The need for transformation was clearly identified
The “why” was articulated and understood
The new strategic direction was communicated in a way that created alignment
After that, the hardest part begins: implementation. This is where middle management becomes critical and where many transformations fail, not because the strategy is wrong, but because the organization was not truly engaged.
The strongest examples I have seen share one more element: involvement.
You cannot understand the reality of your business alone. Reality is what customers want, what competitors do, and how the full ecosystem behaves. That understanding comes from dialogue and many discussions across levels, functions, and regions. This is not consensus-building. It is intelligence gathering. Without it, transformation becomes theoretical.
Then execution brings the toughest decisions: changing roles, cutting positions, and building new capabilities. In Europe, the legal obligations for those leaving are clear and generally followed. What is not regulated but decisive is how companies take care of the people who remain.
After restructuring, the “stayers” carry the business forward. If they are not supported, if trust is broken, motivation drops, and execution slows further. In my view, this is one of the most underestimated factors in transformation outcomes. Culture makes the difference.
Not every transformation is triggered by a major external shock. Some are triggered by a changed internal diagnosis.
One example I have seen work well was a company that understood it lacked critical mass. It operated as a niche player with ambitions that required scale. The transformation was not about cutting; it was about integrating: bringing acquired entities together, aligning processes, and uniting a scattered set of companies around a common goal. As scale increased, the company gained the “muscles” to compete and began to be perceived as a serious player by the market.
Different trigger. Same starting point: understanding what is truly limiting the company.
Looking forward, boards must absorb one fundamental shift. Historically, boards focused heavily on supervising financial KPIs and shareholder expectations. Today, that is not sufficient. Boards must also govern for speed, resilience, and preparedness in a far more unstable environment.
That means being ready for the next “tsunami” technological disruption, AI impact, regulatory acceleration, demographic change, and the next generation of leaders who will operate under very different assumptions.
The strategic requirement is clear: the speed of transformation must become part of the company’s DNA.
And that begins where it always begins at the board level.
Rada Rodriguez