The ultimate goal for every leader should be transformation.  Long term success requires continuous transformation for every company, team, and individual.  No company, team or individual can just stand still and succeed.  So if you want to transform a company you do it through its teams.  If you want to transform teams you do it through its individuals.  Therefore, all transformation is achieved through individuals.

Successful leaders know that you don’t try to transform people into what you want them to be.  You can only equip and empower people to transform into everything they can be – and only if they want to. After all, “A caterpillar only becomes a butterfly if it wants to fly so much that it is willing to give up being a caterpillar.”

Here are three key points about transformation that each individual must learn to succeed:

Transformation is possible  You may not be satisfied with your job, accomplishments, or the impact you have had on the world – so do something.  If you don’t like where you are then change, you are not a tree. You have the power to change where you are, or change right where you are. 

You decide where you plant your roots. One option for transformation is to change locations.  Get a new start.  There are opportunities all around you.  However, before you decide to pack up and leave consider that you are where you are right now in part because of you past actions.  Will you find yourself unsatisfied somewhere else?  As yourself if you have bloomed to your fullest potential right where you are?  John Maxwell has a great quote that says, “If you think the grass is greener on the other side then water your own lawn.”

Transformation takes planning  If only I could…says those that don’t.  What would you like to transform into?  Nothing happens overnight except the sunset and the sunrise.  Wherever you would like to be one year from now will take you 365 days to get there.  What is your plan for tomorrow to get you one step closer to your transformation?

“Success is more about momentum around small wins than it is about big wins.” – Tom Peters

Transformation means change  Obtaining more than you have right now will require change.  Now that change could come from other people, your circumstances, your opportunities, or from you.  Of all of those possible changes, the only one you can control is you.  So while the world around you might change to meet your desires I wouldn’t suggest you count on that happening.  You will get what you seek quicker if you change first to at least meet the world halfway. 

Remember the wise words of Jones from Andy Andrews’ book The Noticer Returns, “If you want to make a difference you have to be different.”