The Four Currents
Transformation Readiness Assessment
The Transformation Guild fields a large-scale version of the Four Currents Survey to assess perceptions across organizations and industries. The survey is provided to a panel of respondents who represent different types and sizes of organizations, different roles and divisions within organizations, and different levels of seniority, lengths of tenure, and levels of engagement within their organizations.
This survey provides a baseline for evaluating typical gaps in confidence and alignment. Additionally, the survey surfaces timely and trending topics that provide insights into what’s on the minds of individual contributors, directors, and senior leaders. Our novel Four Currents™ Framework examines people, money, and time at the most elemental levels:
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All people are either on your payroll or they are not.
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All money either has a knowable ROI or it does not.
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Transformation takes time (but people lose interest).
The Four Currents represent entry points for evaluating the holistic cycle of resource allocation. Each current flows into the others. Fundamentally, the Four Currents Framework assesses perceptions in confidence and alignment around priorities for how time and money are spent.
Complementing these Currents, the Tide Chart and the concept of Time Dissolutionment introduce a temporal dimension—one that surfaces how perceptions of time, urgency, and momentum can quietly undermine or accelerate change.
Insights & Research Releases
The Transformation Guild fields The Four Currents Transformation Readiness Assessment each quarter to track current challenges organizations face related to transformation. This report highlights the insights developed in analyzing responses from over 1300 employees representing a cross-section of individual contributors, middle managers, and senior leaders from different industries as well as different types and sizes of organizations.
Aligned or Adrift? The State of Business Transformation
Our data highlights significant (and perhaps surprising) disparities in confidence and alignment within organizations.
Which Types of Companies Engage in Transformation?
Transformation is prevalent across types of organizations. Overall, 46% of respondents indicate their firms are currently pursuing a large-scale transformation initiative. Among those working at publicly traded firms, the proportion increases to 57%.
Proportion of Organizations Pursuing Transformation Initiatives (by Company Type)
Largely, transformation efforts track with company size. Large-scale transformation initiatives are reported more frequently among those working at larger-scale organizations. Interestingly, the proportion of companies engaging in transformation efforts plateaus at roughly 50% when headcount exceeds 250 employees. Among smaller organizations
What types of transformation efforts are being pursued?
Respondents indicating their firms are currently engaged in a transformation initiative provided a short summary of the project. We have distilled these into five categories including examples.
Digital.
This is the most common category, encompassing initiatives related to adopting and upgrading storage or access to digital information, including integrating siloed systems. These projects may also involve data governance and security considerations.
Examples: cloud migration, AI implementation, data modernization, and process automation
Impact.
These initiatives focus on environmental sustainability, social responsibility, and community engagement. Some efforts may be widely applauded and non-controversial (e.g. reducing energy consumption). However, other efforts may fall into categories where opinions may be polarized (e.g. diversity, equity, and inclusion).
Examples: implementing sustainable practices and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Organizational.
Strategic initiatives and economic realities can require organizations to change shape, which in turn, impact organizational operations and culture. This category includes both positive initiatives as well as negative transformations such as layoffs.
Examples: organizational restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, transitioning to a four-day workweek, changing employee benefits
Growth.
Doing more requires change. Business expansion and investments in infrastructure or facilities alter the way organizations operate. Certainly, these efforts represent substantial commitments, and notably, introduce the possibility of gaps in confidence and alignment.
Examples: opening new locations, expanding services, building construction and renovation, equipment upgrades
Efficiency.
This category includes initiatives aimed at streamlining processes or optimizing workflows to reduce costs, which in turn, increase profitability. Certainly some Digital or Impact initiatives might overlap with this category. However,operational efficiency projects tend to reflect replacements or upgrades to existing systems (e.g. changing one system for another).
Examples: cost reduction, eliminating redundancy, process streamlining, and financial system upgrades
Research is led by
Ethan Pew
PhD, Clinical Assistant Professor of Marketing and MS Marketing Program Director at The University of Texas at Austin
Ethan Pew is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Marketing and Director of the Master of Science in Marketing program at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. He specializes in consumer behavior, financial decision making, and market research. Pew is also a highly respected researcher and consultant in the financial and information technology sectors, offering strategic guidance and data-driven insights to established companies and startups. Pew has held faculty positions at several universities, such as Columbia University and Purdue University and holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Colorado Boulder and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from Texas McCombs.