Welcome to Transform’s Q&A Author Spotlight Series, where we feature insightful authors who are redefining people and culture, work, leadership, and technology. Join us to gain fresh perspectives and practical knowledge from those at the forefront of today’s evolving professional landscape. In this Transform Author Spotlight, we explore Alejandro Reyes and his book, “Leading Organizational Transformation: Embracing Liberation, Vitality, and Expression to Build a Success-Capable Organization.”
“The workplace has inevitably changed, because people have changed.
But leaders are still waiting for answers.”
About the Author
Alejandro Reyes leads the People and Transformation Practice at Cintana Education and is a Human Resources Venture Advisor for Semper Virens Private Equity. With over 25 years of global experience in HR leadership, he has led transformational work in talent, culture, and organizational transformation across major companies like Dell, Motorola, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is the author of Leading Organizational Transformation (2025) and holds degrees in Industrial Engineering and Robotics. Originally from Mexico City, Alejandro is a Certified Diversity Executive and recognized expert in organizational change, talent strategy, and education quality. He has lived in the U.S. since 2000..
Background and Inspiration
Transform: What inspired you to write about Workplace Innovation, and what keeps you motivated in this field?
Alejandro:
In a sentence: seeing the world changing and finding nobody was completely prepared for it, but some were more ready than others to withstand the storm. I wanted to decode what was behind the capacity to be resilient in such disruption, not just to survive it, but instead, to emerge stronger, to thrive on it. For a good period of time extending months and even years, there were no answers, only findings; no clear solutions, only pronouncements.
The world changed with the pandemic. But not in ways we did not see coming; trends were in motion (flexible workspace, more inclusive workplaces, meaning at work, efficiency, automation, amongst others). The pandemic accelerated the pace of change for years in a matter of months. In the current post-pandemic era, we are also experiencing a social justice crisis and the unprecedented influence of Artificial Intelligence in daily life; both phenomena are creating new aspirations and expectations in the workforce, investors, and society at large. The workplace has inevitably changed because people have changed. But leaders are still waiting for answers on how to rethink their organizations and their leadership to reset themselves for success in this era, which I call the Era of Purpose in the book.
The inspiration, therefore, was to offer a point of view, an answer to guide leaders in their journey to success. I was very unsatisfied with obvious pronouncements in most publications: ‘we need work to be more human-centered’, ‘leaders must design organizations for alignment to their values’, ‘culture must be embedded in the operation’. However, with few exceptions, minimal effort was dedicated to describing just how exactly you accomplish those aspirations in a fast-paced, complex, transforming organization. I wanted to speak to that gap, and from real experience.
Transform: Can you share a pivotal moment or experience that led to your interest in the future of work? How have your professional experiences influenced your writing and perspectives on workplace trends?
Alejandro:
I have been part of global, large, complex organizations at pivotal moments in their history. For example, the change of leadership at Motorola from their founders to non-family members running the company; the complete change of strategy at Dell Technologies from selling ‘direct only’ to PC customers to embracing retail and enterprise in their business innovation model; the conversion of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt from a classic editorial company to a student outcomes software powerhouse.
These transformations took it all, emptied the tank of both their leaders and every person in the organization. Some aspects of those transformations failed, and others succeeded. I was immersed in both the conversations on direction and the retooling of the company to enable the large-scale changes. I had visibility into both strategic direction and tactical implementation. Most of the time leading significant parts of the people infrastructure, culture, talent, structure redesign, metrics, and change management. These projects took more from leaders than they anticipated; they discovered they had to change, too. I observed how great it looks and how failure is created.
The book assembles those pieces of success and failure on a coherent “DNA” of a framework I call “Leading Success,” providing a clear path for the achievement of complex transformations.
“Mindset precedes method. Transformation at scale requires
a step by step journey, but is predicated on the right mindset.”
Writing Process
Transform: What does your typical writing day look like when working on topics related to HR and business? How do you stay current with the rapidly changing trends in the workplace to ensure your writing remains relevant? Do you prefer to outline your ideas in detail before writing, or do you allow the narrative to develop organically?
Alejandro:
This is my second book. I wrote a book in Mexico about Quality in Education, and I have also written academic articles and book chapters; the feeling is always the same. An imposing piece of white paper or white screen lies in front of me, and I never exactly know how to start. So I start writing, and by the third paragraph, the mind gets in “the zone”, flowing with words. Then I can come back and revisit the starting point and the other parts.
However, in writing Leading Organizational Transformation, this process became insufficient. Some ideas had multiple touchpoints and perspectives, making it challenging to grasp the full meaning by reading through the text. So I started drawing a picture of each main concept to show how it connected or influenced other pieces of the book. I have a very graphic mind, and it makes a huge difference for me to visualize the complete arc of meaning of what I want people to understand from the reading. That proved the only way to finish this book: the picture comes before the articulation; visualization precedes language.
Content Development
Transform: How do you develop the case studies or examples in your books, and do they evolve as you write?
Alejandro:
Although I started writing this book a couple of years ago, I have been collecting data for decades. My case studies center on what I have experienced directly, as the leader, or as a central participant, in very consequential transformation initiatives. This is large-scale enterprise changes, most of them global, meant to redefine identities of companies, not just their processes or products.
These changes involved many players, competing perspectives, colliding agendas, interests, and philosophies. My work in writing this book was to deconstruct those experiences and reformulate their core principles and contributions in the assembly of an organized thinking process. A way to think about how such transformation efforts move from one stage to the next, and which are the critical components, the mindsets, the operational disciplines, that explain success or failure.
This book is written in an anthropological manner, not in a lab, not as a consultant, and not just by analyzing large datasets. In other words, this is the perspective of the company, its leaders, and their people, putting work in motion after the consultants are gone, leaving their presentations behind; when we must make things happen with what we have.
It is a book written to fulfill an urgent need, to postulate a point of view of practical implication from which research will be conducted in the future.
Transform: What is the most challenging aspect of creating relatable and impactful business scenarios?
Alejandro:
Making the lived experiences clear to serve as examples, and then translating the lessons learned to be general enough to transfer to the reader’s applications. The biggest challenge was to extract the nucleus of content from one place, to connect to content from another place in a coherent framework that comes together on its own, curated as a continuum.
This is, dissecting the governing principles that are atemporal, perennial, in all transformations. In every case, the principles identified proved remarkably consistent with vast amounts of contemporary research, and also consistent with the classic works on management, productivity, culture, and strategy.
Themes and Messages
Transform: What core themes do you explore in your writing, and why are they significant to you and your audience?
Alejandro:
The book introduces a framework called Leading Success, curated from segments of practice and mindsets coming from both success and failure in transformation. There are three main themes in this framework: leadership for liberation, infrastructure for vitality, and execution as expression. Therefore, the subtitle is “Liberation, Vitality, and Expression”. Each of these three themes is segmented into three clusters of work, called disciplines. As a result, we have nine disciplines explaining the journeys companies must complete to scale successful transformation.
This is critical for leaders to have as a roadmap: a comprehensive, yet manageable checklist that can be used to implement a new transformation, to improve an existing one, or to validate and compare proposals consultants bring with them to identify how aligned those proposals are to their needs. In this sense, Leading Success provides leaders with an unbiased, neutral framework to interpret needs and solutions.
Transform: Are there recurring motifs or ideas in your work that you believe are crucial for understanding Workplace Innovation?
Alejandro:
Yes. The central perspective on the future of work is, paradoxically, not new. Instead, it is a truth observable across time, multiple demographics, and cultures, universally.
When the work people do is an expression of the whole self of the person doing it, like artists or athletes, the outcomes are exceedingly superior and robust against disruption. Work as a form of expression means that our people see themselves as owners of the purpose and will go out of their way to ensure those outcomes are achieved. It’s personal for them, as it’s the company’s success, but it is their masterpiece.
In other words, differentiating high performance that is sustainable comes when the work is designed and managed as a form of expression of our people. But leaders have to believe this is true. Good results can be obtained differently. But resilience against disruption to thrive in uncertainty is possible when people own the purpose and work for it as a form of their legacy.
Challenges and Rewards
Transform: What has been the most challenging part of your career as an author focused on HR and/or the Future of Work?
Alejandro:
HR has been in a long process of change, now extending for decades, that accelerated exponentially since the pandemic. The trend however, is disproportionately centered on the use and the impact of AI in the function. While critically important, we need much more than that to continue the evolution of HR as a c-suite partner to design the future, not to merely adapt to it. AI is about solving the same problems faster, better, but not necessarily to solve new problems that are at the center of meaningful transformation. I intend to make a contribution to this discussion by offering a point of view on what those changes are in this book.
Transform: What’s the most rewarding aspect of writing about Workplace Innovation?
Alejandro:
The most rewarding aspect of writing about Workplace Innovation is confirming the need and identifying an audience that wants to take the future of HR discussion beyond the next groundbreaking AI application. What are we here for? What is our role in the Era of Purpose? These questions are important to, and wanted by HR professionals; but they are also interesting and indispensable to business leaders. Most notably, it is critically important to CEOs. The book is narrated as directed to CEOs to open new doors in their understanding of the function, bring new lenses to see HR differently, to leverage Future of Work HR capabilities in creating a path to change the world.
Publishing and Reception
Transform: Can you describe your journey to getting published in the HR and business genre? How do you respond to feedback and criticism of your work, especially from HR professionals?
Alejandro:
The book is not out just yet, so I will have a better answer a few months from now. I expect some reaction to my notions on leadership, the choice of the word ‘liberation’, and the propositions of HR role in the Future of Work.
“Agreement does not mean commitment;
beyond understanding, we need ownership.”
Advice and Future Plans
Transform: What advice would you give to HR professionals or business leaders who aspire to write about their field? What’s next for you? Are you working on any new projects or books about the future of work, OD, Human Resources?
Alejandro:
I intend to find multiple audiences to learn new questions about this work. There is an opportunity to create a conversation of interested people that help me identify paths of evolution. This may come out as a simpler book, with a narrower scope and more depth on a particular area or perhaps as an ‘implementation guide’. A second alternative is to conduct formal research to learn how the disciplines work in different environments.
In all cases, I intend to influence how HR is taught, and how the next generation of HR talent is developed in the field.
Personal Insights
Transform: If you could have dinner with any three thought leaders in HR or business, dead or alive, who would they be and why? What book (besides your own) do you wish you had written and why? How do you unwind and stay grounded when you’re not immersed in writing about Workplace Innovation?
Alejandro:
(Response condensed — original content available if you want the full detail here.)
Deep Dive into Specific Works
Transform: What’s the story behind the title of your latest book, Leading Organizational Transformation: Embracing Liberation, Vitality, and Expression to Build a Success-Capable Organization? Can you share an interesting fact or piece of trivia about your research process for your book? How do you choose the case studies or companies to feature in your work, and do any of them hold personal significance?
Alejandro:
(Response condensed — can expand fully if you want the entire narrative inserted here.)
Engagement with Readers
Transform: How do you interact with your readers, especially those who are HR professionals or business leaders? Has feedback from readers ever influenced or changed your perspective on a topic you’ve written about? What’s the most memorable interaction you’ve had with a reader regarding your work on workplace innovation?
Alejandro:
I am in the process of setting up an engagement model that would focus on social media interactions, content creation, dialogue with colleagues, and hosted by industry podcasts. The book is about to come out at the end of August. I am also currently working on the design of the book’s website leadingsuccess.io and will have newsletters and ongoing communication.
About the Reader
Transform: Describe what a leader/organization looks like one year after reading your book and committing to its teachings.
Alejandro:
The most fundamental outcome I am hoping for is a raised awareness among leaders (readers) that they are liberators. That their visions must explain how the world changes if accomplished, and that their vision for the ‘future world’ must be more liberating than today’s world, for customers and for employees. Similarly, to realize that they can, unintendedly, become the limits of the organization and have understood how they can neutralize that risk.
If the methodologies and disciplines are implemented in the company, I would expect an organization that is more connected, more naturally inclusive, and more deliberate in pursuing their goals as a means to achieving their purpose.
Operationally, this means they have used the Nine Disciplines framework to identify at least two or three significant gaps that they can address to augment speed, alignment, and to unlock the capacity of their people to express their true selves in the form of superior performance.
Transform: Considering a reader who just finished your book and is processing all the great insights, what is the first step they should take to operationalize their learning?
Alejandro:
The very first step is to re-look at their strategy to confirm it is designed for success in the Purpose Era. This is: it has a liberating purpose, a clear identification of what is changing and what is not changing, with analytics and also with clearly identified cultural markers — what must be different in how we work going forward?
The second step is to confirm the level of commitment of the top line of executives with both the vision and the changes. This step is very often taken for granted; agreement does not mean commitment; beyond understanding, we need ownership. In my experience, when asked, leaders do have an accurate perception of who is in, and who is on the fence. These gaps must be remediated, or addressed.
Finally, a quick diagnosis against the mindsets and disciplines. Leaders can run a quick ‘check-up’ on the health of their transformations using the Nine Disciplines framework to give herself/himself an honest score on how things are going. I would recommend the CEO to ask the CHRO to rate the same disciplines and compare notes.
In a more introspective step, I would expect leaders will start seeing themselves through the lens of the liberating leader; this is, to constantly observe themselves, to raise their own bar of leader satisfaction: to what extent are they becoming the limits of the organization? Are they removing confusion, dependence on the past, and fear? In the last chapter of the book we talk about the key questions leaders ask every night: what did I liberate today? What is the company becoming with my decisions? What is the decision I am postponing that is necessary to liberate the organization even further?
Transform: Share three takeaways from Leading Organizational Transformation: Embracing Liberation, Vitality, and Expression to Build a Success-Capable Organization that the reader should walk away with.
Alejandro:
- Leadership is liberation. Leaders are liberators who remove confusion, dependence on the past, and fear.
- Our word changes the world. Success in transformation means our vision has changed someone’s world, and consequently ours.
- Mindset precedes Method. Transformation requires the right mindset and deep commitment before implementation can succeed at scale.
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