Who really powers successful digital transformation?

Perhaps not who you might at first think!

We often muse over this question - it’s as loaded as someone asking me to define exactly what digital leadership means!? Subjective to say the least.

Easier questions would be; Who challenges digital transformation the most in your system? or perhaps; Who should be more visible in your digital transformation efforts?

It wouldn’t take us long to recognise that leaders play an enormous part in the success of digital transformation from inception to delivery, iteration and sustainability - yet sadly, and more often they are touted as challengers and blockers rather than enablers or role models.

Let’s not be too hard on our leaders

As a good coach or mentor would advocate - judge not, rather try to walk in their shoes and then meet them half way.

Leaders for years have been promoted and placed in post based on reasons that don’t directly relate to the mental model or behaviours required to power digital transformation:

1. We have reached our status based on past achievements (what we did and who we were then).

2. We have been trained and developed to solve problems or to gather intelligence from around us so that we can make the best decisions (ultimately all data roads lead to Rome).

We may have done our leaders a dis-service

How we have chosen our leaders and how we have developed our leaders hasn’t really connected with the modern world in a way that challenges the core foundations of what it means to be a leader, who are our true leaders and if we aren’t here to solve the problems and make the decisions, what are we for?

But I’m equally not letting them off that lightly either!

The time for a new way of thinking and behaving as been called time and again, yet never loud enough to make a big enough dent in our mainstream leadership mental model and behaviours.

So, on the one hand we have digital transformation growing at an almost exponential rate across all business communities whilst at the same time a growing chasm between leadership participation and the digital transformation delivery itself.

Answers not questions are needed

When we recognise what is needed we can see it, experiment with it, develop it. To date we’ve been bombarded with ‘leaders need to think differently’ (And I humbly hold my hand up as one of them), without a straight line answer of HOW.

Throwing a few expert masterclasses at your board, executives or managers won’t do the trick. Neither will a development program that promises mindset shift. What’s needed is a guided mechanism for fundamental shifts in thinking and behaviour - oh, and it needs to stick…

And so digital transformation success continues to grow further away from our leaders mental and behavioural capacity to participate and role model the future.

Output? Culture shift stalls and the change agents from across project management, learning & development, technology, change management, product and service design get more stressed taking more of the responsibility of success on their shoulders. Shame on us as leaders.

Enter the three amigos

There is light at the end of this tunnel. There is a solution. It’s simple, it’s real and it’s darn right critical to every business out there trying to survive these times and thrive as a business as well as collectively as a human race.

The solution (In part of course, I’m not a magician!) is down to what we call The Three Amigos.

Amigo one - The business coach and/or executive mentor.

Think about this for just a second. The majority of leaders who are seasoned leaders having been in post for X number of years are probably unaware of the damage their failure to turn up to the digital transformation table is causing. And to confess this, unpack this and explore this needs safety, trust and privacy. Enter the business coach and/or executive mentor. This amigo is in such an important place to be able to support the leader on their own digital transformation journey. If they know this story themselves. If they themselves have eaten from the tree.

So the key here is to ensure your digital transformation takes account for the training and presence of this amigo (internal or external) to deal with the deep poop, and baggage, many of these leaders have to alleviate themselves of to get in the game.

Amigo two - The digital practitioner

Wow, since COVID-19 I think we should be clapping for these guys like we have for our health professionals. These are the ones who have put in the hours, worked the weekends and literally overnight managed to get us all online, virtual and zooming - with capability support and guides for workforce wellbeing thrown in for good measure - Any digital practitioner who has stepped up to help their organisation keep running over the last year - I APPLAUD YOU ALL.

Now, back to the amigo thing. These digital practitioners get it. They understand the power of technology, data and new ways of working. So we should be elevating their training and support and connecting them with the business mentor and coach.

Amigo Three - The disruptive leader

We’ve been working across business and government internationally since 2013. We’ve profiled over 2,000 leaders in mindset and behaviour using The Dilyn Way™ Profiling tool and one thing is a fact…in every business over a given size (which is a few hundred only), there exists leaders who want to create a better future. They know we design our futures not walk into them. They understand and role model ‘thinking differently’. Yet, time and again their voice is taken by the winds of tradition - not to be heard, and so they are left marginalised.

We should be on the look out for these leaders who dare to think differently in our systems and give them voice. Counter intuitive? Not at all. If we can foster the Malcolm Gladwell Tipping Point with the amount of disruptive leaders present in our organisation - we’ve landed the third amigo. Then, as with the other two - we support them and connect them together.

So there you have it, the three amigos - the true power behind successful digital transformation.

Are you one? Recognise anyone in your system? Recognise a gap?

For more information DM me or head to our community where we bring together these three amigos to connect, support, experiment and power our businesses and governments towards a better world.

Process or Progress? It's your choice.

Have you ever thought that you are the slave to process?  That you can’t get done what you want to get done, or that what you need to get done takes too long because you have to fill out a form, get approval, wait and then wait a little bit longer?

Process.  That beautiful word! 

Aside from the dictionary definitions, when you are talking about Digital Business Transformation or Digital strategy, process really boils down to two distinct things:

1)    The formal steps one must carry out in order to achieve an outcome or move forward as set out by the organisation, leadership or management.

2)    The behaviours we as individuals tend to follow when completing a task, addressing an issue, solving a problem or creating something. This is the ‘way we tend to work’.

Both examples are not exclusive of the other.  I’m sure there is a huge amount of research to discuss, debate and evaluate the behavioural psychology and historical legacy of each and their relationship to each other…but so what.

Back to the opening statement: I can’t do what I know I need to do because I have to follow due process. I don’t do what I should or could do because my learnt behaviours force me to do things this one specific way.

When building a Digital Strategy or when travelling through Digital Business Transformation a leadership team and organisation must prioritise these too things to progress. Or else? Simple, you will not progress or stumble and stall at best.

Processes as dictated by the organisation

Why we don’t address the processes of an organisation and the ways of working of the individual as a key priority within any Digital Strategy or Transformation is simply mind blowing.

Everyone knows Digital Transformation isn’t just about technology now. If you still think it is…you have a long way to go. Also, increasingly, research and articles around Digital Business Transformation are talking about the importance of culture to the success of any such initiative.  This is great, but in the time old tradition of Adapt2Digital no-jargon-client-speak – who really knows what to do about culture unless they are super smart or experienced in that area?

I’m supposed to write actionable blogs, not opinionated waffle so I should cut to the chase right?

If you are building a Digital Strategy or going through a Digital Business Transformation, ensure you have organisational process as a top priority for assessment, review and change. This should include governance in general as well as your policies & procedures.

When you are assessing and reviewing processes consider this; Do your processes enable or inhibit the ability for you to:

·      Understand your customers better?

·      Help your workforce make decisions in the moment they are needed?

·      Change when you need to change -  NOW!?

·      Optimise (and when indicated redesign) your customer experiences?

·      Speed up the end to end customer lifecycle?

There are more, but these should be included in your initial assessment and review. I am not for a second belittling the challenge and complexity some organisations face when addressing the need to review and change processes – but this doesn’t negate the importance or need to do so.  It should fire you up, not drag you down - how much worse can it be if you are already so frustrated? Getting policy makers and leaders understand that processes and procedures need to change as a major part of any Digital Strategy or Digital Business Transformation becomes part of the need to get senior leadership buy in right at the very start.

Summary: 

1)    Don’t think you can ignore or trick your Digital Strategy or Digital Business Transformation to work without addressing changing processes as a key outcome and objective

2)    Work this priority into your business case and leadership awareness initiatives

3)    Take heart, this really is an area where you should start small but not stop thinking big…there will be lots to do along the way.

The way we tend to do things as individuals

Here at Adapt2Digital I know I should do something about integrating our CRM software with our financial software; it would save time, money, provide hugely more valuable information to our sales teams and to our management team. I’ve known this for about 6 months. Have I done anything about it? Nope, zero, ziltch, nada.

Those of you who are aware of the work of Robert Kegan, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education will be familiar with what he calls:  Immunity to Change on which he has published.  Ultimately, this is al to do with human nature, Robert urges us all to consider this:

 “If fourteen frogs are sitting on a log and thirteen decide to jump into the pond, how many frogs will be left on the log?”

The answer is in fact fourteen.  As Robert explains in this great YouTube video, our intent to do something, our want to change is very different to the action required to ‘actually’ change! And, furthermore, he’s proved this using some incredibly compelling examples including heart patients.

What’s my point?  Even when you have changed the processes, you have to ensure you have gained the trust and created the desire to change at an individual level to progress.  Otherwise, when the going gets tough, or even without any challenge, over time people will revert back to learnt behaviours.

Also, personally I believe, you have to understand culture through the lens of local groups or tribes to really make an effective difference. 

What does a bread maker, the country of France and digital transformation have in common?

Put simply?  When the humble break maker was invented, helping people make their own bread that was cheaper, healthier- with that amazing smell added to the romance of it all – who would argue the concept of moving to a bread maker?  Well, aside from the fact that in many countries simply buying a loaf in a supermarket seems more convenient and cheaper - something very different took place in France which I think offers up something we should all be mindful of:

Throughout the country people were buying bread machines…but the reality was this:  The idea of walking to the bread shop was part of the culture, meeting local community members was part of the culture, and the product, I think we can all agree, is far superior than in most other countries! 

The point is, the French tried a new technology but it didn’t work for two reasons: It removed a valid cultural, community aspect at a local ‘tribal’ level - the importance of the established process - bordering on ritual was never considered as important.  And, secondly of course, the bread maker could only make bread as good as (at best!) the myriad of Boulangeries throughout the country.  

When you are assessing the individual behaviours of people you must also look at their local tribes and understand the value of this community aspect. If you are going to remove it, ensure it is for the right reasons.  Furthermore, ensure you are communicating clearly and effectively the benefits of change, and do so authentically - don’t be like the humble bread maker and be change for change’s sake - the tribe has to be supported and the outcome/product has to be better and far superior not only to the existing process but also to the tribe value that might be ingrained within that process.

Summary:

1)    Understand the people/tribe/group value of processes before you start to change or remove them - this can sometimes be subtle but to an individual or small group hugely important.

2)    Ensure you can articulate the ‘WHY’ of change.  Clearly demonstrate the benefits of a new process just as you would a new product or service.

3)    Create desire for change, not just fact for change.

Process versus progress. It’s your choice. If you would like to know more about how to do this and accelerate your own Digital Transformation journey then please do connect.

The Wheel Of Digital Transformation

What to do and how to do it

Actionable blogs, insightful blogs, blogs that demystify and develop business’ understanding of Digital Transformation and Leadership. That’s the challenge the AD2 team set me for 2016.

So last week, I set things in motion by sharing our Definitions of Digital Transformation, what they were and how to recognize them.

This week, it’s time for action. I want to share with you our practical guide to taking those first and so important steps in your own Digital Business Transformation so that you can do it effectively.  But first, a couple of things to point out before I hurl myself into a bullet point list of ‘do this’ and ‘do that’s’:

REMINDER: Digital Business Transformation is a wheel. It’s not a line. There is no end point or final destination. There is only constant modernisation.

When you start a Digital Business Transformation initiative you need to bring clarity to the strategies you pursue and to the discussions you have with key stakeholders.   This is essential.

The leadership team and the wider workforce must understand that success is going to be about changing everything inside out and becoming focussed on constant modernisation.

This is an important point to make as we move through yet another phase of the Industrial Revolution or firmly ensconce ourselves in the Second Machine Age.

REMINDER: Things don’t happen just once. I’m serious – and really you know that. People change; they come and go, just like technology.

So whilst we are putting all our focus into changing technology for the good within the organisation, we might well miss the fact that two or three of the senior leadership team have left and all the good work we did to get their commitment and participation up front needs to be done again.

Scenario: You are building a digital strategy, you are new to a digital leadership role, you are part way through your strategy and want to do a gap analysis and check-in exercise to see how you’re doing…

What should you be looking at? Assessing? Measuring? Focussing on?

Answer:  The Wheel of Digital Transformation. Here we go, let’s go round the wheel: 

1)    Know thy Self: Forget digital for a minute or three. Ask yourself: Where do we want to be? Where are we now? Can you answer these questions? If not, you need find those answers now.

Probably a workshop or series of workshops are needed. You need to bring the right group of people together (Leadership representation, Technology, Audience Knowledge, Workforce Knowledge, even a digital native), then thrash out these questions. Every business should do this. Once you know where you want to be you can assess where you are now against a realistic target or benchmark. Rather than using industry benchmarks and digital maturity audits, your most valuable and accurate benchmark is against an authentic and robust business vision and goal for your own organisation. We learnt this the hard way. So get onto it now!  This is the building block of Setting a Target.

2)    Convince the Elders: Leadership, commitment and participation. And it needs to be from the get-go. I know I sound like a broken record, but believe me full and active participation by the leadership team is essential.

You may be tempted to bypass the top table, and you may even find that there are things you can do at the start that don’t require their full commitment and participation but sooner or later things will get stuck, momentum will slow, money will dry up or not be enough.

So don’t just get them on board theoretically, get them involved practically! That’s the way to get leadership to buy into digital transformation. This is the building block of Momentum.  

3)    Know thy people: Who are your audiences? What do they think? What do they do? How do they behave? Assessing and asking your audiences to talk is key to building a strategy and transforming. Ditch the old ‘assumption’ rubbish and forget the lazy segmentation techniques that spend so much time grouping people into stereotypes they lose track of individualisation. One of the most powerful things the digital age has given us is the opportunity to get up close and personal with people. This is the building block of Culture and Change.

4)    Write your commandments: This is where people stumble and fall. If you are going to effect change across people, business, culture and communications (our Adapt2Digital cause and effect quadrants), you are going to need some rules that people sign up to, principles that people commit to, anchors that can be monitored and measured. 

We have the Six Principles of Modern Business & Leadership which we share with our customers; What will yours be? This is the building block of Strategy.

5)    Build & grow your people not your temple: I love the saying; "What got you here won’t get you to where you are going". This is so true in regard to skills and resources. "What got you here, won’t get you to where you are going" - love it. 

So, first recognise that your skills and resource landscape is in for a good shake up. And I mean shake it up good! It’s going to become more complex and you are going to have to rethink a few things, but the results are going to drive your transformation journey at pace. Some pointers:

• Don’t force a type of skill onto a person based on their job label. Base it on their competency, capability and willingness.

• Find out what skills you have beyond the job label. Finance Manager by day maybe super App developer by night!

• Loosen the shackles that bind you, them, us to full-time or long term commitments, think short term micro resourcing. Get what you want when you need it.

• Open up and free people to learn, on the job, off the job, on the way to the job…let it be known that learning is good.

• Put these four things together and you’ve got the ingredients to shake it up good!

6)    Last piece on the wheel of Digital Transformation is Engage and Monitor. I like this unlikely pair to be put together for a very good reason. When you give voice and visibility to the wider audiences of your Digital Business Transformation you have something really special happening, ideas become rich, feedback becomes more accurate and continuous, belief and advocacy in the journey is ripe; and voila! You have something to monitor alongside numbers and profit.  These are the building blocks of Outcome Based Reporting.

There you are, our simple but well seasoned Wheel of Digital Transformation. 

But remember, at any given moment you probably will be focussing on more than one area of the wheel and when you get round the wheel you will already have realised you need to head straight back to one of the other areas! That's the reality.

Last piece of advice from the field?  Don’t think you can cheat the transformation wheel.  You can’t. You can only kid yourself for a certain amount of time before it comes to bite you in the proverbial behind. You have to address everything on the Wheel of Digital Transformation.

2016 - Sweet Sixteen! The year of serious transformation?

I couldn't start the year without adding some personal thoughts on the road ahead - having read so many already via social and the web.  So, short, sharp and sweet  - here we go!

1. Working in the world of digital, leadership and transformation, I think it's clear that 2016 needs to be the year where we say No! to discussions that take us away from action, like 'What does digital mean' etc...and start to really focus on doing. Strategising from a place where you've tested something or had a go is a far easier position to start from.

2. 2016 should also be the year where we accept digital leadership as a profile and not as a simple job title to be handed out without much thought or consideration. If you want to be a digital leader consider your capability and competency across a robust 360 profile, not just based on your job title or business area expertise. Are you a change agent? Can you face and manage challenges? Do you truly inspire? Are you adaptive, open? Being a CIO or CMO isn't a default passage into digital leadership.

3. Understanding the need for competency and capability around driving change is as important, maybe more so, than technology. More and more we are hearing that digital transformation is about dealing with change first and technology second. Let's get a bit more supportive and focussed on readiness for change, fostering an openness for doing new things or things different across our people: Leadership, workforce, partners, customers, community - the whole lot!

4. Sadly, as many authors, analysts and research papers have recognised, most projects fail in expectation in some way, shape or form. It's been sited on numerous occasions by some of the world's most reputable professional services organisations and research houses that this is due largely to a lack of skill. So, there you go! That's something you can tackle immediately in 2016. Accept that skills no longer work by generic title. I for one remember when I was choosing my specialist subjects in school as a teenager. I had to choose between Maths, Geography, Music, Physics, English...you get the picture? That was fine, it's all we needed. My 14 year old nephew can choose micro specific topic areas based on his interests and strengths today...and that's exactly how you should see business. It's not that you need a marketing manager so much as you need more and more specialist skills to deal with specialist areas to serve a superior customer experience. And by all accounts this idea will continue to diversify for a few years to come. So let's plan for it, let's consider what this means in context of our own business ecosystem.

5. Security. I am far from an expert in this area - be it cyber, compliance, data protection etc. But I have recognised one thing and hope that in 2016 this area gains the appropriate airtime; security is not all about control and restriction. It's about enablement and it's about understanding that as individuals we all have a responsibility in this area, whether we are an employee, a customer or a member of the community. It's not just up to someone else anymore, it's up to you as well as the business, the brand, the service, the government. We should all try to become more personally accountable in this area. I for one have ear marked this as a personal focus area in 2016.

6. Finally, (there is so much more, but we're in an attention deficit world so these are just a few of my thoughts to share) it would be remiss of me to publish this blog without mention of leadership. This has to be the elephant in the room that needs tackling in 2016. Leaders and Leadership Teams everywhere please start listening and looking - the world has changed and if you are going to win, you need to change too! So what if a 20 year old graduate suggests a new way of communicating with the workforce? So what if the role of a leader is more about participation than ever before - I believe you wouldn't want to be a leader in the 21st Century without a thirst for continuous improvement and participation at all levels without too much ego or hierarchy getting in the way.

Well, there you have it. Just a few thoughts, around stuff and things we could/should be doing or focussing more on in 2016 when it comes to digital transformation. It could be a great year this Sweet Sixteen!

This post was originally published via Pulse/LinkedIn on 7th January

Digital Leadership? Or Leadership in a Digital World?

Digital Leadership: it’s a buzzword in the business world. As a business leader, you will have noticed you can’t open a website or go to a conference without being acutely aware that you need to take your organisation in a more ‘digital’ direction.

You are, however, in danger of going the wrong way. For the phrase has created an impression – possibly a false one -  that being digital is about technology and that digital leadership is about having a single leader. If you think this, you’ll likely find yourself on a slippery slope. To say that digital is not just about technology is the subject of numerous posts and muses online so we won't go into it here. However, digital leadership actually comes in many guises and you must recognise and ensure you have all present to start strong and embark on a complete rethink of current business models to ever hope to really engage socially on a wider scale.

Nothing new here but leadership is not all about a single person but about a coalition of power, vision and skill that starts and more importantly maintains transformation. Businesses need technology change, people change, culture change, complete business change; and one person alone cannot do this.

First and foremost a wholehearted mandate for an organisational sea change from you and your team at the highest level of business, will secure success for your organisation in the digital future. You then need people of influence, with expertise and skill-sets in technology, communication, people and culture.  

For although we said that digital is not all about tech, tech is going to play a huge part in your transformation efforts. Communication is another key area that often gets paid no more than lip service in transformational efforts. And a good communications (or engagement) plan is therefore an essential and not a desirable in any digital transformation.

People hold the key to creating credibility and commitment to the digital journey.  Culture change is on the cards because the way you do things at every level of business is going to change and only the right mindset will allow for this to happen.

Believers, inspirers, people who are willing to have a go, to test things, try things and learn new things are necessary. These are the people that already have the mindset of change.  They will create momentum to help move along the transformational process.  They are your first advocates. Go out and find them before you tackle anything else.

Lastly, one of the major outputs of digital transformation is the democratisation of business.  So you need to bring some new and fresh digital native blood into the mix too. There is much for us to learn from the born digitals, as there is much for the digitals to learn from experience.

As you can see, becoming a digital business involves getting power, capability, advocacy and new blood working holistically to secure your businesses place on the new modern world stage.

This is the beginning of your journey to becoming adaptive. To start strong, to understanding where you are in the journey to know where to focus; vision, rather than a digital strategy, to guide the organisation to becoming more digital; good-news stories demonstrating the success digital to inspire the whole business. 

To summarise, there is no single point of leadership that drives digital transformation. Whilst the trigger or 'change agent' might be a single person you must quickly bring the key competencies together to form your coalition.  Secondly, start to deliver and execute through a broad (but not exclusive) Centre of Excellence, bringing your first followers, born digitals into the mix.  Not only will this group provide you with results, they will become your advocates to bring others along with them. Finally, you are ready to create a business movement, and that's when Digital Transformation really starts to happen!

Everything is in a state of constant change: our world, our behaviour as consumers, our daily lives. See the changes coming, assess the changes, act to adapt to those changes, start strong and engage socially and you will be one of the successful businesses of the future. 

These thoughts and musings are taken from previous blogs and Whitepapers created by Mel Ross, CEO Adapt2Digital.

Leading Change as the New Norm: Priority Leadership Attribute for 2015

That everything is changing is understood by most business leaders. That the speed and velocity of change are increasing is perhaps less well understood. Change is no longer about a single project to transform a single business focus area. It is about multiple activities with a horizontal impact across the whole business: and of course, this is happening on a constant basis. As a business leader, you can no longer bring in one expert or group thereof, at one time, to lead one change project. You must now see change as key leadership attribute, adopt an adaptive mindset, encourage adaptiveness amongst through around you, become and embed being adaptive everywhere. 

Leading change as the new norm is a very different concept from the idea that leading change is the new norm.  The first is about consistency, repeatability and forms part of the daily - yes, and we do mean daily - consideration for business leaders and the workforce as a whole.  The second implies something that is done perhaps in isolation, when all the forces are in place and when there is a consensus that a single, possibly large investment project is agreed to be a business priority.

Leading change as the new norm is about understanding that those key forces that once required single project focus, such as a change in customer behaviour or demographic, no longer work. Today change is happening in all these and more areas, all the time.

If as business leaders we do not seek, assess and act on these changes, Darwin’s survival of the fittest comes into play: those that adapt will survive; those that don’t will perish. This is not new in science, of course, and, it’s not new in business.

Back in 2002 J Wilson III published ‘Leadership in the Digital Age’ where he said that it needed new attitudes, skills and knowledge.

This year, 2015, is going to be a defining year. Businesses must have the foundation blocks of digital business in place such as infrastructure and social engagement in order to take advantage of the more subtle technologies like Internet of Things, gamification and virtual reality.

So, if you’re leading change as the new norm, you need simultaneously to imagine, direct and effect constant and multiple change around you.  You also need to build your business on its human aspects rather than on the spreadsheets and numbers you have used up until now. That means thinking about people as a whole, not just statistics, not just your customer, not even audiences.  A really key leadership attribute for 2015 is the understanding of people as participants regardless of who they are or where they sit; either internal or external.

If you are a business leader or aspire to become one in today’s digital world your number 1 priority is to support and nurture the ability to lead and manage change as the new norm for other leaders around you and find ways to empower the wider workforce to do the same. Combine this with business basics mentioned earlier and you will equip leaders and wider teams to thrive in a world that is digital.

It's time to adapt or to become extinct. It's time to get personal. Start strong. Engage socially. 

These thoughts and musings are taken from various blogs and Whitepapers by Mel Ross, CEO Adapt2Digital.

What Does a Digitally Mature and Adaptive Business Look Like?

Your toolkit for spotting digitally adaptive and mature businesses in vertical and horizontal markets

We are not a pedantic bunch at Adapt2Digital, but phrases like ‘how to become digital’ or ‘make your business digital’ don’t make good business sense to us. They paint an incomplete picture. Our experience shows that doing ‘digital’ is not enough.  We prefer to make businesses adaptive as well as digitally mature, by building in the ability to, at least keep up with, but preferably to stay ahead, of a constantly changing digital world.  

Change-friendly

What do we mean by that? Well, a successful digitally mature and adaptive business knows that it’s not about being digital but accepting that change as much as digital is the business norm.  The digitally adaptive business views digital change as an opportunity and not a threat.

Engagement with stakeholders

Breaking down barriers by collaborating and communicating with the workforce, has ensured that the C-Suite and managers in a digitally adaptive and mature business spread the message that making the organisation digitally adaptive is not frightening. Instead, it has been explained as a simple and effective means of staying abreast of ever-growing digital needs of stakeholders, whether they are customer, workforce, supplier, or anyone else.  Given that every generation – X, Y, Z, - and any other post-millennial group symbolised by any letter of the alphabet that one can think of – is digital to its toes, the digitally adaptive business, you will find, is recruiting the best people.  

Infrastructure

The entire digitally adaptive business is geared towards digital. Silos are replaced by one, seamless digital organisation. So you won’t find, in a digitally adaptive organisation, separated, isolated and standing proudly alone sales, marketing and customer service departments. The organisation has realised the benefits of understanding all the aspects that affect acquiring, selling to, delivering and retaining customers. People continuously collaborate through technology enabled integration.

Technology-aware

We have placed this lower down in our list because, as we are constantly saying, digital is not merely about technology. Digital leaders keep tabs on technology advances but do not obsess about it. They have established working practices that mean that technology is the enabler by which they have made and continue to make their business digital.

Communication

The C-Suite in a digitally adaptive business does not forget to continue to communicate how the different parts of the digital business keep pace with the digital world and the accruing benefits.  Participation is the word of the decade for leadership in a digitally mature and adaptive business.

Futurism

When looking for your digitally adaptive competitors, customers and suppliers look for a C-Suite where its members show openness to using whatever is required to keep the business digital and where they positively seek out rather than merely welcome ideas from its workforce. An obsession about the future, in terms of emerging technologies that can ensure you keep pace with changing behaviours and needs, is the menu for the day.

Fleet of foot

Long-established companies (or even ones that are a decade or so old) that are not digitally adaptive tend to lumber along. To spot the digitally-active organisation, look for one that is lean and fleet footed even where it faces competition from start-ups that don’t have the overheads that frequently encumber older businesses and organisations.  This hints at the core concept of adaptiveness.

Finance

The CFO and colleagues anchor digital back to the business and prove real, tangible ROI, but acknowledge the value of outcome based reporting and customer centric focus rather than budget focus.

If any of the characteristics of a digitally-adaptive and mature business sound familiar it’s because many are the distinguishing marks of a successful business. You’re not building a digital business; you’re building a successful business that has all the necessary characteristics and qualities to survive and grow in a digital world. Successful businesses don’t do things a particular way, because they have always done them that way. They do them because they make sense in a world that is now built on digital. Now that you’re ready to join the growing number of adaptive, mature and successful businesses, sign up for our approach here.

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Leading Change as the New Norm – The Priority Leadership Attribute for 2015

Photo Credit: daDa © 2014

“Things that should happen don’t and things that don’t happen that should”.  Donald Winnicott talking about the early infant development that requires external environmental influences (support, collaboration, nurturing etc) to ‘adapt’ to their world in order to develop the skills for their future path most appropriately.

I can start this blog by listing out the reasons to explain both the need and urgency for business leaders and businesses to adapt to change and adopt the skills to manage change.

The rate of technology, Digital Disruption (I will leave the opinion of that phrase out of this blog!), changes in demographics, consumer demands changing….

That everything is changing is pretty much understood and agreed by most business leaders. What is not understood or outlined with enough clarity perhaps is that this change is both increasing in speed and in velocity – so the urgency is not about change management being a single project where you can procure the services of an expert individual or organisation to effect on your behalf – the urgency is that leading change as an attribute has become arguably one of the most important attributes a business leader should display – and equally change management as a capability and delivery skill at a management level is required to ensure that this change happens.

Leading change as the new norm is very different to leading change is the new norm.  Why?  Because it’s about consistency, repeatability and something that is a normal consideration within the daily life of a leader.  Not something we do in isolation, when all the forces are in place and the consensus is that a single, possible large investment project has been singled out by the business as a priority.

Leading change as the new norm is about understanding that those key forces that once did require single change projects to adapt to the corresponding shift as a result no longer work.  Take technology as an example, or a key customer behaviour change, or a significant change in demographic…we’ve had all of them before and economies and industries have adopted new ways of doing things to address them.  Today we have a different paradigm, we have change happening in each of these areas and more happening all the time, overlapping, influencing, disrupting.  As business leaders, managers and businesses generally, if we do not have the ability to see these changes, have the ability to assess these changes and subsequently act upon these changes as we see fit, then the Darwinism effect comes into play – those that survive will be those that adapt to their environments, those that don’t will perish.

Is it scaremongering to say Adapt or Die?  Is it spin-doctor narrative that talks about the need to be a Digital Leader?  I don’t think so.  So much so that in my previous blog I talk about leadership in a digital age rather than the rise of a digital leader per se.

This shouldn’t be new news to us – as far back as 2002 the following theoretical paper was published on Digital Leadership “LEADERSHIP IN THE DIGITAL AGE” Ernest J. Wilson III

Stating that as we move from an industrial age to a knowledge or networked/connected age Wilson states "Leadership in the Digital Age needs new attitudes, new skills, and new knowledge."

In many respects the honeymoon period is over.  The rise of the CDO and Digital Leader has a place in the business world to transition us from managing single shifts to managing multiple shifts as part of daily life, but the urgency is really to widen the net, to start to build and support these skills and capabilities required to see, assess, act and thrive with change, so that we become businesses that have many adaptive leaders, not just one.

2015 is going to be a big year.  Businesses that haven’t yet grasped the fundamentals of ‘digital business’ are already on the back foot.  The building blocks of a digital business are having the infrastructure and understanding of social engagement, the ability to access and assess data, a move to more agile technology infrastructures and cloud services and of course, an effective exploitation of the mobile opportunity.  Just to be aware of these is not enough anymore, these foundation blocks have to be in place to start to take advantage of the more subtle technologies available like gamification and augmented reality as well as the more disruptive and game changing technologies like Internet of Things, Wearables and Robotics.   Any business wanting to really take advantage of these maturing digital world elements have to have the foundation blocks in place to succeed.  Surely that’s a huge hint to anyone wanting to build a digital strategy.

What does leading change as the new norm really mean – aside from the obvious?  What skills, capabilities and attributes are required?

Put simply, leading change as the new norm requires the ability to vision and direct constant change and often effect multiple change at once.  Leading change requires the ability to address the human aspect as well as the business aspect.  It is no longer enough to lead or manage by monitoring hard numbers; leaders now need to understand the importance of the human aspect more than ever before.

The human aspect of digital business can be thought of in three ways:  Empowerment, Independence & Transparency

Empowerment – the ability to try and test new things, to make decisions based upon the access of data and the understanding of parameters, an understanding of change as an enabler not an inhibitor.

Independence – the ability to self learn, and to grow independently.

Transparency – ensuring that access to data and the communication of intent is a business priority rather than a secondary consideration – letting people know…letting people know becomes the primary consideration for a leader of change as the new norm; a leader in a digital world.

For too long now leaders and managers have built and managed businesses through spreadsheets and numbers.  Now businesses that succeed are being built and managed by a focus on engagement, loyalty and the presence of those leadership attributes described above.

To ensure businesses are able to thrive in a digital world a new breed of leadership is urgently needed.  This needs to happen in two ways, existing leaders must not fear, shy away or ignore the need to do things differently to succeed in different times.  New and upcoming leaders should embrace the generation they belong to and adopt those positive open, social and change blasting attributes in their leadership ethos.

If you are a business leader or aspire to become one in today’s digital world you must ensure that supporting and nurturing the ability to lead and manage change as the new norm becomes your number 1 priority for personal development and the development of those leaders and managers around you.  This coupled with the business basics mentioned earlier will equip any leader or leadership team with the key ingredients to thrive in this digital world.  These are the leaders and businesses that will succeed.  It really is time to adapt or die!

In my next post I will be talking about the maturity of Digital Transformation as it moves from the delivery of a single change project to a constant stream of transformations which we term; Adaptiveness.

Digital Leadership? Or Leadership in a Digital World?

Digital Leadership is a phrase fast becoming a buzzword for more and more businesses and business leaders.

However, the word digital has built an impression or understanding that it’s all about technology.  If you think that you are on a slippery road.  It is as a result of the digital revolution that we need to revisit and rethink leadership, business models and ‘the way we do things’.

But, Digital Leadership is less about a single person and more about bringing together a coalition of power, skill and vision that can collectively start the first wave of transformation.

Why do you need Digital Leadership?  Well we all need to become more digital – not just do digital but be digital and that means technology change, people change and business change…so one person alone doesn’t work.

What does this coalition look like and what do they need to do?

Well as with most transformational change efforts – nothing works without a fully embraced mandate from up on high.  So you need to ensure that the highest level of the business fully supports the effort.  Don’t stumble at this first hurdle, believe me, the effort to secure this support will be the biggest success factor in your business becoming more adaptive, more digital.

Then you need three key skill-sets and people of influence in this coalition: Someone who knows technology, someone who knows communication, and someone who knows about people and culture. Why is this important?  Well digital might not be all about tech but it’s going play a huge part in your transformation efforts – moving to automation, creating collaborative environments, aggregating data to make it meaningful, just having someone who knows what new and emerging tech is out there is hugely important.  This is a person who can show the business the art of the possible to achieve business objectives and meet audience needs. 

Communication is another key area that often get’s ignored when it comes to transformational efforts but it’s vital that there is a communication plan.  Don’t just send an email or have a meeting and think it’s done, and you can’t leave people to their own devices – you need to nurture them, keep reminding them of the urgency of becoming more digital.  There are two key areas that need to be managed; the participation of key people to build credibility and a reason to follow, alongside the creation of conversation throughout the organisation; a focus on sharing and receiving.  And then of course there is the need to address culture – because the way you do things at every level of the business is going to change and only the right mindset will allow for this to happen.

Then you need believers, inspirers, people willing to have a go, test things, try things, learn new things…these are the people that already have the mindset of change.  These people are those who will generate your initial quick wins and good news stories.  These people will create momentum to help move the transformational process along.  Don’t forget them, go out and find them as one of your first key steps – this is your first group of advocates.

Lastly, one of the big outputs of digital transformation is the democratisation of business.  So at this very first and key stage, bring some new and fresh digital native blood into the mix, there is much for us to learn from the digitals, as there is much for the digitals to learn from experience.

What I’ve just described is a really key step in your journey to becoming a more digital business.  You need power at the table, you need capability at the table, you need advocates at the table and some of your newest DNA to help you understand what tomorrow will really look like.

Obviously, I’m only talking about one small item that is needed at the beginning of your journey towards becoming adaptive.  You need to understand where your business sits digitally today so you know where to start and where to focus. 

You need a vision, and rather than a digital strategy sitting alongside your business strategy, create guiding principles that fit with your strategy that can be embedded within the business to help everyone start to become more digital.  You are also going to need some good news stories, most businesses we find have at least a couple of good news stories that can help people see that in some way, shape or form you are already demonstrating success in digital. 

We know the world is changing, we know as consumers we are changing, we know our daily lives are changing.

Digital does have a lot to answer for.  But in a good way.  We now know that things are in a state of constant change and that those who can see change, assess change and act accordingly i.e. adapt to change will be the successful businesses of the future.

Bringing your business up to speed with digital in 2015 really needs to be your number 1 agenda for the New Year.  Create a sense of urgency and start your journey.