Be the Digital Change Agent for your organization

Businesses in the 21^st Century still straddle the great digital divide. Even before this pandemic, we had workers on one side of the line working 24/7 from virtual offices, while others were working in factories and offices in jobs that depended on having a human interfacing directly with other humans or with machines.  On one side, we have companies with processes that are highly automated, while on the other side of the divide we have manual processes.  The global pandemic has only exacerbated these digital divisions.

In this ever competitive job market, the ever growing use of digital tools and the internet-of-things to increase connectivity and productivity, Change Agents are driving transformation in how we do business.  Change Agents are often early adopters of digital trends.  Many will start as advocates for specific technologies and, over time, develop into experienced business transformers.  They recognize the impact of digital transformation and are driven to help their organizations adapt.  Digital Change Agents are naturally passionate about, and interested in, technology and how it can transform the way we work.

Are you a Digital Change Agent in your organization?  And if you are, how do you succeed in adapting your organization and business processes to leverage digital technologies?  One way of doing this is by building your Digital Change Agent Network.  When building your Digital Change Agent Network here are the characteristics to look for:

• Desire to help others as part of the team
• Capacity (time) to help
• Respected by peers
• Expertise in subject/functional area or system

Some nice-to-have characteristics: existing superuser; knows the organization/ industry well; seen as a go-to source for help; fast learner; strong communicator; and/or training/coaching/listening skills.

Where do Change Agents come from? Change agents should be members of the stakeholder groups who will be receiving or implementing the strategy, project, or change. Change leaders typically reside in the business (as opposed to IT for technical projects). Change agents can also be external to the company, such as advisors who have expertise in the business area or system.  These external change agents can also bring specific expertise in business transformation management techniques, tools and processes.

How do you achieve digital change?

1. Get executive support – This is pretty much a prerequisite to any transformation initiative. If you’re in IT, it will help to have allies from the business side. The C-Suite can add weight behind your strategies, and your peers in marketing, sales, finance, etc., can help you “sell” them to your internal customers.
2. Interact with people – Technology experts tend to be introverts. If you’re one of them, you’re going to have to break out of your comfort zone. There is no substitute for talking to the people who will be using the technologies you deploy. It’s the only way to gauge the level of their resistance and address the underlying causes.
3. Speak their language – Working across the digital / technical divide means that you need to adjust your communication style. Remember, Jane in finance may be brilliant in her area, but if you start speaking in acronyms and cryptic terminology you may lose her quickly – and maybe even permanently.
4. Have a plan – Share your vision for what digital transformation means to the organization and how it will help you achieve your collective goals.
5. Keep it doable – Help your internal customers understand how your path to digital transformation will affect them personally. How will they still be able to do their job faster with less hassle? Make fewer mistakes? Spend less time at the office?
6.  Address their concerns – If you start talking artificial intelligence and machine learning, people will think “layoffs.” Help them see that doing more with less is about helping everyone perform their role to the best of their abilities and not about scaling back.
7. Go slowly at first – You need to assess the organization’s openness to change and then create a plan that lets people set a comfortable pace. With system implementation projects, and Agile approach is recommended.
8. Choose a champion – There’ll be at least one end user in the business that shares your passion for change. They can be instrumental in helping others manage the transformation. Champions are typically natural teachers, other-oriented, and well-liked by their peers.

Companies need to value Change Agents and have solid retention plans for these individuals.  Agents can become targets for poaching, by internal groups and by other companies. Change Agents need to have a development plan that provides a plan for increasing responsibility to encourage change agents to remain in their role. This journey should lead the individual, post project, to a senior role in the organization or the company's permanent continuous-improvement group. This can be a much bigger incentive than cash for Change Agents. Having Change Agents in regular exposure to senior leadership for coaching and development is also a huge motivator for these types of individuals.

Finally, using an external Change Agent often helps solve problems by simply bringing in a new perspective and approach to organizational change. A Change Management consultant can help illuminate problems and find solutions before they begin affecting the workplace, and in the process help develop internal Change Agents and Champions that will drive sustainable performance improvement and efficiencies.

"Touch, Pause, Engage" - a lesson for business from Rugby Union

With the Rugby Union World Cup this year in Japan, I thought that a blog entry with a rugby flavor would be appropriate.

"I prefer rugby to soccer. I enjoy the violence in rugby, except when they start biting each other's ears off." - Elizabeth Taylor (1972)

In the game of Rugby Union, play is restarted after a minor infraction by a scrum. During the scrum the forward pack of 8 players will engage with their opposing pack to win the ball. These forward packs weigh close to 2000 lbs (~ 900 kgs), and so these scrums are a test of power and strength of these players, as they compete to win the ball back for their teams.  Before 2007, there were not may rules around how these packs engaged, resulting in many serious spinal injuries due to collapsed scums, and the violence of the contact. In 2007, the rule changed to require that each pack 'crouch', 'touch', and 'pause', before they 'engage', as the referee calls these instructions out.  Crouching allows the packs to correctly 'bind' and set up for the scrum. At 'touch', the front row players reach out and touch the opposing line - this ensures that they are at the correct distance before engaging.  'Pause' ensures that they wait for referee to control when the packs engage.


How does this translate to your business?  We all love sports analogies, and so I am suggesting this rugby analogy to help you with your next Business Planning cycle.  The three phases of strategic Marketing Plan are Analyze, Plan and Execute.  And so this example from the sport of Rugby provides a framework around which you can build a Marketing Strategy for engaging your competition.


Touch/ Analyze

• Know your market and your competition's products/ services, pricing arrangements and terms, promotional campaigns, people and organization. 

• Gather feedback from customers, partners and others in your sales teams.  Know the opposition's 'weight' in your market.

• Know the gap between you and your competitors.  What differentiates you? What are your relative strengths and weaknesses?

Pause/ Plan

• Develop a strategy and tactical plan for engaging with your competition.

• Assess risks and opportunities in the competitive environment.

• Make sure that your team is prepared and aligned on your plan. Align individual targets your market strategy.  Is the team well 'bound', and set to execute?

Engage/ Execute

• Execute the plan as a team.

• Adjust on the fly to remain aligned with your strategic objectives.

• Win the ball!

Engage!

Trust as a Leadership Attribute

"If people like you, they'll listen to you, but if they trust you, they'll do business with you." - Zig Ziglar

We can all understand that it is easier to do business with someone you trust.  Think of why you go back to the same mechanic for your car, or like using a certain contractor for home improvements.  If you don't trust the mechanic or contractor, you will take your business elsewhere until you find someone you can trust.   In the military, all team members are mutually interdependent.  They each have a job to do, and trust each other to do that job. In that organization, trusting your coworkers and leader can mean the difference between life or death.

However, in your organization, how important is the trust that you place on your coworkers, subordinates and managers on the effectiveness of your organization?  As a leader, do you trust your people?  Or do you focus more on being trusted?  The effective manager and leader understands and appreciates trust at both the personal and the organizational levels. Trust is a two-way street.

"Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships."  - Stephen Covey

According to the Ethics and Policy Integration Centre, trust is one of the four key components of Ethical Leadership. The ethical leader manages with a clear Purpose, Knowledge, and Authority. To be effective in this, the ethical leader inspires TRUST in her organization. Without this, people are afraid to exercise their authority.

The best managers I have known provide clear direction on the "what' and set clear targets around this.  Then, they trust their people to execute the 'how'. These organizations are empowered to take the necessary risks to achieve their organizational objectives to be  successful. Furthermore, in challenging times, people in these organizations hang in there to make things work. Strong trusting managers attract strong leaders into their organizations, and are able to retain people. These types of organizations also provide a good mentoring environment for people; and tend to be more agile and effective in their markets.

The least effective managers I have worked with micro-manage their people, because they don't trust that their people can execute the 'how' effectively. Generally, these weak leaders are also poor at setting clear targets and in inspiring trust from their employees. These are generally leaders who depend mainly on their organizational authority and power to get things done. It is hard to retain good people in organizations like this. Successful people in these organizations have to be 'yes-men' to this type of leader.

The truth is that most managers fall somewhere between the best and the worst of what I have described above. So how to you move your organization to the more effective type where there is mutual trust?

• Do you focus as much on trusting your subordinates or co-workers as trying to get them to trust you? 
• How do you earn peoples' trust? 
• As a manager, do you provide clear purpose and ensure that it is understood for your organization (even to the level of ensuring that individual objectives are aligned with this purpose)? 
• Do you have the organizational, business and other necessary knowledge for your area that inspires trust from people? And do you actively share this knowledge? 
• Do you have the trust from your managers to make decisions and act on them? 
• Would your managers, subordinates and coworkers answer the above questions in the same way as you? 

If not, what can you do to change this?

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If you are in a small business, this trust that you create in your organization, and the empowerment that this generates with your employees is more easily observed by your customers than in a larger enterprise. For a small business, it is this trust with your customer that builds the customers' relationship with your organization and the connection with your brands.  This is the competitive edge that drives repeat sales and growth of your business.