Rohit Prabhakar

I build agentic revenue systems for Fortune 50 companies

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 8)- Institute Change

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Articulate the connections between the new behaviors and organizational success, and develop the means to ensure leadership development and succession.

Don’t manage – lead change before you have to. -Jack Welch

Here are some of the things that I have seen implemented in order to solidify change that has been initiated or created due to Digital Transformation initiatives:

  • Start a Digital enablement program
  • Promote and adopt ROI mindset
  • Align Digital KPI’s to Performance KPI’s in long-term
  • Whatever else that you think can work based on the culture of your organization

This is the final step on the list of 8 steps that I recommend for digital transformation in your organization.

Sustain Acceleration: Step 7 of Digital Transformation

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By now you already have huge momentum in your digital transformation and you will like to know Step 7 of Digital Transformation. Frequent small wins and the guiding coalition is working in the favor of digital transformation to move to the next big and bold things that are right for the organization. At this stage the digital transformation program is already generating some clear ROI hence you can feel confident about bringing necessary changes to accelerate the program.

Now is the best time to change systems, structures, and policies that don’t align with the vision that you have for the organization. If you can find efficiencies in your organization this is the best time to make those moves and restructure your team. As part of Step 7 of Digital Transformation hire, promote and develop employees who can implement your vision. This is also the right time to reinvigorate the process with new projects and teams.

Some of my personal favorites at this stage (Step 7 of Digital Transformation) are:

  • Get your long-term plan for build and maintain phase pitched and approved.
  • Setup bigger change mediums like digital Center of Excellence for internal consulting and engaging more internal customers so that ROI of the digital transformation program can be further enhanced
  • Pitch the next big digital projects. This will also help to ensure that digital continues to be a priority for C-level
  • As ROI becomes more and more critical and the center point of your operating model, engage with business functions and help them understand how the services of your digital teams can be leveraged by their teams to generate more business, customer satisfaction etc. Help them plan for the next fiscal year using all this information.

Enabling Intelligent Marketing

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My Keynote presentation from NASSCOM MARTECH Confluence 2017 on the topic of Digital Transformation: Enabling Intelligent Marketing.

[slideshare id=79364410&doc=enablingintelligentmarketingnasscom-170902011822]

Drawing the Technology Landscape for Intelligent Marketing

A hype-free overview of intelligent technologies for marketing. This session will also cover the uses, ROI and challenges of these technologies.

 

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 6)- Generate short-term wins

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Consistently produce, track, evaluate and celebrate volumes of small and large accomplishments – and correlate them to results of the digital transformation.

“Track your small wins to motivate big accomplishments.” – Teresa Amabile

Generate Short Term wins

Generate Short Term wins

Motivation is critical to leading digital transformation or any other big change. Motivation comes from organizational momentum that comes from a combination of Digital action and continuous small or big wins at regular intervals.

Digital Transformation Momentum= Digital Action X (Short-Term Wins)

Here are some of my key lessons learnt on generating short-term wins and fueling the big change of digital transformation:

Communicate Wins/Results in Sesame Street terms

One of my very good friend and colleague always says, keep it so simple that even your grandmother can understand. We all love complex analytics/numbers especially when it comes to declaring results but it is very important that we use sesame street simple analytics/numbers/terminology that our stakeholders can easily understand.

“Don’t leave your results at the mercy of interpretation”

Spotlight Early Adopters and Advertise the(ir) wins!

This is probably one of my biggest ingredients to the success of Digital Transformation. In the early days of digital transformation once I have preliminary small wins, I encourage and bring our key business stakeholders on the stage/phone/meetings to share their journey, story and wins. This generated authentic excitement among other stakehodlers and motivation to be part of digital transformation. This way I found more partners who want to co-create those short-term win and success stories.

Replicate success at other places/projects/teams

Once I have a tested formula to make business impact in one area/group, immediately I try to find other areas of opportunity to apply that knowledge. This helps in creating more success stories in more areas/groups. As more short-term wins/success stories come in especially from different groups, bigger momentum around digital transformation is created. This leads to a long lasting change at a far faster pace!

Related Articles:

8 steps to digital transformation

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 1) Creating Sense of Urgency

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 2) Build a Guiding Coalition 

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 3) Develop Vision & Strategy 

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 4) Communicate and Enlist volunteers

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 5)- Empower and Remove Barriers

Reframe Problems Before Solving

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I recently understood the importance of reframing the problem before looking into solutions. It helps in creating simple, effective and economical solution in far shorter time.

Problem Reframing

Image Source: HBR

Here are Seven practices for effective reframing of problem in few minutes that I learnt from the HBR article:

  1. Establish legitimacy: It’s difficult to use reframing if you are the only person in the room who understands the matter. Share this article with your team https://hbr.org/2017/01/are-you-solving-the-right-problems
  2. Bring outsiders into the discussion: Someone who works with your team but not part of it. They will think differently and challenge the group’s thinking.
  3. People’s definition in writing: This helps in ensuring everyone have the same view and understanding of the problem.
  4. Ask what’s missing: This ensures the description of problem is accurate and complete.
  5. Consider multiple categories: Invite people to identify specifically what category of problem they think the group is facing.
  6. Analyze positive exceptions: Look to instances when the problem did not Occur, asking, what was different about that situation?
  7. Question the objective: Reframe by paying explicit attention to the objectives of the parties involved first clarifying and then challenging them.

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 5)- Empower and Remove Barriers

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Removing Barriers

Image Source: NYTimes

The purpose of this stage is to overcome barriers to Digital Transformation. It is crucial to remove barriers to change, change systems or structures that pose threats to digital transformation. These barriers could be structure, skills, systems and supervisors. Three main best practices for removing barriers to change are:

Educate & Engage

When major changes are initiated we need to think about new behavior, skills and attitudes that are required in the new world. A good training with right kind of experience enables digital transformation in a big way. Always remember that encouraged and empowered employees make an enterprise win!

Inform & Negotiate

Every transformation will have it’s fair share of problem stakeholders. A huge category of such problem stakeholders can be influenced directly and indirectly. These stakeholders are not just against the change but also have huge organizational influence. There is no way that your change will be successful without including them in the process. Understanding the real needs/fears of such stakeholders is very critical as you try to negotiate with them to be the supporters of your change.

Every time after a successful negotiations I feel like this

Sucessful Digital transformation Negotiation

Ignore

Some of the problem stakeholders are completely against the change but don’t have huge influence on the organization. The best strategy for such stakeholders is to give them very high level information and keep them out of your routine. You may like to negotiate with such stakeholders but that may not be the best use of your time!

Related Articles:

8 steps to digital transformation

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 1) Creating Sense of Urgency

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 2) Build a Guiding Coalition 

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 3) Develop Vision & Strategy 

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 4) Communicate and Enlist volunteers

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 4) Communicate and Enlist volunteers

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“Change happens when it is done by the people and not to the people!”

communicate vision to enlist volunteers

Enlist Volunteers

In step 2 we talked about building a guiding coalition. Now is the time to take participation in Digital Transformation to new levels by enlisting volunteers. It is just like software moving from Alpha to a beta stage. The intent is to have more adopters who can participate, provide live feedback and become the change agents.

Raise a bigger force of people who are ready, willing and urgent to drive the Digital Transformation change. The other intent of this step is to make more co-authors of this Digital Transformation change. As more people will get engaged in the earlier stage hence they will become the true carriers of the vision and message. In order to expand use the power of communication.

Communicate Vision

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. -George Bernard Shaw

Communication seems to work best when it is direct and simple. Simple communication only comes through great clarity of thought plus courage to keep it simple. Even when this is a Digital Transformation All jargon and technical language must be avoided at any cost while you communicate vision.

Tip: If you are originally from technology background like me, this may be an area of improvement.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Well chosen words can make it memorable, even if it has to compete with hundreds of other communications for people’s attention. Always remember logic makes us think, emotion drives us to act. Emotion can also come from analogies, stories, or concrete examples that illustrate what success looks like while you communicate vision.

I am guilty of over communicating the technology infrastructure we plan to bring and invest into. Every time I did that I have seen faces in the room who leave without getting the vision of Digital Transformation.

Tip: Communicate vision in terms of business benefits and that too in a simple language that even a grandmother can understand. Analogy and examples are a great tool for that.

Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. -Orson Scott Card

We should use all the vehicles available to communicate vision. The message should come from all different channels. Big meetings and small, memos and newsletters, formal and by the coffee machine interaction – all are effective for spreading the message. We should continue to do this repeatedly as ideas sink in deeply only after they have been heard many times. If you are a marketer, you very well understand how many impressions lead to conversion. It hardly happens with just one impression!

You and other key players should live the vision in real time. Everything that is being done by the key team should be aligned to the vision and strategy for the Digital Transformation. Even repeated attempts to communicate vision cannot help if you and your key team are not acting as per the vision and strategy. If there are any inconsistencies, those should be addressed immediately and communicated.

“Swallow your pride and always be ready to accept that you may not be right” – Your Truly

As Digital Transformation lead, I have sometimes avoided two-way communication as I was afraid of a stakeholder not adopting my vision. Over these years I have learned that two-way communication is always more powerful than one-way communication. Two-way communication may suggest sometimes that we are on the wrong course and that vision needs to be revisited. Swallowing our pride and reworking the vision or strategy is far more productive that heading off in the wrong direction or with a wrong strategy for Digital Transformation.

The more we elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.- J. B. Priestley

Previous Articles:

8 steps to digital transformation 

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 1) Creating Sense of Urgency 

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 2) Build a Guiding Coalition 

Leading Digital Transformation (Step 3) Develop Vision & Strategy