You’ve probably heard it said that change is the one constant in business currently, and that’s true, it’s also true for our lives outside of work.
Many people will say they don’t like change, it makes them uncomfortable or it’s something they fear, but if you break things down a little, you’ll find that we all deal with change on a daily basis.
Would you rather have an employee move internally or move out of the organization?
One of the key themes was the pace of technology changes. Specifically, how does it affect organisations & its people? It brought back vivid memories of my Digital Transformation experiences. On reflection, I can definitely share three gotchas & lessons. If you are leading a Digital Transformation or being a part of one, keep an eye on these three gotchas!
Gotcha #1: Partial digitalisation and/or digitalising bad process are not good.
Over the past 6 months I have seen many instances where organizations have failed to take advantage of opportunities; lost market-share; put their brand at risk; or wasted resources; resulting in loss of revenue and/or additional costs.
Given that August is a quiet month, it has provided me with time to reflect on some of the problems that I have experienced and them with you so that you might learn from some of these outcomes.
So here goes:
While I was attending a Leadership Retreat (CTI) last week, we were asked to identify what we need to let go of, in order to become a better leader. For me, it was “letting go of the idea that people are idiots”. Of course, I don’t mean you, dear reader, it’s everyone else.
I tend to say I’m a Designer by trade, but a Change Manager by heart. But I also add that it’s all the same, and here’s why.
Of course, it does matter what you design. Whether you’re in Product design, UX-design, Business Design or Organization Design, requires different skills and experiences. However, I do believe that they all require a similar mindset.
Making sense of people data is a struggle for many HR professionals. People analytics is only effective when data collection is focused on achieving a particular management objective - such as improving talent management processes, such as recruitment or retention, or to demonstrate HR's contribution to the value/ROI of these processes. Despite this core concept of people analytics, many companies simply analyse the data nearest to hand – with the results being anything but insightful.
Recently I was asked to speak at a leadership event for representatives from all over NHS Scotland, to share some examples of what we had experienced as the critical success factors for delivering improvements in organisations, to ensure lasting results.
Upon reflection, it certainly felt that the 10 factors to deliver sustainable improvements, had a lot of resonance with the challenges and the opportunities the NHS faces at 70.
If you’ve ever had the opportunity to work at a summer camp you’ll know it’s one of the best “jobs” you’ll ever have. I use the word job in inverted commas intentionally because more often than not it doesn’t feel like work at all. There are deep and meaningful conversations with people who start to feel more like your family than your colleagues. There is the cold embrace of a dip in the lake after a late afternoon game of capture the flag that always gets a little too intense. There’s the jaw-ache you get after laughing too hard for too long at some silly in-joke.
The two biggest issues faced by organisations today are the changing business context and the changing people context.
The changing business context