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.
Design Thinking is currently enjoying a surge in popularity and not without good reason. Processes for creation and innovation are worth their salt and are indeed integral to Digital Transformation. Having said that, one is not a substitute for the other. Here is my take on Design Thinking and where it fits with Digital Transformation.
In my opinion, most enter the room of Design Thinking assuming they’re bringing the right diagnosed challenge to the table to be fixed.
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.
Strategy creates competitive advantage,
People and a culture of innovation sustains it and
Technology and communications are the means by which it is delivered.
Change has fast become the one constant in businesses today, but can there be a point when too much change is no longer good for business?
If the changes aren’t fully considered, fully implemented and the people are not engaged with the process, then yes.
In 2013 a large London based organisation commenced a two-year transformation programme looking to change everything from their systems, processes, policies, procedures, structures, IT infrastructure and nationwide office locations.
We are far better at planning for the short-term than we are for the long-term.
Think about when you get in the car. If you don’t know where you are going, you tap in the details to a sat-nav system to tell you the route. You might have an advanced system that updates itself to find quicker routes if there is traffic.
You probably know what you’re doing this weekend and maybe even the weekend after. You might even have planned your summer holiday.
Recently I shared my six principles of delivering change at pace – in this post, I focus on the second principle – ‘Take a step by step approach’ but what has that got to do with black swans?
In business and particularly in HR we talk about ‘fit’. The right fit for the role, team fit, cultural fit, it’s all about fit and often as people we expect to fit in or try our best to so that we feel a sense of belonging.
Brené Brown talks repeatedly and more so in her latest book Braving The Wilderness about the differences between belonging and fitting in, and that if we ‘fit’ we lose some of our self, some of our authenticity, because to fit, we have to change who we are at the core.
Being agile and adaptive in today's age of ecosystems and accelerated change has seen a shift in what transformations of legacy organisations look like. Time to rethink what we mean, do and measure, when we talk business transformation.
Defining ' transformation' in relation to strategies and initiatives
'Culture is how people behave when no-one is watching’. That was the definition used by Bob Diamond, the Chief Executive of Barclays Bank. Under his tenure, Barclays’ employees were found to be rigging the LIBOR rate for which the bank was fined £290mn. I doubt Bob knew that this was going on but he has to take some responsibility for creating a culture which allowed this to happen. It is an example of how the ‘win at all costs’ mentality can have disastrous consequences.