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 Digitally Mature and Adaptive Mean?

What’s in a name? Everything if you want to ensure that you and your business follow the right path to business success.

Why, you may be wondering, are Adapt2Digital concerned about you constantly adapting to a digital world?  Why do we focus on the importance of becoming digitally mature and adaptive? Why do we even use such terms as ‘adaptive’ and ‘maturity’ and ‘engagement’? Because we know that phrases such as ‘doing digital’ or ‘becoming digital’ embed an incomplete understanding of business today; ‘doing digital’ is not enough. Becoming digitally mature and adaptive to a constantly changing digital world is more than about following a process that ends at a final destination.  

The default of a successful business is to be constantly changing, constantly maturing, constantly adaptive, almost without knowing it, perhaps. That’s the language and mind-set of a successful business. That’s the kind of business that’s seeing off start-ups and established competitors, that’s the kind that’s meeting the ever-changing digital needs and wants of customers, the kind, in fact, that’s actually anticipating the demands and desires of all its stakeholders.

Successful businesses don’t do things a particular way because they have always done them that way. They are constantly adapting. They are constantly maturing. They are in a constant state of change.  If you’re ready to join the growing numbers of adaptive and successful businesses sign up for the Adapt2Digital approach here.

Tweet with us on Adapt2Digital Twitter and link up with us on Adapt2Digital: Pioneers of Digitally Adaptive Business on LinkedIn.

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.

Tweet with us on Adapt2Digital Twitter and link up with us on Adapt2Digital: Pioneers of Digitally Adaptive Business on LinkedIn.