8.1 The Importance of the Right Talent
To this point in the book, we have covered a lot of ground. We discussed the definition of digital transformation, the importance of corporate alignment, the impact of board of director composition, the need for the appropriate structure, the difficulties in executing projects, and the changes needed by IT to set the table for success.
The hard truth is you can get all of that right and still not succeed if you don’t have the right talent dedicated to your transformational effort and the right leadership directing that talent.
I can remember countless discussions in my career where parts of the organization talked about the importance of talent. I can recall having the same debate with my teams as well. We all understand things get done through people and having good people make things a lot easier.
However, we all sometimes forget talent doesn’t just develop by itself. We lament the lack of resources skilled in one discipline or another but did not take the steps to build the skills from within. We complain to HR about not getting a specific person due to salary restrictions. However, did we take the time to build a case for the importance of the talent up front and set expectations at the executive level of what the specific skills would cost? We complain about how long it takes to find someone for a particular role only to find out that the way we were describing the position was out of sync with the industry. We see attrition in our organization, but do we dig deep to understand why and take actions to fix it? We see increasing staff augmentation for particular skills in our organization but don’t look at opportunities to reskill internal resources. We don’t consider the importance of opportunity in building talent and just assign resources based on “next person up.” Alternatively, we accept mediocrity because we believe mediocre is better than a vacancy.
In short, talking about talent and doing something about it are two entirely different things.
Leadership
Transformation Execution
Transformed organization
8.2 Leadership Talent
We discussed the importance of a singular message at the top of the organization and corporate alignment early in the book. Leaders not only are vital in delivering this message; they are the people who will keep it alive through the dark days of project execution. They are the people who will evangelize the importance of transformation and be there to support their respective groups as they move through the various stages.
Leadership sets the tone and maintains the tone of transformation. Leadership makes it “real” for everyone else in the organization and inspires the team to make the journey. Above all, leadership must be genuine. Leaders must make the transformation message real in their own words and deliver the message with a degree of passion. I used the word evangelize earlier. Can you imagine an evangelist using someone else’s words and do so without demonstrated commitment and passion? How effective would that evangelist be?
I observed this many years ago. As you might recall in Chap. 5, I talked about a massive transformation effort that started with a former employer. As I mentioned, the CEO had brought in a number of consultancies to help with the effort. One consultancy, in particular, was brought in as “change experts.” The founder of the consultancy, a well-known author on change, led the effort. I watched, on numerous occasions, during this process our CEO attempt to deliver messages around the expected change to the executive team. The problem was the words were not his. Each of his discussions came across as scripted and devoid of inspiration. As a result, executives left the meetings not talking about the excitement of transformation. Instead, they were talking about “the consultants putting words into the CEOs mouth.” As you read earlier, the effort did not “transform” the company in the manner in which the CEO was trying to describe. In fact, you could argue no real transformation occurred at all as the business model remained virtually unchanged.
You would have thought a consultancy specializing in change management could have seen this coming. However, they were well compensated and were long gone before the issues began to emerge.
- 1.
Be authentic. Don’t try to be someone or something you aren’t.
- 2.
Have empathy. Treat others the way you would want to be treated.
- 3.
Be passionate. Have commitment and passion in everything you do.
- 4.
Be a team player. Do whatever is needed to help the team win.
- 5.
Have integrity. Be fair and do what is right.
- 6.
Be curious. Don’t settle for the status quo. Consider what is possible.
- 7.
Be accountable. Accept responsibility and seek to solve, not blame.
- 8.
Have courage. Stay true to your beliefs. Respectfully speak your mind.
I do not aspire to write a book on leadership. There are many fantastic books available today that truly challenge us to be better leaders. The purpose of this list is in the spirit of leading transformation. Each of these eight items has an essential role in the leadership of complex transformation efforts.
Digitally aware—understands the role of technology in shaping the future of businesses.
Innovative—not afraid to experiment and learn. Risk takers.
Adaptable—possess the ability to change as situations dictate.
After establishing the tone and preparing the team for what is in front of them, leadership must be accountable and present to help the team navigate difficulties and challenges that will inevitably arise. You can’t delegate this part of leadership. Leadership must be visible and accessible for the team.
Before starting a major transformational effort, it is critical to assess the leadership talent in the organization. Those that do not share the message and values of the transformation should not be involved in the effort, as their message will not inspire others. Ensure you have the appropriate number of leaders involved in the effort, their message is consistent, and they are enthusiastic in their support.
Deaf Diagnostic
Leadership in your organization must be “all in” on the benefits and promise of digital transformation. As important, leadership must have organizational credibility and speak as a single voice on the topic of digital transformation.
While leadership is crucial, leaders can’t do it alone. Ensuring the right talent is available to support the execution of the transformation efforts is the next critical step.
8.3 Transformation Execution Talent
When we consider the talent we need to execute this effort, we must study all the skills required to begin and complete the journey. Critical skills will include project and program management, business process experts, organizational change management experts, and various technical specialty experts.
Transformation roles
Roles | In-house | External |
|---|---|---|
Sponsor(s) | P | |
Program, project, scrum management | P | S |
Program/project quality assurance | P | |
Business process subject matter experts | P | |
Organizational change management | P/S | P/S |
Product owners | P | |
Technical business architects | P | S |
Technology specialists | P/S | P/S |
System integration/development | P/S | P/S |
Clearly, sponsorship is a role that must be in-house. You can augment the day-to-day management of efforts (programs, projects, agile scrums, or the like). However, to ensure accountability, I would highly recommend keeping the top-level execution oversight in-house. Conversely, I would suggest using an independent third party to perform a quality assurance (QA) role of the overall effort. The independent QA group should report directly to the sponsor(s) and provide unbiased feedback on progress, issues, and risks.
As with sponsorship, business process subject matter experts are sourced from inside the organization. External resources can help in the design of new processes, but the experts on what is currently in place (and why) must come from inside the organization. Organization Change Management (or Business Change Management) is accomplished with a mix of resources. In companies where this discipline is well practiced and staffed, I would suggest leading with your internal group. If the expertise isn’t in-house, then use external labor, but build the competency as you go. Given the nature of digital technologies, this is a skill organizations need to invest in for the future.
Product owner is a role that may be foreign to some readers. As companies move towards Agile and specifically Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), the typical project construct no longer works. Instead of organizing around projects, teams organize around products. Products are effectively solutions that solve a problem or provide a benefit to the consumer of the product. Whereas a project is a temporally bounded event, a product has a lifecycle and will evolve as time passes. Typically a single person will be designated as the owner of a product. The product owner is responsible for defining the future of the product as well as establishing the priorities for enhancements and additions.
Most people are familiar with Technical Architects. These are the technology experts that help shape how technologies fit together and how they should evolve. Business architects may not be as familiar. A Business Architect is concerned with developing business capabilities aligned with corporate strategy/direction. A Business Architect typically operates at a higher level than a traditional process architect or business analyst. In both instances (Technical and Business Architect) it is important to have primary representation from inside the organization. Business Architecture may be foreign to some companies. Augmenting this role from the outside while building the competency inside will suffice. The Technical and Business Architects need to work closely together to understand how business capabilities will evolve and what enabling technology will be required to support this evolution.
Data Scientists (including Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning)
Digital security
Cloud Computing
Data Analytics
Mobile
Internet of things (IoT)
Blockchain/Distributed Ledger
Social media
In the 2018 Retail Digital Adoption Survey, Data Scientists and Data Engineers were cited as the most difficult positions to fill by 69% of respondents. Technical developers and specialists were second at 56% (Stone, 2018).
These unique skills may likely need to be augmented or built as part of a digital transformation effort. If these technologies are critical to the ongoing operation of your transformed business, you must create or acquire the necessary skills to ensure a smooth transition to a steady state operation.
I draw a distinction between systems integrators and developers. System integrators are specialists in bringing together subcomponents to form an overarching business solution. In some cases, the system integrators perform extensive configuration activities to achieve business requirements. Developers are, as the name insinuates, builders of new functions. Developers often work with native programming languages and platforms to build custom functionality. Typically, with a systems integrator, you select a resource based on the knowledge of a specific application package or business process. A developer is selected based on knowledge of a development language or platform.
System Integrators and developers comprise the bulk of resources during the technology build activities. These are also among the most natural roles to augment on a technical project. However, exercise care when augmenting. Augmenting an entire functional subject area with external resources makes it very challenging to bridge from “build” to “run,” especially if your internal IT organization will ultimately own the solution. This handoff from development to production is where the adoption of a DevOps approach can provide substantial benefits to your IT organization.
Finally testing. Testing is an area often forgotten when it comes to execution of technology projects. However, I would argue it is among the most important resource to consider.
I recall the “fun” learning the difference between developers and testers early in my career. I was a software engineer at a large software company. I admit I was a little on the cocky side when it came to my code. I had just completed development and unit testing on a new module. I walked over to our assigned quality assurance (QA) representative and announced: “The demand management module is ready to go. You can test all you want, but it won’t break. It is rock solid.” I went back to my office and proceeded to work on another module. About 3 h later the QA representative came into my office and said nonchalantly: “Uh, your unbreakable code blew up. I am printing a large core dump for you to analyze.”
I was incredulous. I walked over to the QA representative’s office and asked to see what he was doing. He walked through the steps he had followed, which included typing incorrect data in one of the screen’s key fields. When he pressed enter (return) the screen flashed the appropriate message “Invalid order key entered. Please enter a valid order key and press return.” Instead of following the screen’s instructions, he proceeded to begin entering information in the body of the screen and then pressed the update function. Immediately the program failed (back in those days we used the term “abended”).
I said: “Wait a minute. The system told you what to do, and you just ignored it.”
He smiled and looked at me and said “Yeah, but you didn’t do anything programmatically to stop me.”
By now I was getting a little angry. “This is a common error routine used throughout our system. It would require changing over one hundred screens.”
His reply was simply “Sounds like you have a lot of work to do.”
At that point, I understood the difference between developers and testers. Developers test to prove functionality, Testers test to break. They enjoy finding errors. They think outside of the development box and consider what someone “might” do versus what they “should” do. In other words, it is a different skill that is critical in ensuring the solution you are deploying will work in the manner intended.
Over my career as a developer, I quickly learned to appreciate what proper testing can do to prevent significant downstream issues.
As with system integrators and developers, testing is an easily augmented role on the team. The key for testing is to do it in such a way that it is repeatable. Repeatability is accomplished through the building of automated test scripts that can be executed to compare actual results versus expected. Testing automation is essential to provide speed and agility downstream. Don’t let anyone say “we will do that later” with regards to test automation as “later” will never be there fast enough.
A thorough transformation execution plan accounts for all the resources needed. As transformation is a journey, these resource needs will shift over time. Having a sourcing plan providing a level of flexibility will be crucial to navigating detours and obstacles.
Once you understand the roles needed to execute the plan, and the approximate level of resource commitment, the next significant step is to begin “clearing the decks” for the critical resources. Digital Transformation is not a part-time job. People don’t do transformation as a nighttime and weekend effort. Digital transformation requires real, dedicated talent to be successful.
Finally, you must also consider the word “talent.” As we discussed in Chap. 6, putting the wrong people on these types of efforts often results in failure. The best advice I can offer is to choose wisely. You must ensure the resources understand the transformation is their only priority, and then work to minimize any distractions to allow them to succeed.
Failing to free resources from their normal daily duties to focus on transformation activities is a common cause of transformation issues. Those people caught in the “tug-of-war” between their daily jobs and transformation are likely feeling much more stress and anxiety. This stress will impact performance and risk the success of the transformation effort. More importantly, it can also lead to organizations losing critical resources for all the wrong reasons.
Deaf Diagnostic
Talent is essential for success in digital transformation. Organizations must have a formal plan for the talent needed to lead, execute, and sustain transformation efforts. The plan must include steps and tools to assist in the acquisition of new talent, retraining of existing talent, and retention of critical talent.
8.4 Transformed Organization Talent
We have considered leadership and the resources needed to execute a transformation effort. The final part of the talent equation is to examine the roles being transformed in the organization.
I have seen this step missed on technology projects in the past. It often results in lost productivity, unwanted turnover, and a lot of frustration in business and IT alike. The bad news is, during digital transformation, the impact is much greater.
If you reflect on our definition of Digital Transformation from Chap. 2, you will understand why this is true. Digital Transformation will fundamentally change processes to improve customer interactions. “Fundamentally” in this context refers to changing the foundation. If we are changing the foundation on which people work, then clearly, this requires a great deal of thought and preparation.
Will any roles be eliminated? What new roles will emerge and what will their responsibilities be? Do we have the people needed to fill these roles? Do we need to provide education to them to prepare them for the new roles? Will we need to eliminate people no longer possessing the skills required to support a particular function or can we repurpose them to another part of the business? Will the current organization structure suffice or will new functions need to evolve as part of the transformation?
These are just a few of the questions that come to mind, as you consider “post-transformation.” Not all the answers will be readily apparent at the beginning of the transformation. It is vital that organizational change management (OCM) be at the core of your transformation efforts. As you progress through digital transformation, you will discover answers for questions not even asked. Leveraging findings, and assessing the organization change allows the OCM team to build programs to better prepare the impacted parts of the organization.
8.5 The Role of Culture in Transformation
To conclude our discussion on talent, I want to spend a few moments discussing culture. We briefly discussed culture in Chap. 3 as part of the topic of corporate alignment. As defined by Merriam-Webster, “culture” is a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization.
As I consider that definition, it apparent that culture will provide the basis for technology and process adoption. In other words, if an organization’s culture doesn’t support change, then attempts to change will likely fail.
As we move into a digitized world, change becomes a constant. Culture must be remade to embrace continuous change and a more rapid pace. We can’t require 15 levels of approval and a long sequential process to get things done. We must be nimble and agile.
Addressing culture is essential to success. It is no surprise in Gartner Group’s 2018 CIO Agenda, Mastering the New Job of the CIO, the number one obstacle in moving from initial stages of digital transformation to scale was culture. 46% of respondents noted culture is the most significant barrier. At 46%, culture was double the percentage of the next closest barrier, resources (Gartner Group, 2017).
When you think about the culture needed to transform and sustain the transformation, many characteristics come to mind. Digital organizations empower their staff to operate more autonomously and with greater speed. Digital organizations attract top talent.
Attributes of a digital enterprise
While organizations may not possess all of these characteristics, they should aspire to attain these characteristics as part of their digital journey.
It is no mistake that customer centricity is at the core of the diagram. The focus of digital transformation should be on your customer. More specifically, how do you remain relevant to your customer?
A critical enabler for this discussion is customer knowledge. In order to remain relevant, organizations must have deep knowledge of their customer’s behaviors and patterns. Organizations must be able to anticipate changes in these behaviors and patterns and understand the impact to their business models. In simple terms, do you understand the problems you solve and the value you bring to your customers? Is this changing?
A good friend of mine has said: “culture is not an action to be taken, but is the result of actions taken.” I love this quote because it captures the essence of many “culture-changing” programs I have witnessed over time. Executives will mandate a set of behaviors they expect exhibited in their organization. They create posters, hold meetings with their teams, and proclaim: “this is how we will operate in the future.” These executives then scratch their heads when nothing really changes.
The reason for the lack of change is simple. Culture can’t be mandated. Culture is emulated based on the observed behaviors of the individuals in the organization with the most influence. In other words, if the leaders of the organization don’t exhibit the desired cultural attributes, no one else will.
Organizations must consider the evolution of their culture as part of a digital transformation. To be digital is to be perceptive. Digital organizations scan their surroundings and are among the first to capitalize on opportunities.
Not surprising, this was a key finding in the 2018 Retail Digital Adoption Survey. 80% of Digital Leaders had attempted to alter their corporate culture to be more in keeping with that of a digital organization compared to only 36% of their peers. Digital Leaders characterized their organizations as cross-functional (collaborative), customer-centric, accountable, and transparent. In other words, all of their identifying traits were those of digital organizations. Their peers selected customer-centric, but no other digital attribute received more than 36% (Stone, 2018).
Digital organizations are also introspective with regards to their talent. It is impossible to transform a culture if the people in the organization don’t share the same traits and beliefs. In fact, if you look at the diagram it isn’t hard to think of the opposite of each bubble (risk adverse, deflecting, reporting, sequential, silo, closed, plodding, internally-focused, and product-centric). If you have people that have these traits and can’t change, they likely will not be with you at the end of your digital transformation journey.
Deaf Diagnostic
Culture provides the foundation for any form of transformation. If your organization does not possess any of the characteristics inherent in a digital enterprise, it will be difficult to navigate your digital journey.
At this juncture, we have covered all the critical items to consider when undertaking a digital transformation. As we navigated through the book, we called out many items as “Deaf Diagnostics.” The next chapter deals with these diagnostics, how to identify them, and how to address them.