Here's how you can navigate change and uncertainty as an executive in IT services.

In my experience as an IT executive, I believe it is my responsibility to cultivate a growth mindset and to encourage and reward continuous innovation. I have found that this approach generates energy and passion for learning and ideation amongst the IT teams. This also assists in educating and inspiring business leaders to continuously improve and transform business models with new and emerging technologies.

With 48 years of IT (previously ADP-Ha.) services and leadership, it is great to interact with the federal industry experts, especially with mutual federal appropriate support results.

I often cite the author Anne Lamott. Her advice for writers (as for leaders): She says: “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see the destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you.” So, when the future is colliding with --uncertainty now-- just a little light in the distance helps. “Give people as much predictability as possible,” management professors Huggy Rao and Bob Sutton said in a Stanford leadership webinar I attended. Good?#leaders?create periods of safety....” So, as leaders, make sure just the “headlights” are on.

The first embrace is to make those who will be partaking comfortable. To be comfortable, seek understanding and value. As the saying goes, change is inevitable. The challenge is in seeing and experiencing value in the change. When the value is recognized, the change will be sought.

je suis convaincu que la clé du succès réside dans une veille structurée. Que ce soit à l’échelle internationale ou globale, il est essentiel de bien organiser et stocker ces informations précieuses. Anticiper le contexte et son environnement est crucial, car les dynamiques varient. Cependant, il est important de rester pragmatique tout en s’alignant avec les technologies et usages mondiaux. Pour y parvenir, il est indispensable de s’équiper des bons outils de veille - ils seront vos meilleurs alliés. De plus, il est crucial de bien choisir ses sources d’information, en privilégiant les plus fiables, afin de filtrer efficacement la masse d’information.

The most important aspect of the modern IT Executive is Communication, both inflow and outflow. Determining a structured set of dynamics for communication and reporting is key to enhance your ability to flex with ever changing requirements and technologies. Communication is knowledge and the more slick the channels and process then the better informed you will be and the better you can respond and pivot when required.

These all sound sensible ideas however the unlock in my opinion is the ability to bring together your thoughts through storytelling and for me that differentiates you. If I think of blockchain as an example, this followed Amara’s law and was laughed off by many however it is beginning to get traction again and I would not be surprised if we read lots more on this. Encourage all to read new book by Chris Dixon on the topic.

So how do you stay informed when you are suffering from information overload? It starts with identifying the 2-3 most important things to your organization. The things that are critical to the survival of your company. Everything else is noise.

The question will be: Who is nearest to the clients you serve and the market options available to meet THEIR NEEDS. If you only carry out a market review from the marketing department, well known for not being a part of the IT team, then you create a barrier at an early stage. Clarify your process to involve all those close to the client need.

Building personal and business resilience is critical. As the creator of Resilience Remap, I help businesses remap their resilience and become more adaptable to change.

Resilience is great. But is needs to be based on TRUST. Anyone remember a show called the "West Wing"? The designated survivor asked the president if he had any advice. Martin Sheen said "Do you have a best friend?" "Trust him with your life?" To which the reply was yes. He said "Then he is your Chief of Staff". It struck me because there was nothing about skills or qualifications. The most important quality was trust. To build resiliency, start by building trust.

I get the point to create an environment where people are safe to be creative and challenge however what I’ve noticed in my organisation is that the culture drives that approach from above. Probably due to us being at the forefront of technology whether Gen AI or Quantum and we acquire to keep us accelerating so in a sense if you aren’t comfortable with that approach then maybe the organisation won’t get the best out of you unless you challenge yourself.

Saying you foster innovation is easy, but how do you react when the innovations fails? Do you praise them for trying or punish them for failing?

Creativity is at the heart of all change management. We have developed an online tool to let this process happen. You can develop your own ways but keeping failures to a minimum without risking high costs is what we designed it for. KISS is at the heart of all change.

An inevitable consequence of being in IT is the opportunity to inhabit a company-wide perspective, understanding the competing requirements, but also seeing the inevitable opportunities often overlooked by those involved in the day-to-day. Leveraging good technology adoption will require a clear business strategy upon which you can apply those technology components. Strategic planning is a fundamental requirement when long-term and high investment projects are involved.

As with all change plans, there comes a point when one significant change on route to the endpoint, changes that very endpoint. Being able and ready to make the necessary adjustments without losing the people making the changes is essential.

Partnerships in the IT industry are always an option to provide your client with a total solution. Your challenge will remain the communication of tasks allocated to different teams operating outside of your quality control. Managing meetings is a skill set that needs to be reviewed and agreed by key players in the partnership and the "Interactive Skills Model" should form a part of this understanding and training for all meeting chairpersons.

Under conditions of uncertainty, I will typically turn to scenario planning which is an approach used specifically for such conditions. It is an outstanding tool that facilitates conversations about alternate futures (scenarios) so that a strategic pathway can be identified as a path forward, the uncertainty notwithstanding. The strategic pathway considers the conditions of uncertainty that are reflected in plausible futures rather than a single future.

Two things: 1) Know your limitations. No individual can understand all available technologies and how and when to apply them. Recruit a #2 for Business Application of IT and a #2 for Technology Capability understanding. 2) Know what business capabilities are in need of adaptation or replacement and have your people connect-the-dots from operational capability shortfall to technology contribution to close performance/value gaps. Be the agent that orchestrates change by bring together all the right people to co-design the business future state first then the technology future state.