Digital is New and Confusing

Confusion, cost, complexity! Three issues I’m hearing in conversations with digital transformation leaders trying to work out how to win support from their executive boards.

Many have both regional and global boards who dither over upfront costs with no guarantee of immediate and tangible financial return. Boards are discomforted by the idea of using data as a strategic asset.

Or struggling to translate the big picture of digital into detailed planning, unable to effectively translate what needs to be done into engaging messages within their organisations.

Winning support from executive boards happens when we move our focus from digital technology to what is most important to them – showing how digital delivers their business imperatives; usually financials, market share, or more effective people.

Are you facing these challenges in your organisation? Let’s talk them through and see how we can assist as you win support from your leaders. Book an exploratory call in Jo Ann’s calendar at?or reach out via LinkedIn.

Creating An Engagement Activities Route Map

Hear simple ways of documenting communication activities so transformation team members and sponsors understand who does what and by when.

Without a framework, a route map for activities, engagement is reactive and ad hoc. Information may flow, but it is too little too late, hard to find, ignored, irrelevant to peoples’ working lives, too detailed or too top level, not trusted.

Stakeholders respond by venting their frustrations, complaining, raising many issues, creating difficulties, missing deadlines, dropping out of training, going on holiday just when we need their support.

Our webinar addresses these issues with a simple to use and practical framework for creating engagement activities tailored to each of your stakeholder groups.

This webinar is for:

• Executives who want to benchmark engagement activities with industry best practices
• Transformation leaders who want a framework for planning and evaluating engagement activities
• Change management practitioners who want tips for ensuring communication activities are consistent and relevant to their varied stakeholders.

Do join us on 16 February 13:15-14:15 UK time. Even if you can’t join us live, you will be able to watch the playback afterwards.

Register here!

Catching Up With Jo Ann

September to December much of my time was spent training business leaders in the Middle East and pondering the differences between the four and five star hotels I was staying in.

The answer was service! Staff in five star hotels see their role as serving guests while in four stars it is doing their jobs.

At the Radisson Blu on Dubai Creek nothing was too much trouble. Chefs cooked gluten free meals on request and housekeepers were only too happy to provide a comb though it wasn’t part of my room’s bits and bobs.

Compare that to the Two Seasons where the chef could not grill salmon for me without being instructed to by a manager. A rigmarole each mealtime.

I’ve come back to London even more determined to focus on serving our clients. We add value by putting ourselves out to identify the blocks that stop people changing the ways they work, then persuading them to change.

Just-do-it Mindset and Focus on Getting Around Blocks

Engaging stakeholders early enough is the secret to BT Global moving contract teams from resistance to eager users of its cloud-based customer data platform.

Programme director Mike Buhagiar says the secrets of this change were an outside perspective, resolute mindset, tenacity and focus on the right things.

Read how he moved almost 1,000 people globally from multiple spreadsheets to a machine learning platform in the cloud.

Along with BT and Wipro, we overcame unrealistic expectations, different opinions, executive inertia and end user resistance.

In December our efforts won both EMEA and global awards for outstanding co-operation and collaboration as part of the World Commerce & Contracts Innovation & Excellence Awards 2021.

Read the full story here!

People Change Mastery

Are you looking for a network of digital transformation leaders where you can master people change skills to complement your technology delivery skills?

People Change Mastery is designed for you to network and collaborate with your peers.

It’s a place to share your knowledge and experiences, learn from others, explore the issues you are grappling with.

More details at People Change Mastery

Explaining Change System

The Explaining Change System has eight steps for taking stakeholders on the journey from where they are to where you want them to be.

Users will develop their own bespoke engagement and communication plan for your programme – at their own pace.

They can then discuss it with Jo Ann Sweeney in a private feedback session.

The Explaining Change System comprising

• A comprehensive manual with detailed background
• DVDs containing 12 hours of video instruction
• Exercises that build into a bespoke plan
• Systematic action learning
• Private feedback session
• Practical style guide.

Full details here.

How We Work With Clients

As experts in the people side of digital transformation, we take your stakeholders from knowing little and resisting change, to willingly embracing new ways of working.

Then you can deliver the revenue and reputation benefits your executives expect of transformation.

We’ve created an overview of how we work with clients for digital transformation executives.

Do have a read through then contact Jo Ann to begin exploring your challenges and how we can work together.