Digital Transformation: Let's hear it for Love

'Love' is a word rarely bandied about in corporate culture, notes speaker Te Aroha Morehu at the 'Emerging Tech For Good - In Action' event for Techweek NZ. Morehu said we should talk about and feel love at work; the love of a job well done, the loyalty to your team, the culture of welcoming and belonging. We should speak more about love at a corporate level. This concept may make us feel uncomfortable, yet 'uncomfortable' is the nature of change.

People, Mindset, Culture

Mercury's Head of Digital Strategy and Delivery, Roxanne Salton, said, "Most of the time tech is not the problem, it’s the culture and the mindset." Digital transformation tends to focus on delivering technology enablers and deploying process improvements with a dash of change management to communicate the impacts of change. IDC research shows that while organisations see leadership as a critical aspect of digital transformation, they don't walk the talk because companies don't invest enough in leadership to shift culture and mindset. You shouldn’t embark on a technical transformation without a good business case, roadmap, set of goals, measures of success and the right resources to deliver. It's time to apply this level of effort to people transformation.

Feel Good Factor

Morehu said in business the money will come if you get things right at the spiritual, environmental and social levels. This may be a confronting statement for good ol' New Zealand corporates, but can we at least admit Morehu hits the right notes here? Yes, business needs to be profitable to be sustainable, but there are non-financial related sustainability goals too. Think back to the last time you performed a small act of kindness; you got a return from that act and it wasn't money. An interaction, a smile, a feeling of doing good, a new friend or a person helped. Morehu is right. If we bring our employees and customers that feeling, then we create a sense of well-being and trust which translates to loyalty. Loyal customers spend more and loyal employees give more discretionary effort; both stay with you longer. One organisation with 'feel good factor' as a business ethos is Eat My Lunch. For every meal a customer buys the company gives a lunch to a kiwi kid in need. Eat My Lunch doesn't hide the fact it is a for-profit organisation, but it has brought spiritual and social levels into its business. It's win, win, win, win. It is a great differentiator for the business, it gives a feel good factor to its customers, its lunch-making volunteers get a buzz from helping out, and, most importantly, hungry kids get a nutritious meal.

The IDC New Zealand Team volunteering at Eat My Lunch. (To find out more about your team volunteering at Eat My Lunch click here)

Get People Involved

The challenge is to create love in a transformation environment without it coming across as manufactured, disingenuous or forced. The Techweek NZ event speakers pointed towards getting employees involved with change, to lead to the right culture and mindset:

• James Wells, CIO of Vulcan Steel helps keep his frontline truck drivers safe with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Cameras mounted on trucks record staff handling loads. AI determines a video shortlist for staff to review for safety training. Vulcan Steel employees peer review each other's safety performance, rather than managers reviewing staff. This has multiple benefits: the wide distribution of work load reduces bottlenecks, peer reviews strengthen bonds between team members and fosters a caring culture, plus employee involvement leads to positive attitudes towards changes.
• During Mercury's digital evolution Salton described how the company got employees to join daily stand up meetings by making attendance voluntary. Change advocates turned up first, then word of mouth led others to join in.
• Savannah Petersen, founder of Savvy Millennial, talked about how AI will enable people, not replace people. Salton brought that concept to life saying how Mercury talk about "co-bots" instead of "robots". Your communications on how people can get involved with new technology will foster engagement, so long as you walk the talk because employees will see through rhetoric.

Professional Tribes

Morehu spoke of how belonging to a tribe creates bonds between people. In business, we need more professional tribes. The tribe holds up reciprocated values and behaviours then seen in everyday actions, such as sharing triumph, volunteering, giving credit to others, doing what you say you will. People act more selflessly than self-centredly because they don't want to let the tribe down and because that's what the tribe expects. Employees that feel they belong will give the business discretionary effort, and what is discretionary effort also known as? A labour of LOVE.

So, let's hear it for showing love at a corporate level. Let's hear it for bringing love into digital transformation and for a focus on culture and mindset within change. Your employees, customers, partners and shareholders will love you for it.

New Zealand CIO Summit 2018

To learn more about the journey to a digital business, IDC and Conferenz will host the New Zealand CIO Summit 2018: Leading Digital and Technology Driven Disruption on the 13-14 June. To find out more visit: https://www.ciosummit.co.nz/