Influence, Persuade, Inspire

Most of us carry a job title and with that title comes a job description. Very few of those titles or descriptions include the words - Digital Transformer (though I have seen a couple in recent travels, however, not always with effective purpose or execution).

How then do organisations actually get Digital Transformation done? Over the last few years I have seen two distinct approaches: one that brings with it success, the other not so much.  The first approach places their people at the heart of the planning and the process. The teams, therefore, have a level of commitment and pride to the quality of the output, thus impacting the efficiency and standard of deliverables. The second offers an almost total focus on the planning and the delivery process, with little regard for the people required to deliver it, let alone engagement around their motives to deliver it.

The only real difference is the level with which the organisation allows their staff to influence, persuade and inspire on all things digital across all aspects of the organisation they touch.

It's much more Eco than Ego. It requires collaboration NOT command and control.

“The major challenge for most companies is that digital is everyone and no-one’s responsibility.” - Cat Leaver, Head of Strategy, After Digital

What is interesting to me is that most of us get very little, if any, formal training on how to influence, persuade and inspire our colleagues, peer groups and indeed bosses. There are of course some unique characters that are naturals, who ooze charisma, who can “talk the hind legs off a donkey and then convince it to walk again” to quote the inestimable and sadly missed Douglas Adams. They are, though, the exception rather than the rule though.

Successful digital transformation projects are reliant upon a set of softer skills that are in some way native to us all, but that are stressed and stretched when it comes to day-to-day use, nevermind in such a dynamic and fast-paced initiative as driving digital transformation across an organisation.

This is why After Digital has developed its IPI Development courses. They assist in the delivery of the digital roadmaps we create, by upskilling those responsible for the delivery of the roadmap in the softer influence, persuade and inspire (IPI) skills they need to get the whole organisation moving in the right direction. The staff involved in delivering the roadmap usually have no command and control authority (such as a line manager) and they are often being asked to operate well beyond their area of authority. This means they need to affect change through their ability to get things done without instructing change directly.

I often talk about these “Digital Ambassadors” operating in the white space that surrounds the traditional operating models of most organisations. That white space is a “boss-less, authority vacuum" where only the influencers and persuaders make progress.

Digital in 2017 touches pretty much every aspect of every type of organisation from sales and marketing to finance, admin, HR and operations. It is everyone's responsibility but often no-one’s job. Herein lies every C-Suite’s challenge. They know they need to digitally transform, they know they need to do it now and do it quickly. They also know how to find out what to do - they hire in a company like After Digital to develop and deliver the roadmap, business case and organisational reports (something we’ve done many times, to great effect). Where the C-Suite then traditionally struggled is implementing it. That’s where the motivation to develop our courses came from. We saw this missing link cropping up repeatedly when working with businesses. Whilst we could provide guidance and outline activity, they needed that additional shift in mindset and culture to really push things through.

“Truly digitally able organisations empower their people. Creating a collaborative workforce rather than siloed activity.”

If you are going to invest in the roadmap, commit to investing in skilling your people to be able to influence, persuade and inspire. That, aligned with the objectives of your roadmap, will have a much greater chance of success than if the roadmap and it’s attendant plan are deployed in isolation.

Are you about to start your digital transformation journey? Or do you have any questions about how to implement the beginnings of a truly effective digital evolution? if so get in touch and I’ll happily talk you through the real difference that connected thinking is making to our clients.