Invite a potentially disruptive outsider perspective? Absolutely!

Eric Schmidt suggests: ‘I Could Solve Most of Your Problems’ (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/technology/eric-schmidt-pentagon-google.html?referringSource=articleShare) Those seven words are powerful and scary to individuals and organizations that are stuck in their current paradigm.

An outsider's perspective can be just the lens your organization needs to see what's holding it back! An outsider’s perspective can enlighten an organization (especially its leadership) to industry trends and/or alternative methods, as well as it can help disrupt the status quo that’s, in many cases, has been holding them back from real transformation progress.

A challenge for many organizations is that many viable ideas / solutions already exist in an organization - but they lack a voice or process mechanism to gain visibility. These organizations (across multiple industries - not just DoD) are stuck in their ways, limited in their thinking and encumbered by the way things have always been done. Prior to the pandemic, organization leadership and management rarely supported employees work autonomously, insist on micromanagement, and impede the leveraging of technology.

Organizations struggle with change because they are siloed, fearful of change, and not customer-oriented.

• Organization Silos: Functional and departmental silos operate with limited cross-functional / interdisciplinary engagement, collaboration or cooperation between or among departments
• Organization Atychiphobia or Kakorrhaphiophobia (fear-of-failure): Innovation paralysis from not empowering leaders and managers to make decisions without first following a cumbersome chain of command.
• Customer-oriented: Misguided (often myopic focus on the products & services and supporting the way they have always done business, rather than considering and responding to customers' actual suggestions, desires and needs.

A simplified framework will be required to aid the evolution and the new DNA of organizational culture -comprised of the Vision & Strategy (where are we going, and how are we getting there?), Leadership & People (who is leading us on our path, and who is essential in executing our vision?); and, Processes, Technology & Organizational Structure (how will we perform our work and engage with one another?) In contrast, a fresh view (from an outsider) could suggest deliberately adopting a customer-orientation: putting the customers first, creating a strategy, driving innovation based on customer needs, building strong relationships, and tracking the latest trends on the market to keep them engaged. In making it part of the mission for the business, involving everyone in the company, and building it as company culture - could not only assure staff engagement but also differentiate the company in the marketplace.

The greatest focus for productive and successful disruption must be on the organization culture, not on technology and new shiny tools. Many leadership teams are swept up in technology for technology"s sake and aren't aware of the implications and detrimental effect on culture. Any digital transformation effort that does not include People, Process, Technology, and Culture is destined to fail. The digitalization of the workforce & workplace requires organizations to operate in new ways they never anticipated, and move with a risk acceptance / tolerance and speed that will be unnatural for the organization, especially the U.S. Military (DoD).

Strategic plans still have a place in decision-making, but they'll be more of a set of guideposts than a prescriptive course of action. A digital culture includes numerous aspects (e.g., leadership, technology and processes, autonomous working conditions, agility, entrepreneurship / intrapreneurship, collaboration / cooperation, Innovation and Learning, and Customer-Orientation. Digital transformation is impacting every aspect of business, including customer engagement, human resources, sales & marketing, operational performance, and service delivery.

The benefit of disruptive cultural change is that it can come from anywhere in the organization, but it must be supported by the top leadership of the organization. Change management expert Torben Rick identified 9 differences in traditional versus digital cultures leaders must understand:

Digital transformation requires a much broader adoption of digital technology and cultural change. Successful digital transformation is actually weighted heavily toward people than about digital technology. Achieving success requires organizational changes that are tear-down the silos, are risk tolerant (assess & mitigate risks), and most importantly are customer-oriented. Successful initiatives are backed by leadership, driven by challenges to the current organization paradigms (and corporate culture), and leverage technologies that empower & enable employees.

As noted in this New York Times article by Kate Conger and Cade Metz about Eric Schmidt's journey into modernizing the US military which is ripe for technology disruption (that our future may depend on).

Kudos to Eric Schmidt for expressing with confidence, not arrogance, that typical 20-30 year latency in government adoption could be significantly reduced. Change resistance, however, because he's an outsider, will inevitably result in a lot of ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’ and/or ‘I told you so’. However, if you err on the side of action, I have found many organizations (i.e., commercial & governmental alike) can get through their biases and successfully start a transformation initiative (i.e., understand the need, identify/quantify resources, communication the reasons and approach, and do the upfront planning & scheduling) and when they do, they find that they're more than halfway to making real change - the momentum gained creates that groundswell needed to transform.

It's impossible to make up for lost time, as technology continues to change at an increasingly rapid clip - so the sooner you get started in understanding the opportunities and potential gains from that outside-in perspective the sooner you'll realize the benefits & gains.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas....

Don Gleason is the CAO of DGCpartners LLC, a small veteran-owned management & technology consulting firm helping client organizations unify leadership to control costs and schedule for their most strategic programs and projects – mentoring and driving teams in best practices to assure a sustainable change management discipline.

Reach out to Don here on LinkedIn or through DGCpartners.

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