Start with a story.
I started exercising regularly back in school, and it has been a constant that has supported me through many of life's ups and downs. I am very grateful for the sacred practice and discipline that exercise instilled in me at an early age. To this day I encourage and advocate for the value of exercise to upcoming leaders not only for the health benefits, but for the transferable skills learned.
Healthy body healthy mind.
As a young adult, I loved exercise so much I thought it may become my career. I dabbled as a strength coach and personal trainer whilst I studied, but was oblivious at the time to how many amazing life lessons it would teach me. Exercise also exposed me to many inspiring and successful people who would later help me shape my career.
As a personal trainer I had to demonstrate results for my clients which is not dissimilar to how I conduct my business today. I had to listen a lot and truly understand what made them tick. To keep them motivated and stick at it when times were tough. I had to extract their requirements - why were they doing it, and what did they want to achieve? In their dark times, I had to be a confidante and be strong for them. I became their trusted adviser.
Fair to say, personal training built a great foundation for me to build my first business.
Nearly twenty years later I am still strength training, have clear exercise goals, and a strength coach of my own. Nigel Morgan has a background in exercise physiology and physiotherapy and speaks a more sophisticated language than I did when I was a trainer. I used to see trainers and coaches as a luxury, but now I see them as a valuable member of my core team. Interestingly for me, the process Nigel puts me through to extract results is not dissimilar to the levers I employ to drive digital transformation initiatives.
Some of the principles that Nigel adheres to are:
- Specificity
- Progressive overload
- Periodisation
- Adherence
Let me explain each from an exercise perspective, and their link to digital transformation:
1. Specificity.
Your training should be relevant and appropriate to the sport for which you’re training i.e. runners need to run in order to produce a training effect. My personal goals are to hit a certain aggregate lifting weight across 3 specific lifts. This goal is one I have been chasing longer than I care to admit. Age, illness and injury are doing me no favours. For that reason, there is no point making me undertake an endurance cycle or run. I am training my body for peak strength, for a 1RM (1 x Rep Max - the most weight you can lift at one time). Similarly, with digital transformation it’s essential to align and adhere to the organisations business strategy, business model, operating model and ensure there is technical capability to implement and support the change.
2. Progressive overload
This process refers to forcing the body to adapt to new stressors as they’re gradually increased. But there are limits, and when over stimulated, performance can decline and injury can occur. With exercise and strategic endeavours, it is neither a responsible solution, nor long-term option to achieve your goal. When exercising, there are a raft of tools to support progressive overload, not dissimilar to a strategic toolkit. For instance, as opposed to the common misconception of simply adding more weight to the bar (or pressure to an organisation), other ways to increase volume and intensity could include:
- Increase the Number of Reps
- Increase the Number of Sets
- Increase the Training Frequency
- Increase the Difficulty of Exercise
- Decrease the Rest Between Sets
Bodies and organisations are only as strong as their weakest link.
Sitting alongside each of the above levers, and equally critical, are: ensuring you have good form, deliberate breathing, and keeping tension through your body as you lift. Priming an organisation for change before undertaking initiatives is critical to understanding vulnerabilities from a people, process and technology perspective.
3. Periodisation
Deliberate periods of high vs low training to maximise long term progress and prevent over training. In training and transformation, it is vital to have a clear goal of what you’re striving for. I liken periodisation to feathering the throttle in a car i.e. you can’t always keep your foot flat to the floor. Over training, and over extension of transformation initiatives, can have a catastrophic impact and substantially set back progress.
By responsibly outlining upfront what the current ‘from’ state is, and establishing a ‘to’ state, periodisation can be applied to ensure program velocity and volume is adhered to. Periodisation as a framework is like a block (horizon) plan of strategic activity, as opposed to detailed work streams. Training blocks are designed based on velocity and volume, rather than having every ‘program’ designed and delivered upfront. Periodisation is the catalyst to rally an organisation around a shared purpose to achieve a desired outcome in a sustainable and effective way.
4. Adherence
Nothing works unless you customise it to the individual, so they can ‘adhere’. Given that no two people will respond the same, nor will any two organisations - adherence is like keeping a constant pulse of progress, and a monitor on critical indicators. For instance, just as individuals fall ill when physically or mentally under strain, so do organisations. By shifting the type of training block (periodisation) or varying the intensity it can destress your nervous system, rather than adding to the problem. Organisations like individuals can respond differently to the same plans. Adherence promotes the ability to pivot based on actual individual’s (organisation) response.
KEY TAKEOUTS:
Drawing parallels between exercise and digital transformation was just one way to demonstrate how to share and introduce some of the top line strategic toll gates that can be otherwise intimidating if unfamiliar. By taking the time to familiarise yourself with a subject you can confidently tailor your story based on your audience’s needs at the time.
Why is this so important?
We are operating in a digital word where Cisco executive chairman John Chambers predicted two years ago (that time bomb is now 20% underway) that: at least 40% of companies will die in the next 10 years and calls that number “conservative.”
But, storytelling isn’t about technology adoption, right? Storytelling is about connecting with people. As Joseph Brookes shares in a great article on: People and Culture Determining Digital Survival, Not Technology, he cites Gartner analyst Jenny Beresford:
“It sounds almost cliché to say it’s about leadership, but it is. This isn’t a process change. It’s not an operational change. It’s definitely about culture, because that’s the fastest way to implement change: get people to change .”
Call to action:
If you have a high stakes story or critical initiative you need to deliver and the objective is to get people to change, I challenge you to rethink how you approach crafting your narrative.
Below is a simple checklist:
- Design for who, not you.
- Clearly define your ‘from state’ and your ‘to state’ ambition.
- Provide a role to participate so your audience can rally behind a shared belief and purpose.
- Reduce barriers by breaking large concepts or tasks into clear steps or chapters as part of a narrative.
- Take the time to learn what is important and familiar to personalise your narrative to your audience for maximum ownership and impact.
It’s fair to say we are inundated with stats that clearly convey digital transformation is no longer optional. Equally, the success of digital transformation hinges on our leaders grappling complex concepts and embracing change now.
At MORGAN PERCY, we pride ourselves on being a trusted adviser and strategic agitator. We are a strategic marketing practice designed to support our clients become more relevant in a digital age. We believe that support can take many shapes. We don’t use unnecessary technical jargon where in a digital world complexity already overshadows reason and logic. We apply practical planning techniques to address our clients' problems and encourage collaborative workshops as the answer is generally in the room. We are invested in up-skilling those we work with and around us so they are better equipped, more often.
If you found this helpful, or would like more information on specific steps outlined above please drop me a line.