Back-to-work report card

Welcome back and it’s 2021! I hope you all had a refreshing and relaxing break?
 
This week I’ve been thinking about New Year’s resolutions and what that can mean for your digital transformation journey.

Many people make resolutions each January, often as a direct result of our eating habits over the holidays!

But personal resolutions are notoriously difficult to maintain as we slip back into our busy lives and the patterns of behaviour that we’re familiar with.

So, what about New Year’s resolutions for digital transformation?

I’m a huge believer in the idea that what’s made you successful so far, isn’t always what you need going forward.

So rather than specific resolutions for your digital programme, can I suggest a brief review of how you’re going and what you need to be better at in 2021?  A back-to-work report card you could say.
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Here’s five topics for your report card: 

One: Are we making the tough people calls?

I’ve been amazed at how often leaders find excuses to accommodate people who are derailing the team through either their personal behaviour or their performance.

One of my favourite management books is Ben Horowitz’s “The Hard Things About Hard Things”. Ben’s advice for dealing with people issues is relevant whether you’re running a small start-up or a large digital technology team. In a nutshell, it might be unpleasant but if you’re the leader then just suck it up and deal with it.

In my experience there are two possible outcomes – either the person involved gets the shock of their lives and deals with the behaviour or performance issues, or they don’t and it becomes the start of an HR process.

​Either way ultimately the outcome gives you an improvement lift which you only get if you face the issue head on.

Two: No one is coming to save us.

​I’m shamelessly stealing this from a former boss who was fond of saying this to his leadership team at the beginning of each year. He’d say (and I’m paraphrasing) “here’s the thing, we’ve signed up to lead this for our organisation and there’s really only us. There’s no other team that is going to magically swoop in and save us if things go off track. We’re it, so we better figure out what we need to do to be successful”.

What I like about this approach is the shared accountability. Realistically the buck in our part of the organisation stopped with him, but the “we’re it” approach invited open and constructive conversations about what was really important for the team’s success.
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Have you had that conversation with your team? And are you dealing with the critical things you need to, in order to be successful?

Three: Are we working on the right things?

We’ve talked a lot about how to build out your digital roadmap with features that are desirable, viable and feasible.

But a new year gives us the perfect opportunity to ask more detailed questions about the roadmap:
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• Are we focussing on too much or not enough? (A new feature might tick all the boxes but is there really any point adding it to a backlog that’s three years long?)
• Are we personally adding value to the digital development process or are we just getting in the way?
• Does our behaviour indicate what’s actually important in our team or organisation? (For example, if you say cyber security is really important to your organisation but you consistently underinvest in it, then it’s probably not that important, or at least that’s what your wider team will think).
• Are we addressing the things that are getting in the way of our digital transformation’s success or just constantly having to find ways round them?

Four: Are we building effective internal stakeholder relationships?

A great way to answer this question is to draw up a stakeholder plan. It doesn’t need to be a big effort but writing it down is always an excellent way to ensure focus.

Start with a chart of who your most important stakeholders are and why. Give your relationships a RAG status (red, amber or green) and then decide some simple actions off the back of that RAG status.

Maintaining a good relationship will require different actions than improving a troubled relationship.

​Assign team members to key relationships or actions. And then think about how to track progress. 

Five: Have we carved off a little space for innovative ideas to thrive?

There are currently many industries contending with massive business disruption, environmental upheaval or heavy regulatory compliance. All of this is important if you want your organisation to survive beyond 2021.

But even if that is your day-to-day reality, try to find a little time, money or headspace to consider an innovation opportunity or two for your organisation.
 
You might discover a disruptive new technology for your industry, you might find an innovative way to solve a customer’s problem or you might just engage your team with some new thinking.
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And investing a small amount of effort into creativity and curiosity has an enormous payoff for your organisation’s culture.
 
Best of luck with your back-to-work report! 

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