Adoption and Adaption in Digital Business

Keith Sherringham, Bhuvan Unhelkar

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781637420256
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Whether it is the turnaround of a sports team to win a championship, bettering a community, remediation of business, or adoption and adaption to digital business, it is having us do things differently which brings sustainable change.

This was seen throughout 2020 during the COVID-19 global pandemic. People from around the world stood up and helped each other, shared their time, goods, skills, and expertise which collectively crafted and shaped our response to COVID. Our environment was changed, capacities and capabilities implemented, behaviors emerged, and outcomes were managed. Interests and values were aligned and as empowered individuals having ownership with pride in who we are and what we do, we adopted and adapted. Knowing the issue, the importance to us, what we needed to do, and where to get help, enabled us to better ourselves and those around us. For the decisions made, we empowered and supported with variations to circumstances as required of us.

This book provides the hands-on of "fixing the pipes and helping people" to capacity and capability build for the crafting and shaping of the emergent behaviors needed through our aligned interest and values with the empowered emotional ownership: "I do good work, change is coming, help me with the change, and I can do more."

CHAPTER 1

Taking What Works and Learning from Mistakes

Change succeeds when we resolve our need and trust in the change

Summary

“I do good work, change is coming, help me with the change, and I can do more.” Change is part of our lives, like our desire to better ourselves and those around us to changing the form of a sports team. Technology and automation have transformed agriculture and food production, as well as mining and extractive industries. Manufacturing and logistics have also been transformed and technology is transforming the services sector. Change is brought by people, and success is seen when we can resolve our needs and trust in the change is seen. Change comes through the consistent and persistent application of proven practices, learning from mistakes, and adopting and adapting. This chapter provides the context for achieving organizational change management that works because of the valuing of people.

Core Concepts

A series of core concepts (Weekly Mirror Message—Concepts in the Management of Change—https://youtu.be/8uCQuChnjug) around change are presented, which are addressed throughout this book including:

• We must be the change we wish to see.

• We need to treat others as we ourselves would wish to be treated.

• Change is about people and getting people to do things differently. This takes time. There needs to be an emotional bond and an alignment of interests and values.

• Change comes from the emergent behavior with the actions of empowered individuals having ownership and pride in who they are and what they do.

• Change the environment, instill the behavior, and achieve the outcomes.

• “I do Good Work, Change is Coming, Help Me with the Change, and I can do More” is the mantra.

• Tell me the issue, the importance to me, what I need to do, where I can get help and support, and what you are doing to help me.

• Change is the consistent and persistent application of proven principles applied pragmatically rather than the magic wand or the panacea or the silver bullet.

• Trust in leadership with trust in the process is required for sustainable change.

• Take what works and make it better, but change is sustained and ongoing.

• Provide the recipes to enable us to follow, as well as to customize to meet their needs.

• Change is incremental which adopts and adapts to circumstance rather than the one size fits all approach.

• Decision making is part of change. A decision is only as good as its implementation and the response to varying circumstances.

• Sustainable change requires ambiguity management, messaging for the emotional bond, empowered emotional ownership, decision making, leadership, and interests and values aligned.

Key Learnings

Key learnings from this chapter include:

• Change and transformation is part of our lives. We live the experience as we try to improve the results of a sports team or community group.

• Bringing change is about people and what they do. Success comes when we work to get the best from people. Change is nuanced and requires the emotional response from people. It also takes time to bring sustainable change.

• Change succeeds when you can answer questions like “what makes you think you can get people to change what they do?” or “Do I understand what is being asked and why?” or “What do I need to make the change?” or “Would I make this change?”

• Change comes through the consistent and persistent application of proven business principles pragmatically applied.

• Alongside other frameworks for delivery like service management or project management, change management needs to address the complexities and nuances of managing people. This includes Ambiguity Management, Messaging, Empowered Emotional Ownership, Decision Making, Leadership, and Interests and Values aligned (AMEDLI).

Introduction

Whether you coach a sports team, are a player in a team, are the leader of an organization, are guiding a business through digital transformation, or are the leader of a country, we are faced with managing change. As much as we may wish for things to slow down and remain steady, change is with us and is ongoing. If there was no change, the performance of the sports team would remain with championships lost. Change is about people doing things differently because it is in their interest to do so and the change is aligned with their values. Look no further than the new plays and the practicing drills to be a better player or musician or artist. To make change, we need to know “what is the issue?,” “what we need to do?,” “why we need to do it?,” and “where to get help and support?” We value knowing that support is around us and that assistance is there to help us. We know that things are complex and nuanced, and we may need help in making decisions. We value leadership and respond to messaging that forms an emotional bond with us. We respond with emotion to many things. We tend to do things when our Interests and Values are aligned, and we have empowerment and ownership. If we have trust in the change, we are prepared to make them.

Bringing change to the sports team or having a society respond to a global pandemic is about the emergent behavior from the actions of empowered individuals with ownership of their actions and pride in who they are and what they do. This requires the crafting and shaping of the emergent behaviors with the capacities and capabilities to hand. It is about how we get the best from people and take them on a journey (the Journey Model). By changing the environment, behaviors are instilled, and outcomes achieved.

At the heart of realizing the results from change is “I do good work, change is coming, help me with the change, and I can do more.” An example is the player in a team who wants to do better using the guidance of the coach to do different drills, team exercises, and a different diet. This is where this book can be of value. This book is given so that it may help you and those you help by sharing skills and expertise that are proven in working with change. We ask you compare your lived experience and see if this book is of help.

This chapter provides some context and background and introduces some concepts that underpin successful change and transformation with other concepts being introduced in subsequent chapters. After discussing aspects of change, the consistent and persistent application of proven practices is addressed. An overarching approach to working with the nuances and complexities of people in change is introduced. This overall approach addresses the people and emotional issues in sustainable change of Ambiguity Management, Messaging, Empowered Emotional Ownership, Decision Making, Leadership, and Interests and Values alignment (AMEDLI) in forming the emergent behaviors required. An outline of the chapters in this book is also presented, together with suggested next steps.

Aspects of Change Transformation

Change Is Part of Our Lives

From coaching a children’s sports team, to lifting people out of poverty across a country, to transforming a company or a group within an organization, change is all around us. With rapid changes in technology, the pace of transformation is increasing and is penetrating all aspects of life. When agricultural production was automated, jobs were transferred to manufacturing and brought changes to the industry. Opportunities were made, livelihoods changed, people felt uncertainty, and a change management process was followed to bring the transformation. Further transformation in agriculture is occurring with the use of high-intensity indoor food production and with the use of robots for planting, weeding, caring, and picking. Automation is being used in food processing plants and hi-tech jobs are increasing in agriculture as more technology is used. Other primary industries like mining have also been automated and technologies like automated trucks and trains are being adopted by the industry, which bring changes to the numbers employed, the skill sets used, and the t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Description
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Perspective
• Getting the Most from This Book
• Chapter 1 Taking What Works and Learning from Mistakes
• Chapter 2 Ambiguity Management
• Chapter 3 Messaging
• Chapter 4 Empowered Emotional Ownership
• Chapter 5 Decision Making
• Chapter 6 Leadership
• Chapter 7 Interests and Values Aligned
• Chapter 8 On the Ground
• Chapter 9 Bringing It Together
• Appendix A: Suggested Change Leadership Courses
• About the Authors
• Index
• Backcover