Our Insights
What is a People-Focused Approach to Digital Transformation?
We believe that our cross-sector experience and expertise, combined with our people-focussed approach has allowed us to add significant value to the organisations and projects we have been privileged to work with.
So what do we mean when we say we have a people-focussed approach to digital transformation? When a new digital tool is implemented in an organisation, a critical understanding must be realised that people will need to work differently to harness the power and efficiency of the digital tool. An organisation’s IT team is not going to lead transformational change.
In simple terms, for digital transformation to be effective, the various teams and the individuals within those teams must firstly understand why the change is required at the current time, and secondly what change is required to use the tool effectively. Our approach centres around building the capability of the people within teams to achieve this.
As our team has grown, we are able to have a greater impact across organisations, helping them to create solutions for the inevitable challenges they face. Our success has been based on the positive impact we have had on individuals and teams, flowing onto organisations as a whole.
Implementing Sticky Change
Implementing successful personal or organisational change is challenging. The number of New Year’s resolutions that don’t make it to February, is an example of personal change that despite the very best intentions, is notoriously difficult to implement. Unfortunately, without the right support and guidance, implementing successful transformational change, at an organisation can often have the same poor success rate as personal change, except any failure is amplified, either officially or unofficially, to a range of stakeholders in the organisation.
Change isn't just about adopting new practices; it's about navigating the sea of human emotions, uncertainties, and complexities that come with it. We've experienced a range of change initiatives in a variety of different sectors firsthand. We recognise that successful change involves careful consideration, planning and communication of the new organisational structures or technology to be implemented. However, just as importantly, the impact the change initiative will have on the people involved should be a key focus.
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Using a change model as a roadmap to steer those overseeing change implementation is an important step towards success. The ADKAR Model, the McKinsey 7-S Framework or Kotter’s 8-Step Model, all provide good strategic direction. We find Knoster, Villa and Thousand’s change framework is a useful and practical lens to place over any change initiative. Focussing on the five areas of the framework and ensuring they guide the change process leads to successful transformational change adoption. Internally, and for clients, we use these tools constantly.
Because of the amount of unsuccessful organisational change attempts, many people are both cynical and weary of proposed change initiatives. ‘Here we go again’, mindsets abound, making change management challenging for leaders. We believe understanding the human side of change transformation is as crucial as the technical aspects. Our knowledge, skill and experience in guiding teams and organisations through this intricate journey ensures we provide not just strategies for successful transformative change adoption, but a practical understanding of the challenges that will emerge during the process.