Getting everyone on board
Change management is a valuable skill that helps prepare and equip individuals to adopt big changes in an organization. No one likes change, even more so when they believe it may threaten their job stability. An effective change manager will identify objections, create training, and smooth over concerns to make it easier for everyone to get on board with a new initiative.
Some people are naturally good at managing change. They can build consensus amongst a team with differing opinions and rally the team. But if your company doesn’t have one of these naturally talented individuals working towards a digital transformation, it can be incredibly hard to get everyone moving in the same direction.
Without a change manager (either a natural or someone who’s appointed), teams will scramble to convince every stakeholder to get on board. Pieces and requirements will drop through the cracks. Everything will move slowly - or not at all.
Digital transformation requires a careful eye to make sure everything goes smoothly - it doesn’t just happen automatically.
No buy-in from the executive team
While many of the pieces of moving to a digital first strategy result in a cost savings, they require resources and buy-in to implement. Without an executive team on board, it can be difficult to access to required resources to drive change at the necessary level. There are three techniques middle management can use to get their executive team on board with a digital transformation:
- Make it personal. Identify the passion projects of your executive team (creating culture, beating the competition or leaving a legacy for example) and share stories of how a new way of doing things will help advance their interests. Not every business case requires hard and fast numbers to be convincing.
- Calculate the ROI. Show leaders how much money they are leaving on the table by refusing to adopt new methods of doing business. By calculating how much additional revenue is available by opening up new service streams, and how much money your business will be saving due to efficiency improvements, it’s possible to calculate exactly what the return will be on any upfront investment.
- Use momentum of early success. Start by changing things that are in your control and measuring how they impact the business. Small wins can start to add up until even the most doubtful stakeholders will have no choice but to agree.
Lack of success metrics
Change for the sake of change is a tough sell. But if you can identify exactly which business metrics and KPIs will be impacted by a digital transformation you can set targets to hold individuals accountable. Success metrics can help motivate departments to change, and they can also show the benefits of initiatives that are already in progress.
Set clearly defined goals for each project (both leading indicators and lagging indicators) to measure how much needs to be done, and what you expect to see come from it. This will help keep everything on track as your business transforms.