Creating the Right Digital Mindset for People-centric Transformation

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We are in the digital age and to keep pace with digital-era change, organizations may need to adopt entirely new ways of doing things. And achieving such change requires altering fundamental behaviors for everyone involved, from top-level leaders to every segment of workforces. This is no more a secret that transformations are about the people in the organization. The long-term sustainability of a transformation requires organizations to engage high-potential employees, furnish them with skills, hold them accountable for and celebrate their contributions to the effort.

People-centric transformation

During any transformation, the journey is more important than the destination, but many organizations focus just on the bottom line, and on return, they do a lot of mistakes, many of the digital transformation initiatives fail today because of lacking adoption capabilities within their journey. Many also ignore, the integrators and enablers on their way, and that may be also can their best talent, as this is not a people-centric approach.

When we consider adoption, we should mostly be interested in getting people to buy into the change and to see the value they will gain from the change. In this sense, adoption isn’t about the essence of technological details or usage numbers, instead, adoption is more about people and their behaviors to the changes.

If we ask why the organizations keep on failing on their digital initiatives, one of the biggest reasons is, the people. One can have the best vision and strategy in the world, but if they don’t have the delivery capability, it’s just going to be another failure. Picking the right talent and building the right team is what organizations need to consider.

Hiring the wrong people to do the job, and put together the wrong team, one will be surely on the road to failure from the first day. Recruitment can be very vital here, to get the right people in place to deliver these initiatives. Management and leadership teams are not taking this seriously in many cases, and hence their chances of being successful get shrinking. HR can always be a key advisory to these transformations.

For adding values to the digital success, organizations need to bring people at the center and hire new talents who have different, but specific skills, expertise and working styles that may have not been considered in the past and which is more fit into the digital world. And for these, today organizations need to measure the potential to build up internal talents as well, establishing diverse teams, developing cross-collaborative networks, creating new evaluation frameworks, and redefining leadership roles.

To put people on the center of business and digital success, one thing we need to consider human development as a key aspect because human development focuses on improving people’s lives rather than only economic growth and also make a better place for a human. And to bring people at the center, organizations, need to see what is meaningful for their workforce today.

So, it is very important to know for the organizations, what their workforce wants. Asking their people what matters most to them, and listen carefully to their responses, is what the organizations need today, to really get on top. There are lot of initiatives like anonymous surveys and continuous feedback loops to drive employee listening.

On the other hand, knowing precisely, how the team works and respecting people’s engagements, can help to gain the trust that the organization’s leaders need to initiate the changes during their transformation journey. It is necessary to get focus on people by making sure they don’t get lost in the processes and that every step organizations take toward adoption is adapted to their needs.

Organizations that are establishing people-first culture, are one of the great places to work on. And businesses that embrace this approach are recognized with better results and happier employees. Creating a successful people-first culture takes time, effort, and a different mindset. A small thing can make a big difference in demonstrating that organizations are significantly putting efforts on people’s first approaches in their transformation journey and for that, they need the right digital mindset first.

Right digital mindsets

Digital technology has connected the world to an extraordinary degree, giving organizations the ability to reach customers, consumers and workforce in new ways, automate their interactions, and consolidate proper information to better understand, and influence individual behavior and experiences. Moreover, digital technology has accelerated the pace of change in business, uplifting disruptive business models that can create new markets and enforcing a new collaboration in the world of work.

But digital technology requires more than an understanding of technology, organizations cannot achieve digital success, without first understanding whether their people have the right mindsets to embrace the opportunities for change and innovation that digital brings. On top, leaders, who look to shape the cultures of their organizations, need to react quickly to emerging trends and to be open to new ways of working and thinking.

For many industries, sectors or functions, the organizations can successfully nurture an agile culture, when their leaders start with a proper mindset, they need a digital mindset. This digital mindset reinforces the collaborative approach, open-mindedness, recognition, appreciation, and trust, which are traits of a digitally connected world. When organizations follow this, they stand much ahead to thrive in this digital world.

As the transformation in this digital age needs constant exploration, experimentation, and learning, all individuals with a growth mindset can make a big difference, as they are more likely to put in extra effort to learn and do things in new ways and own resilience that helps them to overcome challenges. Leaders and workforces need to have the right mindsets for the transformation, an adopting mindset in fact, which starts personally, then extends with the organization’s needs, the customers and also to the rest of the context.

The below figure shows some key characteristics that concealed in a digital mindset.

Most successful organizations tend to be impartially high in both efficiency and flexibility. However, there are other success factors like adaptability, agility, and innovation, which certainly propelling these organizations more towards digital success. To get move towards a proper digital mindset, HR organization, also needs a new mindset to rethink how their role can foster more useful for adoption while reducing unnecessary bureaucracy.

With such significant shifts taking place rapidly and more to come, organizations, leaders and employees alike need to look at how to manage these shifts and operate in a manner that business thrives. This means making several changes, not just in process and practices, but most importantly in the mindset.

For further interest and insights over this topic, buy your copy today to understand a broader Digital HR Strategy ‘Digital HR Strategy — Achieving sustainable transformation in the digital age’

About the Author

Soumyasanto Sen

Digital Excellence Leader | Advisor People & Technology | Analyst Future of Work | Web3 Venture Builder | Speaker, Author & Investor