Written by : Lori Figueiredo on Digilah (Tech Thought Leadership)
During this time of rapid change, Leaders need to slow down to speed up. Leaders that succeed, tune out the noise and stay connected closely to their people – their ecosystem of stakeholders. This is their community or what we might call their modern day “tribe”.
They appreciate that we are more successful when we work together with others. Of course, we can be successful on our own. However, we learn and achieve more when collaborating with others. Engaging a broader group ensures your efforts are supported by all those directly and indirectly involved (versus your efforts being hijacked by others). They can all play a positive role in your journey.
In addition, the value of collaboration is that it allows you to tap into a larger pool of expertise and diversity of ideas. Even our critics – who challenge ideas, actions and assumptions – prove to be very valuable. However, it requires that they are engaged and aligned to the shared purpose.
In any change, strategy or solution design and implementation, think PEOPLE first!
Leaders of positive change, begin by identifying the ecosystem of people most critical to their success. They consider the OUTSIDE-IN view, from the external customers’ lens.
They also consider the INSIDE-OUT view, those up and down the value chain who need to be engaged and involved.
For example, from a popular restaurant brand to a leading international bank, the Leaders and Teams mapped all the Stakeholders along a value chain aligned to their strategic direction.
They recognised they were unsuccessful when they ONLY engaged the frontline using classroom training at an individual level. Instead, change occurred rapidly when they switched to engaging with the Frontline in their Teams, in their workplace context and together with all their critical stakeholders.
In addition, we found such Leaders are curious about understanding basic human psychology. We found successful leaders believe in 3 key human principles. They assume people have:
- an innate wisdom
- a natural ability to learn
- a need for belonging, connection and shared purpose
Furthermore, such Leaders create safe spaces where, together with their Teams, their way of working is:
- agile – learning and adapting daily
- human centred – focusing on the value and IMPACT on people and our planet
- led by a shared purpose – co-creating goals
Most important to emphasise… no matter in which field you are, there WILL be some form of technology involved as an enabler. However, leaders of positive change do NOT craft any strategy or solution – leading with technology.
Instead they shift left, away from defining the technology solution. Instead they start with discovering who are all the PEOPLE (and then PURPOSE – next article) involved. This ecosystem is engaged to discover the real problems and opportunities to be addressed for positive change.
Leading with PEOPLE and aligning the 5Ps is part of a journey from OLD to NEW Island thinking. When we BEGIN with right PEOPLE and align them to a shared PURPOSE, the magic happens!
When alignment is attained; breakthroughs are achieved. We call this state of alignment – SYZYGY.
Hello readers! Hope you liked what you read today. Click the like button at the bottom of this page and share insights with your colleagues and friends!
For more such amazing content follow Digilah