Building a Set of “Digital-Ready” Culture

Organizations large or small are on the journey for digital transformation, strategy making is important, strategy implementation is challenging, and one of the most critical business success factors is organizational culture, which can fail a good strategy. Culture is shaped based on policies, procedures, rewards and retributions that drive behavior and it is the employee behavior that expresses "culture." In order to drive a successful digital transformation, how to build a “Digital-Ready” culture?
Solution-driven culture: Digital breaks down silo thinking and inspires across-functional communication and collaboration in building a solution-driven culture. With status quo and overloaded ego, often leaders feel that they can only be the solution when in fact they are actually the problem in some situations. If the leader lacks that self-awareness of the impact they are having, how can they realistically reflect on their own role in the mix? Part of the challenge with situations like this comes down to the leader's maturity and self-awareness.  If they lack maturity, they might well recognize they are part of the problem but still fail to do anything about it. The good leaders focus on solutions, not on blame. They also encourage employees to do the same, focus on building capability and solving problems, reward true excellence, not mediocre or unprofessional behaviors. It is so easy to point the finger elsewhere and not look within. Just think of the time/energy/money wasted by this pattern of blaming others. Avoiding this pattern begins with a belief and understanding behaviors have ripple effects and that we all tend to be drawn into situations which force us to learn and grow, and culture a solution-driven culture to accelerate digital transformation.
The innovative culture: Digital is also the age of innovation. Innovation comes from the combination of need and culture of open to new things and better way to do things. It is important to build a working environment which stimulates creativity and streamline innovation management. Tie the innovations and the innovative culture to the organization's strategy. This ensures that innovations will be supported by management and by all stakeholders. What fuels creativity? It is a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Intrinsically, all humans have the level of curiosity, desire to learn and natural ability to maintain an open and inquisitive mind; extrinsically, we have the conditions of the environment in which we operate, with all the restrictions, the needs, the gaps and pressures that might push our creative minds to soar and also push the organization to put more emphasis on innovation management effectiveness. In reality, lacking a positive strategic intent towards innovation in large mature organizations can become an big issue; so it’s important to leverage management tools (policies, programs, and structures) for creating a culture of innovation.
The culture of inclusiveness: Digital is the age of people. Good management practice is the ability to harness the best potential of all human capitals in the organization. Inclusion would be a team where everyone feels comfortable sharing ideas and thoughts because everyone has a different perspective based on their cognitive difference, different life experiences, and cultural values. Inclusiveness needs to be well embedded into the business culture in a truly global organization, the beliefs, and the work needs to be sustainable--so the key is to embed the concepts and practical application, etc. into everything within the organization ranging from all people practices to engaging with the customers community, partners, leadership, etc. The focus of inclusiveness needs to focus on cognitive differences, skills, abilities and the wealth of ideas since the value lies in the contributions of the individual to the organization. These differences make the team stronger and will create a better product, service, and business brand.
Being digital-ready goes beyond taking the latest technologies. It is an overarching approach via building a set of “digital flavored” cultures and taking a series of systematic practices. Cultural change in an organization begins with the involvement of the top management and their commitment to change. These are particularly required during changing times to keep workforce open to innovation include a compelling future vision and the presence of transformational leadership; high organizational justice (trust); a participatory management style and organizational agility.

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