No digital transformation without followership
Employees understand the meaning and purpose of digital transformation, but most of them do not feel part of this important process. This is a challenge for leadership that should not be underestimated.
In April this year, a representative study¹ commissioned by Microsoft Germany and conducted by YouGov was published on the subject of digital transformation. It showed that the majority of employees (60%) believe that digital transformation strengthens their company’s competitiveness. However, very few employees (11%) experience it as a collaborative process involving employees and managers. The CEO of Microsoft Germany, Sabine Bendiek, says: “The human factor is the most important in the whole debate about digital transformation. People will decide what really works in the future”. Companies are currently facing more technical than cultural challenges, but success is always a question of culture. Another finding of the survey is that only one in four employees feel that management or the board are the driving force behind the transformation. It is not the destination that causes problems, but the journey. Even in the VUCA world² companies seem to be quite successful in defining their change goals. The difficulty comes when it comes to giving meaning and certainty to all those involved in the change. The key challenge is to develop effective followership.
On a personal note, we have been using behavioural branding to align employees with the company’s brand values since 2003. Over the past two years, it has become clear that our experience in implementing brand values is also useful in digital transformation processes. What is needed are fast-acting concepts and measures that get people excited about and involved in technological change. Above all, however, we have been helping CEOs and managers for 15 years to inspire strong followership in their companies in an authentic, surprising and motivating way. Our systematic focus on the motivations of the target group pays off. What causes fear? Why does cooperation fail? What causes passive resistance? What signals, based on the existing corporate culture, can arouse ambition and passion? That is why we have decided to combine our core competencies in Behavioural Branding and Employer Branding under the umbrella of Corporate Culture. After all, a corporate brand is only really strong if it is a symbol of a shared corporate culture.
¹ YouGov surveyed 1073 employees and managers in business and public administration in Germany between 2 and 16 February 2018 on behalf of Microsoft Germany.
² Wikipedia on VUCA: An acronym for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. It describes difficult conditions for managing a business. The term originated in the 1990s at an American military academy and was initially used to describe the multilateral world after the end of the Cold War. It later spread to other areas of strategic leadership and to other types of organizations, from education to business. A strategy for survival in the VUCA world is also derived from the acronym: vision, understanding, clarity, agility.