VIEWPOINT
IS YOUR ORGANISATION A FIT OR A FRAGILE ONE? THE CIO AND CTO NEED TO BUILD A CONTINUOUS CULTURE OF LEARNING ON HOW TO USE TECHNOLOGY TO SURVIVE UNCERTAINTIES OF TODAY’S GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT, EXPLAINS RANJITH KAIPPADA, MANAGING DIRECTOR AT CLOUD BOX TECHNOLOGIES.
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hat is the culture of an organisation? Is it the value system of its top executives and the business formula for achieving operational success? Or is it the ability of an organisation’s workforce to utilise technology to adapt to fast moving changes outside and inside the organisation? Increasingly the latter is beginning to become associated as the culture of survival, especially after the enduring months of lockdown, entering the post pandemic phase, and now seeing no end to the volatility in the external environment Workforces need to develop the ability of being able to recognise uncertainty in the external environment and to plan for internal changes and restructuring. They need to be able to ask the question - is our organisation fragile and what can we do to make it fit? According to global consulting firm Gartner, a fit enterprise recognises uncertainty as an ongoing situation and is prepared to adapt and navigate its way successfully through the prevailing conditions. Often times such fit organisations even start accelerating in their growth along the way, through a combination of having the right insights, right skills and the right offering for end users at such times of volatility and turbulence. A fragile organisation on the other hand, with a weak culture of learning and adapting to uncertainty, typically slows down in such a prevailing condition of uncertainty and finally exits. During the last decade having a visionary management team at the helm, with a far reaching, forward looking strategy,
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CXO INSIGHT ME
NOVEMBER 2020
was believed sufficient for success by its shareholders. During those times the external conditions were not as volatile, the inflexion points on sales models determined by adoption of digital technologies was still in its infancy, and organisational culture was not a decisive survival criterion. All this is now history! Readiness to accept risk and failure and determination to find a new approach to survive the external conditions are now a critical part of the overall organisational culture. Managing a volatile external environment implies a workforce that has the ability to transform its skills. This is facilitated by an internal culture of learning and training, pivoting on insights derived from customer data. Such an organisation, whose workforce can flex and adapt to changing external demands and conditions is increasingly being looked at as a fit organisation. According to Gartner, more than 25% of fit organisations are built on a pervasive culture of learning. Moreover, the CIO, CTO and the IT organisation are not silent
spectators in this run up. Rather than driving the development of specific IT skills, these executives are responsible for building the process of continuing learning and how technology can help drive the business success of an organisation. So how do you go about it? Changing the culture is a huge task and bigger the task, the less likely that it will be successful. An easier way is to continuously think of how to break routines that define the culture, challenging the teams to adapt and find solutions. The secret is to find the weak spots in the culture, and break out changes wherever you can make the most impact. # Use real life examples and don’t just talk about data models. # Build proofs of concept and roll them out without delay. # Celebrate failures by discussing learning points. # Encourage every meeting to end with hard hitting questions. # Announce changes in an internal process and block all steps in the old process. # Do not offer answers to all questions, make the team think them out. # Do not announce collaborative status meetings, let project owners document progress and failures. # Set a cut-off time line for any decision and reward quick decision making. # Making a decision, even if it is a bad one, is better than no decision. By using a multifold approach around continuous learning and adaptation, regional enterprises can anticipate to remain fit and agile, rather than fragile and rigid.
