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Dennis Mulder: How Microsoft Leads by Example in Digital Transformation

As many organizations continue to search for balance in the new digital landscape, leaders are faced with the mammoth task of managing both technological and cultural change. We speak to Dennis Mulder, CTO of Microsoft Netherlands, on leveraging data in digital transformation and the crucial role of leadership in creating a smooth transition to hybrid work.    

 
Gain more insights from Dennis Mulder’s panel discussion on accelerated growth in the digital landscape during the ME Executive Day in the Netherlands.
 

Many businesses are still finding their footing in the hybrid work environment. How can leaders ensure a successful transition into the hybrid work model?

The pandemic and change of expectations of a hybrid setup have changed the landscape quite dramatically. Companies that have gone through a digital transformation before the pandemic are really thriving now in this new world.   

But with a lot of economies opening up now, I think many companies are still looking for the right balance. How much work do you do from home? What do you expect from people? How does that play into the technology that you need?  

You want to be inclusive of the people who are working remotely and that’s hard if the majority are physically in the office. So that’s it, figuring out that balance and what it means for companies.   

I think the key here is that leaders need to lead by example. They have to show that sometimes, it’s ok not to be in the physical meeting room. Showing how the balance works out for them and being a little bit vulnerable about their own struggles is going to help bring comfort to people to make the decisions that fit them best. 

 

What challenges do organizations face when transitioning to a distributed enterprise? How can leaders overcome these challenges?

What we call the digital transformation process – where more processes and products rely on digital technology – is, in many ways, also a cultural change. People need to do things differently. And in general, people are open to change and are willing to change but they do not want to be changed. So, telling them to change does not always work.   

I firmly believe leaders need to lead by example, as I said. But another key area is to address the cultural change and take the time to make it a process.   

PROSCI is a change management methodology that talks about what people need to change. The fairly famous acronym is ADKAR – awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, reinforcement. So, why are we making the change in the first place? Why do I have to change? What do I have to know to change? Do I have the right skills?  

Procedures and processes are really changing. So cultural change requires a process to drive that change. 

 

How can businesses leverage technology to support this move towards a distributed enterprise approach?

In general, we don’t have enough developers to fulfill the needs of tech for all these companies. There’s a war for talent and companies have a hard time retaining tech talents. So, we need to adopt tools to enable more people to develop or build software.   

If your enterprise developers focus on exposing the data on building APIs to access core systems, often called systems of record, then you can do systems of engagement – more on the faster apps and web app experiences and other similar things.   

Customers also want to see innovation sooner, so if you have more people focus on those in an agile way, building on top of the core systems of record, provided that they are thoroughly thought through by enterprise developers, we can get more done. We can automate more processes ourselves instead of just relying on the IT Department.   

And for that, you have a lot of platforms for rapid application development, or what they call robotic process automation platforms. Low code is what it’s often called as well. These tools in our portfolio are really needed to support this move to this distributed enterprise.

 

What should businesses focus on when implementing cloud computing in their digital transformation process?

Cloud is a key foundation for the entire digital transformation. It is foundational because it allows you to level up. It allows you to focus on functionality over raw computing. It will make you more agile.   

But what you have to do before you broadly adopt it is to think it through. I always make an analogy with a city. If you want to build a city – in this case, the city is your application portfolio in the cloud – you do need to have electricity, sewers, roads, and utilities. If you just let people go to swipe their card and do some cloud, you will get a lot of integration issues and a lot of dead roads and dead-end streets.   

So, you need to have a central governance organization that hands out access to the cloud based on the knowledge that the receiving team will have autonomy but stay within the guardrails or rules of the company. It’s about finding the right balance between autonomy versus speed.   

In cloud, you’ve outsourced many things to the cloud vendor. There’s a shift in responsibility and that requires governance. Same with low code platforms. You do need to govern what goes where. It’s tempting to jump right in, but you’ll shoot yourself in the foot if you do.

 

How can organizations use data and technology to enable growth and ensure resilience amid global disruptions?

Data is the new oil, or data is the new gold, right? That’s what a lot of people say.   

The way I look at it is we have this notion called a digital feedback loop – the prongs are engage customers, optimize operations, empower employees, and transform products. Data is produced in all four areas, but all four areas can be strengthened with data from the other areas.   

For example, Tesla collects a lot of data from the car and their product in order to improve their manufacturing and customer support processes. So how can we take data out of a certain product to make employees better, for example?  

There are some bridges to cross, though, because often the operational data is owned by someone else. Same for product or customer data. This gets into data governance across the enterprise. It is another area that requires investment.   

Ultimately, combining these data sets and applying AI on top of it can get you a competitive advantage if you think it through well. Data becomes the centerpiece that you use for data-driven decision-making.

 

What are some key trends in technologies for 2022 and 2023?

A lot of companies are on this digital transformation journey. To me, it’s about how we can accelerate that. This is where things like AI and low code platforms come into play. How can we transform the entire organization to embrace technologies to drive change?  

From that perspective, it’s more about organizational change in many ways.  As a CTO, you would argue that I probably talk about tech all the time. But most of my conversations with customers and my equivalents in large enterprises are about how we can transform the organization and people, about changing people and how they think about things instead of the next great piece of tech.   

It’s still about people-process-tech. We’ve been saying that for many years. But I think it’s also about data. I talk about people-process-tech-data as being the core thing to think about and not seeing them in isolation. Instead, connect them to really become successful with cloud and open-source platforms.   

Sometimes mindsets are blocked. In certain organizations, a CISO department may restrict access in an attempt to reduce risk. But that’s the wrong way. To take the analogy with the roads, of course, you can enter but we keep you safe with guardrails and other capabilities.  Quite a few companies are struggling with finding the right balance. 

 

How can they overcome that hurdle?

I firmly believe leaders need to lead by example. They must create this fearless organization where experimenting and making mistakes is okay and not punished. Give people enough autonomy to figure things out.   

It’s more cultural than it is technological or anything else.  I think Microsoft is an example of where that works, and we’re still on that journey. It requires inspirational leadership and good examples.   

  

*The answers have been edited for length and clarity.  

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Danfoss eSteering Way: How Do We Work Without Managers?

Written by Vivek Menon, Senior Director and eSteering leader at Danfoss Power Solutions. 

 

One of the first questions I get asked when we talk about our self-managed journey is, how do we work without managers? And ironically, this question usually comes after the comment, “But no one tells us what we need to do, we are already self-managed.” 

My answer with a big smile usually is, well if that comment is true, then there shouldn’t be any problems. But what I have observed is that individuals are self-managed in their own tasks and accountabilities but not necessarily self-managed as teams. What I mean by that is, if there are differences of opinions on priorities, activities, directions, clashes of personalities or resources which are not resolved between two individuals, then there is usually an escalation to the manager or managers (if the two individuals belong to different line functions).

So, then the article’s headline question starts to form, and I see it as a question of how we handle these situations in a self-managed organization. When there is no manager or managers to escalate to how do we handle such issues which could be strategic, technical, commercial or people related? 

Answering this natural and pertinent question is part of going deeper into the “structure” from traditional hierarchy to self-managed. In the previous overview article Self-Managed teams – the Danfoss eSteering way, we spoke about how structure is one of the 3 elements besides “processes” and “mindsets” that need to be changed in this type of organization. 

 
Learn about digital culture in organizations: Join Vivek Menon’s panel discussion called Take the Risk, Fail Fast, and Learn: Enabling a True Digital Culture In Your Organisation at our exclusive event in Denmark, Digital Advantage.
 

To answer this question, I first go back to what key activities a traditional manager does. A manager usually must perform a mix of two key types of roles: 

  • Functional roles: This role usually covers strategic direction setting, goal setting, short-term prioritization, decision making, budgeting, functional conflict resolution, functional expertise or mentorship, KPI accountability, facilitating operational and governance decision meetings and keeper of time, history of decision and actions and follow up. 
  • People roles: This role usually covers people development, performance management, hiring and letting go, compensation, resource management, people conflict resolution, team well-being, reporting and administration activities. 

Now the first thing you need to understand is that whether you have managers or not, you still need all the above activities to be handled well for the success of a team. 

 

No manager does not mean, no management 

 

So, what we do in our self-managed organization is to split these key roles and activities into multiple roles and accountabilities. There are two key advantages of this approach a) Decentralization and empowerment into multiple roles and b) Breaks the myth of the manager as this all-knowing, all-capable person or individual. We all know it’s nearly impossible to find a person who is excellent in both the people management roles and the functional management roles equally or at the very least, can juggle both types of competencies effectively at all times. 

So, let’s break down the two types of roles and how we handle them in Danfoss eSteering. 

 

Functional Roles

 

For handling the accountabilities of a manager in his functional role, we took inspiration from Holocracy and Sociocracy 3.0. We split and decentralized the main functional accountabilities into 3 main roles: Lead Link, Facilitator, Secretary. We have taken the roles as described by the Holocracy and used them in our context as below. 

Lead Link

The lead link is the keeper of the purpose of the team and sets the future direction and priorities of the team/circle. He/she is also responsible for the KPIs or success metrics of the team and ensuring the right resources (people and money) are available for the team’s accountabilities. The distribution of roles within a circle is also the lead link’s accountability. Any non-delegated role or accountability also lies with the Lead link. 

Facilitator

It is basically the facilitator who is “running” the meeting and ensuring a non-hierarchical, consent-based decision-making process is followed in the circle. Here is a video describing how we run a consent-based decision-making process, inspired by Sociocracy 3.0. The facilitator proposes the short-term prioritizing of the topics, whether it be operational or governance meetings. It is critical to separate the role of lead link and facilitator between two different individuals as the facilitator is a counterbalance to the lead link role. This is especially true for teams that are starting from traditional hierarchies and a former manager is taking on the lead link role. 

Secretary

The secretary is the memory of the team. In this way the secretary is both responsible for capturing actions formed in the meetings, updating our roles and setting things straight when we do not recall what was decided or how a role or one of our policies should be understood. Anyone who has used the “power” of capturing meeting minutes as the main decision agreement knows the power of a secretary’s role. Where the facilitator drives the meetings, the secretary ensures that the frame for the meetings is optimal. That covers both frequencies, scheduling of meetings and selecting software for the team that ensures maximum collaboration. 

 
 

People Roles 

 

This is where we are creating our own replacement of the traditional manager accountabilities and are evolving them as we go along. Just because we don’t have a manager does not mean that we do not need people processes and activities. So, we have started to define roles that support replacing these accountabilities with new roles in the business. 

Sparring partner

People development is a very important topic for us. We believe every individual owns their own development path and goals. However, we see there is clearly a role needed to take the sparring with an individual and support in creating their development goals and the progress of these defined development goals.

However, what we saw as a limitation in the traditional way was that taking this discussion only took place with the manager and their employee. This we believe is limiting both the manager and employees. For example, cases where the desire for development for the individual is a new area or competency where the manager might not be able to guide in the right way.

A sparring partner is therefore a mentor/coach of your own choice, who is a facilitator of an individual’s development and who you feel comfortable discussing your own personal development. The sparring partner can also facilitate 360 feedback on the individual’s activities. We have cases where product-focused roles chose a mentor who can support them in developing into project managers. We have also seen that this is something that needs to be trained for both the sparring partner and the employee. 

New roles

Besides the sparring partner we have also developed new roles within eSteering team to handle the different people activities. One of the roles of a traditional manager is to hire people. For this very specific time-limited and outcome-based role, every team can appoint someone on a Hiring role for any new position that they want to fulfill in that team/circle. To add to it, we also have added the element of team hiring instead of individual hiring.

Another aspect of a manager’s role is to ensure the well-being of the team. Having a healthy workplace and a fun place to work is critical to employee engagement and happiness. For this, we have a Well-being role and they have taken the role further to form a team of CFO’s (Chief Fun Officers) and are organizing team events and activities.

Another key role that managers have is communication with various stakeholders. To cover this role, we have added multiple roles for communications internally and externally and we call them Bards. As we go along, we might have to define more such new roles based on the accountabilities.

Self/Circle

Besides the above-mentioned roles we have ensured that all other accountabilities of the former manager have to be covered by the circle and its purpose. Every individual is empowered to bring “tensions” to the circle they are members of. Tensions can be both an aspect of change for the better (what could be instead of what is) or concern like a conflict they are not able to resolve and get support from the team to move forward.

We have a Danfoss Behavior that we call – “Run the business as your own” and we live that spirit in eSteering. This means that everyone has an obligation to bring forward the tensions they observe and get support to solve them by following a consent-based decision process. Taking empowerment also means taking responsibility for problems and issues and managing them in a mature professional manner. This is especially true in cases of conflict between individuals.

These tensions are raised and solved in the meetings we have. We truly believe that when we can solve conflicts and solve issues in our personal lives, we should also be able to handle them in a good way at work too. We have also enabled our teams with extra support by providing soft skills training into conflict resolution, communication and facilitation and questioning techniques.

 

So, this is how we are currently working without a manager in eSteering

 

This requires team members to be able to consider topics beyond their own area of work and be open to helping each other based on their passions and interests. For all of this, transparency is the key so that people can support making the right decisions for the business. This doesn’t mean only easy or fun stuff, but also harder decisions when you need to re-prioritize activities or reduce budgets. Having said all this, we are still learning and evolving and probably need to work with more in specific areas to clarify further for e.g.: development paths. The good thing is that until we have defined it, we can still use existing processes for the same. 

And what about former managers? Well, for those who are passionate about the above specific roles, they are continuing to fulfill them as selected by the teams and those who prefer to avoid specific accountabilities or roles for whatever reasons can now take on new roles and accountabilities that are more suited for them. This splitting of people roles and functional roles is really something we believe is good for organizations and teams as not all current managers enjoy both sides of the roles and by splitting the roles, we enable breaking the myth of the all-knowing manager. 

 

 Continue reading Vivek Menon’s work on the Danfoss eSteering Way: 

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Rune Todnem By: How You Can Provide EPICally MAD Leadership

During these uncertain times, organizational leaders are under pressure to perform their best as the world moves into a more digitalized and sustainable direction. The development of technological literacy has become increasingly important, in addition to soft skills such as adaptability, agility and empathy.  

What challenges lie ahead of leaders today? What aspects of current leadership practices need to change? Rune Todnem By, Professor of Leadership at the University of Stavanger provides illuminating answers to these questions and more.  

 

The Greatest Leadership Challenge Moving Forward 

 

By argues that the main challenge lies in the very core of how we understand and practice leadership.  

“The greatest challenge is not globalization, COVID-19, digitalization or any other current event, but rather that we currently have a very narrow and limiting understanding of leadership.” He refers to the tripod understanding which consists of the relationship between leader and follower, and the delivery of shared goals. This concept, being the basis for almost every single leadership theory and practice results in behaviors that are traditional, conservative, and limiting.  

“It also leads to monopolizing the doing of leadership to a small group of individuals – who are in fact no more capable or ‘special’ than anyone else. Often, they just happen to be white, middle-aged men with privileged backgrounds. We are quite simply not as equal nor diverse which we so often like to think we are.” 

“We are tied up in an outdated understanding of what is leadership. This does not bode well as it prevents us from finding the best solutions to the challenges ahead.” 

Professor By dissects the tripod understanding of leadership further by explaining why ‘follower’ is not a positive word. He suggests it implies that “most of us do not have a mind of our own, cannot contribute independently, and require someone – a ‘leader’ – to push the start button for us to wake up in the morning.” 

Additionally, he argues that shared goals are often not shared at all. “These goals are decided by someone else in an organization for reasons of short-term profit-making and efficiency gains. Organizational members do not have any shared ownership of these goals because they were never discussed with them.”  

Therefore, it becomes very difficult to contribute to the delivery of such ‘shared’ goals as most employees can simply ask “Why should I contribute to something I don’t understand I was involved with or agreed to?” 

Addressing this challenge 

When By gets invited by an executive group to give a talk, he will first ask them for a definition of ”leadership.” 

“They end up not defining ‘leadership’ but ‘leaders’, in terms of their skills and characteristics,” he says.  

The solution to this challenge starts by understanding that leaders and leadership are not one and the same. Many leaders do not provide leadership, and many who do provide leadership do not perceive themselves as leaders. By says that people get surprised about this difference because “we were brought up in a society where it is suggested that leadership is something only leaders do.” 

Changing the language used to understand leadership is essential. By mentions that “there are alternatives out there” and recommends a 2008 study by Drath et al. on the DAC ontology which stands for Direction, Alignment and Commitment. To shed light on the DAC alternative, By has further developed the model in his recent 2021 article, Leadership in pursuit of purpose, calling it the Purpose, Alignment and Commitment (PAC) model. 

“Purpose is much bigger than just direction. Direction is something that can be changed in order to deliver on purpose,” he says. When leaders ask themselves “Why do we exist as an organization?,” it should encourage them to pursue purpose beyond profit, with proof suggesting such an approach will better support sustainable profits. More importantly, this can be aligned with individual purpose which is becoming increasingly important both in recruitment and retention. By suggests that organizations need to start focusing on providing people with a purpose rather than a bonus.  

 

What It Means to be EPICally MAD

 

A highlight of Professor By’s work is the concept of EPICally MAD as presented at TEDxStavanger:  

E for Energy:  

By likens human beings to a fully charged battery after a good night’s sleep. “Our batteries should be fully charged, and it’s up to us how we want to spend this energy,” he says. He reminisced about being a founding member of the Public Leadership Foundation (PLF), where responsibilities were allocated based on what provided members with energy. “For example, I’m not good with numbers but it energizes other people! So, they took that responsibility. The way we work, support and challenge one another should be done in an energizing way.” 

P for Purpose:  

“We all have a purpose in life. We just need to discover it – and the same goes for organizations.” By says that there is nothing wrong with making a profit. In fact, it is a necessity for organizations in the private sector. “We should acknowledge and adopt the power of profit AND purpose. Having a purpose beyond profit is a strength, not a weakness.” He adds that organizations can base recruitment, advancement and bonuses on such a purpose, a purpose which should “last for a minimum of 100 years and which is bigger than any new CEO.” Tables have been turned in the job interview setting, where candidates are now the ones asking hard-hitting questions on purpose. “They ask, ‘Why do we exist?’, ‘What are we doing to improve the environment?’, ‘What are we doing to improve diversity? Why should I work with you?’” 

I for Identity:  

By says that a lot of business schools take an approach of “being factories churning out people that are leaders who look and think the same”. “I don’t think it’s our place in business schools or in HR to tell people how to dress or which skills and characteristics we need to copy from some ‘great’ leader or another.” Instead, HR departments should facilitate people to become the best versions of themselves. Professor By suggests we forget about “transformational and transactional – yes, even servant leadership,” and focus on the production of Purpose, Alignment, and Commitment. 

C for Courage:   

“This is about the courage to be yourself and stand for your purpose and core values,” By says. He provides an example of a meeting when the topic of XYZ was being discussed. “You find yourself not knowing what is being discussed but everyone else – including those you later found out were as bewildered as yourself – are nodding along, nobody daring to ask questions because they’re scared of looking stupid.” It takes courage to ask, and it takes courage to support the first one asking if it isn’t you. 

Ally is a glue word and is about working together with others towards delivering on a common purpose. “We don’t have to be like-minded or come from the same background, but we’re allied in the belief of purpose.”  

Professor By hopes that the idea of everyone being EPICally MAD can be adapted into HR leadership development programs or employee induction programs in the future.  

 

Leadership is a Collaborative Effort

 

The University of Stavanger and the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU) were recently successful in their application for the UNESCO Chair on Leadership, Innovation and Anticipation. 

“We are integrating the concept of future literacy in the chair under Anticipation. It’s about anticipating different futures knowing it is not set and that we all have a responsibility making it what it will be.” 

In partnership with UNESCO, Professor By and the University of Stavanger, and NIFU hope this Chair can be used as a vehicle to work with a range of organizations in true partnership developing both leadership and leader development programs fit-for-purpose moving forward. The next stage of the project is to identify partners to design, run and test new leadership and leader development programs with. This project will also integrate the PAC model to help employees see the link between themselves and their organizations.  

When asked about the biggest lesson from the pandemic, By says that we all play a role in our organizations and society. “Performing leadership isn’t going to be successful if we continue to perceive it as a task only for ‘special’ individuals. We must expand our horizon and acknowledge leadership as a collective process where we can only achieve our full potential as individuals, organizations and society together.” 

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4 Critical Skills Of Banking Leaders Today

The banking industry is known for constantly innovating and evolving to meet customer demands and requirements in different financial climates. In 2020, banks were forced to make years’ worth of revamps to technology and business models in a short amount of time.

Crucial skills for leadership in banking

Strong leadership in banking is crucial in these post-pandemic times as it could make or break the entire organization. Here are 4 critical skills all banking leader needs to hone to navigate today’s everchanging financial landscape.

 

Forward-thinker

 

Visionary leaders are always on the lookout for new opportunities to elevate their organizations, especially during times of crisis. Since the pandemic hit, the banking industry quickly embraced technologies such as cloud computing, wearables, and AI chatbots, to enable a frictionless digital banking experience for customers.

Shanker Ramamurthy, Global Managing Partner, Banking for IBM states that cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to be key tech focus areas in 2021. “For the foreseeable future, banking will operate in a hybrid, multi-cloud world. Most financial institutions are in the process of transitioning parts of their workload from their data centers into a private cloud and into multiple public clouds.“

It’s worth noting that a major part of the banking technology vision now focuses on the use of blockchain, as it has the potential to solve the drawbacks in traditional SWIFT bank transfer and the client identification system.

 
Keep up with the latest banking trends at our exclusive events in the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany.
 

Technological literacy

 

A bank’s survival depends on how quickly it could respond to consumer needs by leveraging technology to update legacy systems and help employees adapt to working in the new normal.

Hugo Nájera Alva, Head of Business Development at BBVA Bancomer, shares that it is important for leaders to always be ahead of emerging technological trends.” Competitors are no longer financial institutions, but technology players,” he says. To get ahead of the competition, banking leaders must think outside of the portals of the finance mindset.

Digital banking has undeniably been one of the largest technological shifts in the finance industry. Banks are expected to grow digitally even more in 2021 and present the following trends:

  • Personalization: Consumers want instant access to information about their finances to make informed financial decisions with the impact of the pandemic. Future financial products should be customized to their needs to drive engagement and loyalty.
  • Automation: Banks will set up more autopayment features to make it easier for customers to pay bills on time and help them reach their savings goals.
  • Real-time payments: The use of cash will slowly dwindle this year with the rise of contactless payments and e-wallets.

Technology is the game-changer in modern banking institutions. A keen eye on the latest trends and technologies will enable leaders to gear up for forthcoming challenges in the industry, simultaneously introduce new solutions to existing problems and revolutionize the banking experience at large.

 

Adaptability and Agility

 

Banking leaders need to adapt to current times and grow a mindset rooted in flexibility and agility. Many aspects of banking are in a state of flux— the viability of the branch bank model, future technological adoptions and changing customer demands, among others. Stepping out of tradition is vital given the rise of disruptions such as fintech start-ups, cryptocurrency and banking-as-a-service (BaaS).

According to Ramamurthy, “70% to 80% of all the bank tech spend is for middle and back-office operations. Maybe 20% is spent on the front end, what we call the customer-oriented, multi-channel ecosystem.” The banking of tomorrow will invert that ecosystem, as technology will be primarily used to service customers and their respective needs.

There will also be a focus on cybersecurity given the abundance of sensitive data collected in digital banking. Deloitte’s 2020 Digital Banking Report revealed that organizations are prioritizing investments in privacy and security solutions more than any other technology.

 
Don’t miss out: Connect with like-minded finance leaders at our banking-focused events in the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany.
 

Strong Empathy and EQ

 

Banking leaders must not lose sight of the most important asset of their organizations, which is their employees. The mental health and wellbeing of employees have been brought to the forefront as the negative effects of the pandemic have taken a toll on many emotionally and physically. Immediate branch closures, shrinking revenue and preparation for a hybrid work environment are huge changes that can cause a lot of stress — potentially affecting job engagement and productivity in the long run.

A good banking leader should be able to help his employees regulate and navigate these emotional challenges. According to Gartner, 68% of organizations have already introduced at least one new wellness benefit to help improve their employees’ mental health. Additionally, banking leaders must restructure working environments to prioritize job satisfaction. For employees to deliver an effective customer experience, they should have a work culture where employee experience is given due importance.

The transformation of leadership in banking is defined by these four skills for banking leaders, and is essential to guide employees and customers into the future of banking.

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Cilla Benkö, CEO of Swedish Radio: The Evolution of Leadership in a Post-Pandemic World

Radio is regarded by many as a trusted source for reliable news, especially during crisis situations. Cilla Benkö, Director General & CEO of Swedish Radio, Sweden’s biggest radio broadcaster says: 

“Radio [has a] very important task of covering the pandemic and informing the public – while also reducing the risks of infection spreading and keeping our co-workers healthy.”  

Not only is Benkö a recurring international speaker for topics such as public service media, she is also passionate about freedom of expression, digital development and leadership. For those reasons, Management Events is thrilled to share her perspective on change management, redefining managerial roles, tech adoption drivers and challenges, and female representation in leadership teams.

 

Overcoming Change Management Hurdles  

 

Organizations are going through major changes right now, and change management is often a challenge. Was it a challenge in your organization as well, and how did you address it? 

Well, the answer to that is both yes and no. As a media company, with the journalistic trade at the very core of our organization, our co-workers are naturally interested in changes and trends surrounding the world. A big challenge, however, has been bringing the company together and keeping over 2,000 people, working from places all over the country, updated and aware of which changes in the ever-changing world are going to affect us. But also, to get everyone involved in what we need to do collectively to meet these changes, in order to get as equipped as possible for the future.

 

Some of the changes include the introduction of remote work for certain employees and the modification of schedules to cover breaking news related to COVID-19. The technical simplicity of radio is an advantage that allows stations to broadcast regularly and is flexible enough to include dedicated programs and podcasts about the pandemic.  

 

 Redefinition of the Manager Role

 

Businesses across industries had to adapt a lot in the past year – it’s not only the change in processes and technologies, but also the mental stress. In your opinion, how has leadership changed during and post-pandemic? Has the role and even definition of a manager been redefined? 

I must say that I have been incredibly impressed with the managerial level at Swedish Radio during these very challenging times. All over the company we have seen proof of enormous flexibility and creativity, finding new and smart solutions to new and existing challenges in connection with the pandemic, but also with the digital work environment that has been made a permanent part of everyday life. For managers, this has also meant finding new ways of securing collaboration, social structures and mutual learning within working groups. 

 

Forward-thinking change managers must redefine the concept of change management for their organizations. Change management initiatives are more likely to be met with clear communication and employee participation from the start. This is supported by Shona Elliot, best-selling author and executive management & leadership consultant, who highlights the importance of leaders prioritizing their employees and building a people-centric culture. 

 

Key Drivers and Challenges with Tech Adoption

 

What key challenges do you usually see when it comes to technology adoption, from the change management perspective? And how can these challenges be solved? 

The editorial environment is fast-paced with limited room for practical obstacles – so time is of course a key challenge. It’s therefore important to ensure all technology is adjusted to suit the actual needs of the organization and that the implementation of new technology and ways of working always comes with support and is scheduled, communicated and planned properly. Another key challenge for Swedish Radio is, of course, budget limitations that always makes it a necessity to prioritize.  

 

Results from Management Events’ survey on COVID-19 impacts on businesses reveal that revisions of budget and business strategy are the top focus areas for organizations in ensuring the smooth continuity of their operations. In addition, 59% of business leaders in Europe are reworking their budget plans and predictions, followed by a revision of business strategies and goals.  

In terms of tech adoption challenges, surveyed CHROs in Management Events’ Executive Trend Survey named the following — lack of the right training and skills, integration with legacy systems, and a culture that does not embrace experimentation.  

 

In your opinion, what are the key drivers for technological innovation today? How does it reflect in your organization? 

It is most definitely the way of working with multifunctional teams, where many different competences work together to find a solution that best meets the needs of the organization.  Technology must never be developed just for the sake of technology itself. At Swedish Radio, we have made innovation and technical development a priority, and that has equipped us well to cope with the unexpected – like the coronavirus pandemic. 

 

The need for innovation and technical development has been accelerated by the pandemic, pushing leaders to adopt new approaches for workflow processes in the shortest timeframes. In today’s remote working conditions, businesses need to remain efficient and prioritize quality over quantity. 

 

Women in Leadership

 

You were recently listed as one of “The most Powerful Women in Business Sweden”. What advice can you give to aspiring female business executives on growing in leadership roles? 

Never forget to listen, and especially remember to have respect and listen to those not agreeing with you. For me, it is crucial to make sure that an organization is brave enough to have as many perspectives as possible in ongoing discussions. One must never be afraid of debate. On the contrary, it’s key to success. Also, always allow people to make mistakes and learn from them. There is nothing more toxic to creativity than a fearful work environment. 

 

Did you know that women represent only 19.3% of executives and 7.9% of CEOs in publicly listed companies across the European Union?   

Women in the workplace have been negatively impacted during the pandemic and are more likely to have been retrenched. With closures of schools and daycare centers, women who still had jobs struggled to juggle childcare responsibilities and managing households. It is no wonder as many as two million women considered leaving the workforce in 2020.  

Less women working mean less women in leadership positions, and the financial consequences of this could be significant. Research by McKinsey & Company stated that company profits and share performance can show a 50% increment with strong female representation at C-suite level. 

Fortunately, some countries are paving the way for women empowerment in the workplace. According to PwC’s Women in Work 2021 report, Iceland, Sweden and New Zealand are leading the pack when it comes to closing the gender pay gap and increasing the number of full-time female employees.  

The definition of key leadership roles will continue to evolve as workplaces become more digitalized. Forward-thinking leaders need to embrace and adopt new innovations, provide employees equal opportunities to grow, work on building a diverse and inclusive team and most importantly, be unafraid of change. 

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600Minutes Human Resources Highlights: How HR Support Leaders Through The Pandemic

Our recent Norway 600Minutes Human Resources virtual event revealed deep insights from top HR executives as they navigate the implications of COVID-19 alongside their C-level counterparts.

During the breakout sessions, CHROs communicated how the HR function “is now more clearly and centrally located in the organization, compared to before the pandemic, and has been essential in supporting leaders during this difficult period.”

 

THE POWER OF COMMUNICATION

 

 

As companies implement working from home to curb the coronavirus infections, leaders are facing communication problems even though there are resources and tools for easier collaboration.

The event participants expressed that there needs to be more active communication in the company.

An HR leader remarked that managers must ensure that information to employees is read, and not just sent out. “Use apps or other platforms instead of just email. Leaders should encourage dialogues with employees continuously, even with laid off employees.”

Other participants also agreed with the statement, with one conveying that leaders and employees should have regular contact with one another, and plan for walks or lunch together.

“Communication is a key factor for success,” stressed a top HR executive, who also mentioned that there should be a close collaboration between the HR and Communications teams to make necessary joint decisions.

Others chimed in, explaining that information packages from the Communications team, such as regulations, restrictions and recommendations, need to be clear, and sent out to employees to help them obtain important information.

One participant voiced out that any and all information must be communicated. “Even if there is nothing new to inform, inform about it.”

 

LOSING ‘CONTROL’

 

As companies temporarily close their offices or establish shift groups, some leaders are finding it harder to manage and oversee their teams due to distance working.

“Managers are insecure about their own and the team’s deliveries,” explained a participant. “They feel that they have lost ‘control’ over the team.”

From another point of view, the work-from-home situation empowers employees to be more independent and take accountability for their tasks.

An HR leader revealed that, “The team themselves have more control over their own work today, and manage themselves more.”

The other participants reiterated the sentiment, emphasizing on trust between managers and team members.

“Control-based management works poorly,” expressed a CHRO. “Trust-based management works better.”

“Trust the skills available in the organization,” declared another. “Dare to trust the decisions that are made, and stick to them without hesitation. This contributes to a strong trust foundation in the organization.”

An HR executive advised leaders that, “During times of uncertain future and challenges, the individual must reflect on how we can lead ourselves, not just our employees.”

 

FORMALIZE THE INFORMAL

 

A rising concern among those working from home is the increasing number of meetings, which have led to Zoom fatigue. Yet another worrying issue is the rise of informal meetings in non-work settings.

“It’s important to facilitate informal meeting places, not just the formal ones,” expressed a participant. Whether the meeting is held in the office or in a cafe, agreed meetings should be ‘to the point’ and agenda-focused.

A top executive disclosed that, “A method that is useful for many to find an informal meeting place is to establish ‘walk and talk’ as a principle.”

Leaders have to remember that all business-related meetings, regardless of its settings or formality in this new normal world, should still follow the same protocols as an official work discussion.

 

Discover more insights by joining our HR events in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Finland, and Norway.

 

MENTAL HEALTH

 

From feelings of anxiety to increased workload and higher pressure, the pandemic has brought many mental health impacts on workers and employees across the industries.

Among the topics discussed in the breakout sessions, mental health was one of the topmost concerns among the CHROs.

The event attendees believed that organizations should provide materials on how to work with mental health, and to accommodate individual needs.

For instance, an executive suggested that organizations “create a culture with openness about workload and pressure. This is so we can make adjustments when there’s a need, and when it’s difficult for the leader to have an overview of the situation.”

“But what are the boundaries of corporate responsibility for mental health?” one participant questioned.

While some companies have mental health as part of their corporate social responsibility, it’s still a difficult topic to bring up due to stereotypes of the illness.

One participant advised that, “Although it’s more efficient to work from home, you need to book some ‘free time’ as well.”

Thus, a number of the HR executives recommended a few steps for leaders to help reduce their team’s mental stress:

 

  • Make themselves available and set aside time for talks;
  • Create support communities and groups so that the team members don’t feel that they are alone;
  • Recommend apps with meditation or that helps with stress relief; and
  • Celebrate occasions and events together, such as birthdays.

 

To elaborate on the last recommended step, the HR leader explained that there should be “various virtual gatherings, such as virtual expert breakfasts, coffee breaks or lunches.”

Additionally, the leader commented that the gatherings should be held continuously, both unconditional and voluntary, but that mandatory sessions with a learning purpose, like workshops on various thematic areas, should also be arranged.

 

WORKING RESILIENTLY

 

The HR function is the backbone in every business concern, and with the outbreak not fading away any time soon, CHROs are standing together with their fellow C-suites to lead the organization with equal value for all employees.

Depending on the country the organization is located, HR executives have different rules and things of importance to keep in mind. But as mentioned by the HR participants, they are trying to keep track of everything and ensuring what’s best for the employees.

“As there are many uncertainties,” expressed a CHRO, “we need to continue to work with resilience.”

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New Times, New Journeys for Talent & HR Leadership

Empower_Growth_Through_Data-Driven_Customer_Experience

Innovation in HR has always been the key focus for organizations in discovering and adopting new solutions, improving workflow and productivity, and to innovate and excel. In today’s COVID-19 world, Maistering BV’s Chief Sales Officer (CSO) Venkat Iyer (Markets, Sectors & Domains) understands that innovation in the HR industry is needed now more than ever to remain efficient in these new times.

 

The Focus Of Innovation In New Times

The role of HR leaders has always been to be at the forefront of innovation. From innovating workflow processes to adopting intelligent solutions and creating a better employee experience, HR leaders are pivotal when it comes to innovation and business improvement.

However, the current crisis has pivoted the outlook for HR leaders, pushing them to adopt new approaches for workflow efficiencies in the shortest timeframes. Especially in today’s remote working conditions, businesses need to remain efficient and prioritize quality over quantity.

For Iyer, the key points of focus that HR leaders need to be aware of can be summed in three major points:

 

1. Promoting digitalization and increasing productivity by understanding how technology can improve the workflow of people in the organization.

2. Shifting from complicated processes to simple ideas. Simplicity in HR can also mean leveraging distributed intelligence from the employees and efficient use of AI solutions.

3. Engaging the external workforce in an agile and unprecedented way. As remote working becomes the norm, skills become readily available in the digital marketplace, and HR needs to adapt to tap this availability for business needs.

 

The shift towards new technology and digital platforms is a necessary shift for HR leaders. Despite traditionally focusing on innovating processes, employee experience, and talent identification, Iyer says that the “current situation has encouraged us to look at digital connections among employees, simplify processes, and leverage skills in a digital marketplace.”

 

Adapting To Change And Innovating In HR

In the ‘new normal’, HR leaders cannot rely on the traditional ways of managing organizations. While Iyer points out that HR leaders have been quick to “introduce and manage change consistently over the past years”, the current situation demands an environment that is more driven by technology.

 

“Adopt AI services and solutions, embrace the cloud, and live in the virtual employee realities by introducing digital methods,” notes Iyer.

 

As these are business priorities for organizations anyway, Iyer believes that leaders can adopt these new methods and ride the wave while still keeping past priorities in check.

Of course, leadership will play a key role in fostering innovation, and Iyer highlights how most HR leaders are addressing the challenges through a familiar process of “defining the problem, addressing the variables that make it complicated and agreeing on the best way forward.”

However, in these ‘never normal’ times, Iyer believes that HR leaders need to adjust and develop a new core capability: a simplicity mindset.

With HR now working around the clock, to be truly effective, Iyer mentions the need for leaders to embrace the mindset of collaboration and simplicity, foregoing the traditional linear thinking and embracing a collective intelligence where the organization is the team.

 

Prioritizing The Digital Transformation In HR

With the new challenges faced by HR leaders today, the journey towards organizational improvement has shifted towards digital transformation and solutions.

Iyer points out that for HR leaders to be at the top of their game in these new times, they need to embrace digital transformation and start new journeys in utilizing effective but simple tools to tackle complex and complicated problems.

The three key technologies that Iyer believes HR leaders should prioritize are:

 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)

Chatbots have been part of HR systems for quite some time, helping to answer employee queries. But it’s time to step up the game via managing change, tracking employee emotions to help with health, seamless collaboration and open information exchange, aligning to business goals and tracking KPIs, and creating an impact – AI can help vastly in all of these.

With services available today in many areas that embrace the digital workplace and workforce, HR leaders should step up on AI adoption.

 

CLOUD

Only a few years ago, companies were discussing the benefits of systems such as the cloud. Today, they have embraced it.

Cloud-based systems are being used more and more for a variety of reasons, and the same is true for HR platforms and solutions as well. The possibility of being able to manage and complete work through a digital platform has allowed employees not only to do the job much faster, but most importantly, it has allowed for significantly increased earnings.

The use of cloud-based platforms also brings about numerous benefits such as reduced costs, greater and easier access, predictability and availability, and better reach.

 

COMPLEMENTARY PLATFORMS

In addition to core HR platforms that companies have adopted, the need for additional services that complement these massive platforms, and how it can be quickly integrated and used become increasingly important.

Solutions that improve collaboration and ideations, connect to external workforces, match talent with availability, organize and orchestrate HR journeys, measure impact, and are more predictable are vital to companies.

 

Establishing A Culture of Innovation

Iyer emphasizes that HR leaders today need to adapt and learn new methods in cooperation with employees, business partners, and stakeholders to foster a modernized culture of innovation.

 

“How can you create and maintain a culture of innovation when almost all of your workforce is working from home?”

 

Facing these challenges should be at the center stage for HR leaders. For Iyer, it’s important to adapt to the digital workplace while still ensuring that innovation contributes to both the employee experience and business needs of the organization.

To do so, Iyer believes that the following 3 methods should be considered by HR leaders to cultivate the innovation mindset in today’s digital workplace:

 

  • Create new behaviors that reflect not just your company values, but also the current digital workplace style
  • Spawn global and virtual digital ideation sessions
  • Capture and share learnings and ideas openly

 

All of these can be achieved by having a digital platform that complements the existing HR solutions in the organization. New times call for new journeys for sure, but technology today can help to make those journeys magical.

Maistering BV understood this and created the unique platform Master Collections. It addresses this topic by providing leaders the ability to run magical business journeys with essence, beauty, and impact in a way that classical HRM systems simply cannot.

 

Innovating Towards The Future Game Changers

The changing workplace requirements have caused a major shift in all industries, and for Iyer, there are several game-changers that HR leaders need to prioritize to maintain innovation.

In essence, the three major game-changers that HR should focus on are:

 

  • Prioritizing Re-Learning and Re-Skilling: HR leaders should now focus on re-skilling their potential employees to make them efficient and equipped with the skill of multitasking. Learning & Development would take place in a new digital collaborative platform.

 

  • Quality over Quantity: Taskforce optimization, performance management, and talent identification will all focus on top talent and work, which also mean that hiring and role filling will be different.

 

  • External Workforce Management: The pandemic has also exposed a wide variety of available talent, which few have looked at – temporary workers, contractors, project-based hires, and deliverables-based work packages. This also necessitates the need to have systems that can adapt and accommodate externals quite easily and consolidate content and let them collaborate seamlessly with existing employees.

 

The path towards innovation has changed tremendously due to the pandemic. Businesses and organizations need to undertake new journeys for talent & HR leadership to achieve a culture of innovation. With their platform, Master Collections, Maistering hopes to navigate leaders and businesses into the new times with the right tools.

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Master Your Digital Leadership in Finance

Finance among organizational functions is unique in the sense that it spans all areas of a business. However, a new digital economic infrastructure and the tools to accompany it are being built with advancing digital technologies such as Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). What this means for financial innovation is that rapidly evolving technology and the full realization of the value of data are the current drivers developing the digital economy.

 

Consequently, finance leaders must adopt an all-inclusive view of their transformation across the organization. The effective finance leader needs to remain up to date by ensuring that they are conversant with the trends in technology and identify how they apply to create or support the company’s sustainable competitive advantage.

Trends and What It Means to Businesses and C-suite

Thinking about popular innovative leaders, one would be hard-pressed to remember or find a CFO on a shortlist, with most generally, seeing the CFO as the proverbial bad cop, with a bias for short term top and bottom line, depriving the creatives in the enterprise of oxygen, and subsequently killing innovation.

 

Fortunately, in the digital era, the CFO should maintain focus on the value equation: less cost, more revenues, and more margin. Thus, the caricature of the nay-saying bean counter does not apply to a holistic CFO. The digital CFO understands that the right type of innovation will, in the midterm, lead to all of that.

 

“Assuring innovation is tied to value thinking. Assuring creativity is not equal to Russian roulette. True innovation ultimately leads to superior financial performance is a mantra of the modern CFO.”

– John Brahim

 

“Digital” encompasses a set of trends and opportunities that belongs to the C-Suite. It thus should not be viewed as in contradiction of the long-term strategic focus on innovation and or delivering on the next reporting period. The CFO, as the guardian of value thinking, has a vital role to play. Such as Investment Allocation, Risk Mitigation, and Sharpening benefits cases.

How to Manage Innovation and Change

Change is inevitable, and just as the famous quote by Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, “The only constant in life is change.” Change affects us all, and we deal with each new change differently. There can be no innovation without change and vice versa.

“Make it tangible. Sure, innovation is about soft things like culture and freedom; however, sooner rather than later, it should shape up in concrete Journeys. The CFO can lead the way by focusing on 3 levers for innovation: automating the enterprise round 3, embracing analytics day to day, being digital as a way of life.”

As technology progresses and new solutions become available, the needs of financially vulnerable individuals or businesses need to be kept in mind. Players from various sectors can propel innovation effectively when they partner across sectors and keep the needs of financially vulnerable people at the center.

  1. Automating Enterprise Sequel 3

    Firstly, the hard part of the back office was automated. Softer operational processes closely followed this. Where thanks to a combination of Cloud, AI, and Visualization technologies, the third automation wave will go beyond mere operations and transform the tactical layers, augmenting those that orchestrate the enterprise.

  2. Embracing Analytics

    The past saw financial functions providing curated historical data to the enterprise. However, current trends show people clamoring for real, actionable, and predictive insights. Fortunately, enterprises only require two components to achieve this: the right tools to capture and analyze Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to deliver more contextual and human answers.

  3. Being Digital

    Taking an enterprise digital requires a lot. For starters, the enterprise’s mission, value proposition, and business model will be affected. It will be a series of journeys requiring a dissimilar culture, new skills, different governance, and a new way of working. The mission and way of working have to transform for the CFO to assure financial health, allocate assets rightly, and mitigate risks amid novel volatility.

Remaining Relevant in the Eyes of Your Stakeholders

From a financial perspective, we can deduce that innovation requires proper budgets and timeframes. Smart financial constraints and deadlines do not impede but accelerate creativity by fostering a sense of urgency and focus. As the CFO, you play a vital role by operating with independence and critical empathy.

Cloud ComputingThis translates to creating measured freedom from business-as-usual rules, especially when it relates to funding, contracting, hiring, and reporting. The company can expect significant breakthroughs provided the CFOs know how to exercise their levers to empower and encourage innovation by understanding which rules to relax and which to follow. In this sense, a holistic CFO can validate how ideas outside of the current business logic may be worth pursuing.

CFOs are often being asked by their CEOs to assist in enabling digital innovations in their companies. As the gatekeeper of a data-rooted, value-seeking business model, the opportunity for CFOs is not so much to play the role of a skeptic but rather to be the voice of reason. Similarly, because CFOs can logically relate innovation to key business drivers, they can also engage with the innovation teams as the individual guiding them to a “Yes.”

CFOs: learning from innovation-driven leadership

Brahim shares one of the first things that CFOs need to be inspired to formulate a digital mindset for their own basic processes. Going digital touches all classical financial processes, changing everything from core accounting and treasury management to fraud detection and KPI reporting.

 

Secondly, established CFOs should take cues from the new generation of digital leaders about more effective and efficient means of collaborating internally & externally. Understandably, changing one’s working style will significantly drag a leader out of their comfort zone than intellectually absorbing the intrinsic contents of the new digital journeys.

 

Thirdly, AI should pervade the entire enterprise. CFO’s who were not raised with this technology must be willing to get their hands dirty, learning how to apply AI in their daily play. On the positive side, this makes them a better role model whilst signaling to their team that nobody stays behind.

 

This is all easier said than done. Fortunately, Maistering’s platform, Master Collections, brings all of these together in an entirely new set of services. It offers a completely natural means for CFOs and other C-suite members to adopt a digital way of working. Unlike classical ERP applications, the platform adapts organically and does not require a heavy wall-to-wall implementation. Within weeks a CFO and her team will easily engage in digital or other innovative journeys using Master Collections.

 

Digital Transformation

 

The Immediate Future of Finance Function

The finance function is set to experience the biggest era of transformation. Requiring a balance of solid technical knowledge and data science, as well as a deep understanding of the business itself. Digital and AI innovation spread from the consumer to the enterprise world so that most experiments will start with sales and marketing functions.

 

However, there will be as many use cases in production, logistics, HR, and so on. Finance will be no exception, but like all others, will wrestle with its own strengths and weaknesses in culture, talent, practices, and assets. To a certain extent, the CFO will be catalyzed by her own ecosystem as the surrounding world of accounting, funding, collections, tax, and compliance is bracing for deep impact from AI themselves.

 

In the past, enterprises were shaped by processes. However, Brahim believes that the largest impact will undoubtedly originate from leader augmentation by the more practical AI and not the mythical deep stuff.  Thus, our century will experience enterprises shaped by leader orchestrated journeys.

 

““Augmenting leaders in how they orchestrate Journeys, taps into a formidable business case. Imagine all those digital and other Journeys that a CFO or her peers in the C-suite undertake, becoming faster, richer, and more impactful. There is simply no better business case in modern enterprise than that. Surprisingly enough, Master Collections is a first mover when it comes to “augmenting masters”, as we call enterprise leaders, on their Journeys.”

– John Brahim

 

Ultimately Brahim believes that competent CFOs know how to co-shape journeys, create processes beneficial to the entire business, and make others successful. Master Collections as a new category platform offers CFOs the perfect toolset to engage in digital journeys and naturally fosters the synergies with the C-suite peers and others that require guidance and empowerment from the digital CFO. This is where the future lies for the new digital CFO.