Research published in Harvard Business Review, reveals that less than 20% of companies have the necessary combination of digital leadership and management skills needed to navigate in today\u2019s hyper-competitive, technology enabled world. Even more telling, is that more than a third of the 432 organizations surveyed were in the digital laggard category, lacking in both digital leadership and management skills. 75% of these organizations weren\u2019t confident they could overcome the deficiencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Executives have often been heard to say: \u201cI don\u2019t know much about IT, but I do know it costs too much.\u201d But it\u2019s not knowing about technology for non-IT execs that matters, it\u2019s about digital fluency. Digital fluency is not the same as digital expertise \u2013 that\u2019s what the technologists are for. But modern executives must understand enough about technology, firstly, not to have the wool pulled over their eyes, and secondly, to make sound decisions about technology and its place in the business model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Resolving the \u201cwool over the eyes\u201d is easy, but it does require a little humility. Years ago, I was sitting in the office of my tech manager, whom I regarded as one of the most tech-savvy people I had met. His systems manager was explaining some aspect of a problem they were having, and my tech manager stopped him and said: \u201cLouis, I have no idea what you\u2019re talking about.\u201d It was at that moment that I realized that the tech field is so vast and complicated, that no-one can know it all, or even a substantial portion of it. So I adopted a simple strategy: when a techie wasn\u2019t making sense to me, I said so and asked him to explain again in business terms. If he couldn\u2019t, I asked him to come back when he could explain it so that I could understand. I still don\u2019t know much about technology, but I am digitally fluent. My tech team became business fluent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Digital fluency requires that executives are aware of technology trends and what they mean for the business. It is not difficult. All you need is to be able to search the internet intelligently. A simple search entitled: \u201clatest technologies that will affect business\u201d will show a list of search results that include artificial intelligence, the internet of things (IoT), and cybersecurity, among a relatively shortlist. Then another search, \u201cwhat does artificial intelligence mean for business?\u201d will return a list of articles covering AI for business. And that\u2019s it. A morning\u2019s work will get you up to speed \u2013 as far as you need to go \u2013 in the latest technology trends. Don\u2019t get involved in the technical details \u2013 you want fluency, not expertise. Another search on \u201chow is the way we do business changing?\u201d will generate articles like \u201c15 trends that change the way you do business,\u201d and \u201c6 ways business is changing.\u201d Many will be about how technology is changing business, because, well, it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Digital fluency also requires that you keep abreast of technologies that may help your organization perform better. Again, the \u201csearch on a phrase\u201d technique works well. For instance, searching on \u201chow technology changes the way we work\u201d will return many useful results. One can do such searches for \u201cstrategy planning software,\u201d or \u201cprocess optimization software,\u201d and you will become fluent in that topic quickly. Notice that I changed from \u201ctechnology\u201d to \u201csoftware\u201d – you could use \u201csolutions\u201d or \u201ctools\u201d – because I am looking for tools that will help aspects of my business improve. Also, once you have found a tool or trend that you would like to know more about, I find Wikipedia is a good source of background, history, and overviews. One thing you should look at, though, is something called Enterprise Architecture tools. Enterprise Architecture (EA) is one of the arcane technology disciplines that has been around since the 1980s, but in the last two years, it has changed dramatically. While the \u201cold\u201d version was used by corporate technologists to plan how their technology would meet business needs, the \u201cnew\u201d version is a business planning, simulation, and decision support tool. You can model your business, your customer journeys, your capabilities, processes, and technologies. The useful thing here is that you can then conduct \u201cwhat if\u201d analyses on your model, to assess the effects and financial implications of any move that you might be contemplating. Sort of like scenario planning on an ongoing basis, but it\u2019s available to everyone in the organization -most EA tools are regarded as the single version of the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, all you need to do is spend a morning searching the internet, and understanding the basic concepts of technology that can change your business, or that your competition is using, and you\u2019re sorted. See? You are more digitally fluent already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Takeouts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 20% of companies don\u2019t have the necessary combination of digital leadership and management skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not about knowing technology, it\u2019s about digital fluency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tech field is so vast and complicated, that no-one can know it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When a techie doesn\u2019t make sense, ask him to explain in business terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Digital fluency requires that executives are aware of technology trends and what they mean for the business. It is not difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Author – Barbi Goldblatt – Regional Executive<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Research published in Harvard Business Review, reveals that less than 20% of companies have the necessary combination of digital leadership and management skills needed to navigate in today\u2019s hyper-competitive, technology enabled world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whitepapers"],"acf":[],"_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","yoast_noindex":false,"yoast_head":"\n
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