Optimization of the tools and processes with the objective of having a more capable, effective and productive workforce is key. The more focus on the tools, the more digital our strategy and program will be. Executing these strategies directly impacts the status quo of the organizational culture. In response to stirring the cultural pot, focus on outlining a traditional change management program that includes: communications (sharing the vision and reason for the change), and training (new knowledge and ability aligned with the new tools and processes) to minimize the risk to cultural impact and focus on quickly realizing the productivity benefits.

While communications and training are key to driving behavioural change, digital transformation journeys relying solely on these are setting themselves to a painfully long path to benefit realization. Organizations cannot transform to digital unless people do. These additional components should be added as part of the change management workstream:

Leadership

In the context of change management, leadership translates into three essential elements:

Executive sponsorship – This is fundamental to drive behavioural change. Executives should be actively involved in the execution of the strategy in an open and transparent way.

Community of Change – Identify people that embrace the change and empower them with the resources to be the promoters of change.

Coaching – Promote a conversational channel by enabling meaningful discussions and open forums, which allows you to listen to what your employees think about the change and tailor your strategy.

Embrace Resistance

Patience is a virtue, but it doesn’t necessarily mean to sit, wait and hope for the best. Where your modern workplace strategy is concerned, it translates into being constantly aware of the impact of the change that your strategy is creating. Adoption measurement and monitoring should become second nature. Find the metrics that can tell your transformation story as it evolves and analyze adoption metrics, defining action plans that will improve your adoption efforts.

Acknowledge and embrace resistance, as it has an inverse correlation with your productivity. Employees will show dissatisfaction and you might experience a tangible customer impact as well. Make sure you can identify, measure and counteract resistance as soon as it occurs. Be patient and let your strategy develop inside the organization. Learn as you go, and course correct as you see fit.

Inclusion

Many transformational strategies are being designed around one persona in mind: Millennials. Focusing on a generalized definition of a generation is a mistake. The basic reality of the millennial generation is that they have been living in a connected and digital world most, if not all, of their lives. Although they could become the most supporting group in the organization around your modern workplace strategy, an effective modern workplace strategy should include all employees in the organization. Target every person regardless of their digital maturity, enabling an inclusive modern workplace strategy.

Consider focusing on the Digitally Connected Employee persona to allow you to design your strategy for every employee. You can design skill development, training and communications suitable for multiple audiences.

Recognition

Identifying, rewarding and recognizing new behaviours is a fundamental adoption accelerator of your modern workplace strategy. Recognition changes are more an art than a science and timing is the most important thing. Consider the following:

* How do you reward new behaviours at the beginning when productivity decreases impacting the status quo?

* When is the right time to switch your metrics and recognition into the new model and dismiss any other old metric?

Like any other transformational endeavour, these success factors can’t be replicated as a recipe for success and immediate results. You will face challenges, resistance and failure. However, for every negative outcome, you are presented with an opportunity to identify, measure and set a new action plan to keep progressing transformation.

The post 4 Tips to Build an Effective Modern Workplace appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada.

With approximately 160 GDPR requirements ranging from how you collect, store and use personal information, to mandating a 72-hour notification for personal data breaches, it’s clear that your digital transformation journey is a key initiative to help accelerate the path the compliance.

We have categorized the impact of the regulation in 4 main areas:

GDPR digs deeper in requirements related on how to collect, store and use personal information. Not just by identifying and securing the data but also by instituting transparent mechanisms to detect and report usage, breaches and how you train your organization.

GDPR compliance will require your organization to rethink processes, providing opportunity for transformative change

Partnering with clients in their regulatory compliance has helped us identify three best practices that can help you leverage the opportunity GDPR provides for transformation:

• Combine GDPR compliance requirements with Transformational Programs – If you’re embarking in a program to transform client experiences, create a more productive enterprise, optimize your operations or transform your products/services, an opportunity exists to align your GDPR program and embed most of its requirements. If you’re leveraging the Cloud or in the process of migrating, you have a relationship with the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer and/or any other security and regulatory area in your organization. Don’t fear discarding synergies due to concerns of prolonging your cloud efforts. Show them that you are proactively addressing regulatory compliance and that you welcome them at the table of both initiatives.

• Effectively Communicate – All transformational initiatives require clear communication. Transparency and openness is at the core of GDPR. Leverage nurtured relationships and change management mechanisms. Team up with the security and regulatory areas to spread the message of the risk of not being compliant to every line of business. Listen and assess the risk profiles to allow you to focus on the right requirements.

• Programs of change need good Governance – Instituting the right Governance framework will allow you to collaborate and effectively execute any change required due to updates in the regulatory compliance or new data insights that you learn from your organizational regulatory health state.

Complying with GDPR to help customers succeed

Microsoft is already preparing all our products and services to comply with GDPR. We leverage the same synergies mentioned above and can add value to your GDPR journey in the following areas:

Simplify Your Privacy

Our cloud services offer the most streamlined way to meet your GDPR compliance obligations, with a simplified and complete approach to the governance of data and policies. We provide threat intelligence and tools to help you leverage that intelligence. If we are currently partnering in your Transformational journey initiatives, making us part of your GDPR Journey can amplify that relationship.

Uncover Risk & Take Action

Our products and services are fully GDPR compliant, and many of them can help you today in your compliance journey. Our data solutions can help secure and clean up your data environment, reducing your exposure to risk. We are leveraging our continuous delivery approach by releasing new tools that will help you.

You are not alone – utilize experts along the way

As the GDPR deadline draws closer, we are here to partner with you to identify any synergies and/or accelerators that you can leverage to achieve effective regulatory compliance. Just like any Digital Transformation program, monitor the cost of your GDPR program in detail and continuously challenge it against the quality and effectiveness that you are receiving. Find out how ready you are for the GDPR.

The post Can GDPR provide an Opportunity for transformative change? appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada.

Successful businesses have one thing in common – they began as great ideas. Some were so simple making people wonder why they hadn’t thought of it themselves and others so profound leaving people in awe of how the idea was conceived.

Fabulous ideas don’t always come easy. In fact, many people wonder how the inspiration is conceived, and better yet how to replicate that inspiration of innovation. What’s the secret? The next big idea is out there … so how do you spot it?

Solve problems

Ideas often stem from a problem that needs to be solved. Sometimes it’s one of your own problems, and other times it’s someone else’s. Look around and identify issues or inefficiencies that are visible. Think about how they would work in an ‘ideal world’ and what you would need to do to make that happen. Brainstorm and jot down all these ideas.

Look for trouble. What is irritating and annoying to people is potentially a goldmine idea that you want to explore. When you realize that frustrations are ideas in the making, you spark your creative side and allow for the fun to begin: innovation! Questioning everything you do will help you to recognize where improvements can be made.

Listen first, stop talking

Learn to listen. Listening to understand, not just waiting for your turn in the conversation, is crucial. This is your opportunity to learn and grow. Find out what people want and need, and most importantly find out why. If you’re not listening and understanding why, chances are you’re never going to come up with a solution to their problems. It’s important to listen to:

• Your customers – they’ll tell you what you need to improve and what you need to innovate
• Your employees – they’ll give you feedback related to improvements to your business processes
• Your competitors – what they’re doing/saying can form future strategic decisions on innovation

Collaborate to innovate

Tap into the ideas and expertise of all your coworkers. Your company has countless combinations of thinking and behaviour as well as other traditional elements of diversity such as age, gender and experience.  Collaborating to create better ideas allows you to use these differences to learn and grow from one another.

Staying competitive in today’s fast-paced world means that organizations must foster a culture of innovation from within.

Breathe life into your idea

When you have a great idea on your hands you can feel it. It keeps you up at night and gets you out of bed in the morning. But without proper execution, your idea has zero value. Learn more about the real value of innovation and find out how Microsoft Services can help you innovate.

Listen here to learn more on how ideas play an important role in every innovation program.

The post The Aha Moment: Find Your Next Great Idea appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada.

Technological advancements in artificial intelligence and cloud computing are fundamentally changing business models and industries. These changes are taking place at unprecedented speed. While managing programmatic change or optimization can be challenging enough, leading innovation and disruptive change on a regular basis is especially difficult.

Effective Leaders Embrace Disruption

In a world of emerging technologies, emerging markets and customer demands, innovation is imperative to keep your company relevant. Powerful leaders are not distracted nor fazed by disruption and they can measure their success and progress in the context of continual change.  For savvy leaders, the digital age – despite its challenges – has brought with it a revolutionary opportunity.

The best leaders welcome and encourage new ideas and models of doing business as well as innovative solutions to the toughest problems. It takes courage to leap into the unknown and encourage your employees to do the same.

Driven by Purpose

An EY-sponsored Harvard Business Review study found that organizations with a clear purpose drive innovation. Leaders that demonstrate that purpose through sound decisions and actions on a consistent basis are most effective in driving innovation. If they can connect innovation to the purpose of their organization, they show authenticity to stakeholders and are likely to have better performance and reputation.

Microsoft’s purpose and vision is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. This is possible only by continuous innovation. Great leaders who can sustain innovation recruit employees who are passionate about the purpose and empower them to drive it forward.

Encourage Intrapreneurship

One thing remains true for all organizations – the future is uncertain. Business models can be displaced by a new app, platform and technology. Leaders should look to disrupt their organizations by fostering an  innovation-culture, allowing employees to act like entrepreneurs within a large organization.

One way to support new ideas is by providing an environment that supports fast prototyping. At Microsoft, we run global Hack-a-thons that foster innovation at all levels of the organization, across roles and regions.

Welcome Diversity and Lead Inclusively

Leaders can’t generate new ideas and perspectives or leading-edge approaches without a diverse workforce. There should be a good mix of attributes on all teams: gender, background and qualifications. Diversity is good for business.

Achieving diversity through focused recruitment approaches is only half the battle. Leaders should lead inclusively to harness diversity for innovation and competitiveness.

Successfully Execute your Innovative Ideas

Great ideas are only as good as their potential to be successfully executed. Find out more about how you can pave the path to successful innovation within your organization by realizing Execution as the real value of innovation and disruption.

Listen here on how to measure the success of your innovation programs.

Reach out to us on our social channels to continue the conversation: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

The post Leading Innovation and Disruption Change appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - Canada.