A featured contribution from Leadership Perspectives: a curated forum reserved for leaders nominated by our subscribers and vetted by the Construction Tech Review Advisory Board.
People’s United Bank
Leading To Compete In The Digital World
Manesh Prabhu
Instead, effective leaders should take on the hard task of acquiring, nurturing and developing talent, building the teams, and positioning the individuals to maximize their effectiveness, motivate and co-create the organizational purpose that everyone can rally around.
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
To achieve superior performance in a digital era, management has to think a new - keep abreast of modern methods of technology delivery, management practices and innovation such as adoption of cloud computing, containerization & micro-services architecture, low code platforms, robotic process automation etc. and act a new by modernizing delivery and operational practices thru adoption of Design Thinking, DevOps, Agile methodologies, upskilling and refreshing talent. The old adage of “the future belongs to him who invests in it!” holds true, investing in developing management competencies and leaders at every level is equally important as developing various digital competencies.
Every enterprise is unique in some ways: in its culture, customers, products/services, distribution networks, etc. The approach you will want to take in adopting best practices, tools and methodologies has to be done with the understanding that “Fit Matters”. In the very insightful Harvard Business Review article “Which of these People Is Your Future CEO?” Boris Groysberg, Andrew Hill, and Toby Johnson published based on their study of how military experience prepares managers for leadership, it provides a very interesting perspective on how different approaches maybe needed among organizations, or specific to functions and teams based on the identified gaps to reach one’s aspirational state.
The U.S Navy & Airforce tends to be stronger on process and lighter on flexibility, on the other hand, the Army and Marines are stronger on flexibility and somewhat lighter on process. The hypothesis is that the even a minor mistake can have devastating impacts on a ship, so is not reacting to fluid situations that are typical of ground warfare and missions Marines undertake. The key learning here is that Fit matters and we have to tailor our practices to the characteristics of the organizational situations we have.
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A goal that lies beyond the capability of the system cannot be achieved except by the constant improvement of the system, and driving the necessary change is the responsibility of Leadership
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” – Charles Darwin
Like a great football team that can outcompete with their ability to respond tactically according to the play on the field, high performance teams create the most valuable capability in any situations of change –“responsiveness”. It takes leadership to build high performing teams who can form the core of the organizational capability to delivery with agility. High performance teams are empowered to make tactical decisions, communicate effectively and are encouraged to let sparks of new ideas fly and formulate new solutions without risking interpersonal conflicts. The organizational capability thus created is: “Agility & Responsiveness”-a true competitive advantage to compete in the digital world.
