Let’s do this excercise.
We want to give you five key points why organisations should turn to New Ways of Working in 2020.
To help you identify if your organisation is ready – do you finish the sentence:
“I want my company to have…”
with any of the following…?
- TALENT EXCELLENCE
- THE SPEED OF THE PIVOT
- DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AT SCALE
- ABILITY OF SMART ADAPTATION
- CONSUMER VALUE OVER SHAREHOLDER VALUE
Working patterns have changed. We are networked individuals, working in flatter structures who are able to work far more autonomously.
Given that freedom, our old hierarchical, almost industrial age of company structure is now breaking. You need to have been living under a rock not to notice that the companies of the future are all adopting New Ways of Working and Agile Methodologies into their day to day.
Not because of that freedom, but to harness the energy from a connected organisation. It’s now possible to have cross-functional collaboration like never before.
Some organisations are introducing New Ways of Working at scale across their whole global operations, while others are choosing to do it piecemeal team by team, division by division, territory by territory.
We asked a few of our senior team members from around the world, why organisations should turn to New Ways of Working in 2020.
We hope it may help you answer some of your questions as you consider taking your own organisation or division on the journey.
TALENT EXCELLENCE
Chelsea Bates is our Victorian Managing Director and Principal in the Melbourne office at ADAPTOVATE. Chelsea is a professional management consultant and has help Government clients introduce Agile thinking into their day to day. No easy task.
To allow government teams to be innovative and creative it takes individuals prepared to take on the traditional old school thinking and embrace enterprise agility. Last year she partnered with Madeline Oldfield within the Victorian Government and can you read about their journey in a 3-part series published on LinkedIn.
Chelsea says “New ways of working can help organisations both find new talent and retain their current talent by providing an engaging workplace for employees.
She continues “New ways of working also allows organisations to find productivity and efficiency gains by rethinking how work is approached and delivered.”
THE SPEED OF THE PIVOT
Our partner and co-founder Doug Ross believes “New ways of working focuses on the seed in taking an idea to market to test with customers.” He explains “If it launches well, great (you are in the minority), if it doesn’t launch well the speed at which you pivot and release an adjusted idea again is a large part of sustainable success in the 2020s.”
“The companies that reduce the cost of failure, win in over the long run.” Doug says.
The companies that reduce the cost of failure, win in over the long run. Click To TweetDIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Nate Nelson joined ADAPTOVATE last year as the Managing Director in the LA office of our US division. He has led numerous digital transformational efforts. Digital transformation has taken many companies by surprise. If they don’t make the change quick enough, they rapidly fall behind. And technology is moving fast. Nate explains “The pace of change is driving organizations to make better, faster decisions to stay ahead of the competition. Implementing ‘new ways of working’ in an organization is the engine behind this.” He says.
The pace of change is driving organizations to make better, faster decisions to stay ahead of the competition. Implementing 'new ways of working' in an organization is the engine behind this. Click To TweetWhich is an important distinction to reflect on. ‘New ways of working’ is not in and of itself the point. As Nate, says, ‘new ways of working ‘is the engine that will allow you to keep up with (or begin) the digital transformation that your company is embarking on.
In our Europe office, ADAPTOVATE senior consultant Slawek Koziol has extensive experience in executing strategic transformation in large companies. Slawek, an Agile enthusiast, explains why companies need to adopt new ways of working in 2020. “Global economic slowdown forces companies to look for more effective ways of working, iterative project financing and de-risking of delivery.”
He continues “Technology allows companies to grow and at an unprecedented rate. Dynamic competition and disintermediation put profitability margins under growing pressure.
Technology is prevalent and indispensable for any and all business. A growing number of businesses realize that fact and start to see themselves technology companies that also happen to provide certain business services at the same time.”
Only organizations with cross-functional teams that are able to iteratively develop and improve products and release them often will win.” He says.
ADAPTATION
“Adaption has become a matter of survival.” says Steve Walton, and ADAPTOVATE consultant who spent most of last year working in New York with one of our clients. Originally from Melbourne, Steve has worked with companies across the spectrum including tech, finance, energy and government.
Steve says “Companies can no longer afford to offer products and services which are not valued by customers. Traditional corporations which were not changing, have drawn down their reserves in both cash and reputation.”
Rachna Verma is a consultant with ADAPTOVATE in our Sydney Headquarters. Rachna specialises in leading teams to collaborate on problem solving and deliver solutions through Agile methodologies. She believes “The new year is a great time to start with a retro and deep dive into things that didn’t go so well and what could we do differently next time.
This neatly segues into defining actionable improvements,” she says, “voting via a dotmocracy and then giving it a go with a ‘test and learn’ approach.”
Rachna explains “Organisations will come to the realisation that their current ways of working are not delivering the outcomes that they need. You can’t do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.
You have to radically change what you are doing in order to grow, learn and see an increase in output.” She says.
CONSUMER VALUE OVER SHAREHOLDER VALUE
Turning to New Ways of Working becomes a business necessity Slawek believes. “What I personally hope for in 2020 is that more and more companies review their strategic approach and company-wide incentives and focus them around creating customer rather than shareholder value.” He thinks “that would prioritize longer-term sustainable and profitable innovation over short term financial goals.
Slawek says this bold move can set the company on a path of successful growth. This also means empowering nimble cross functional teams to deliver value that customers will appreciate. “That is what agile is about.” Slawek says.
[Editor’s note: our obligatory plug: ADAPTOVATE has experienced and provided service to all of the above scenarios. We coach and we consult, and everything in between. We are 100 percent client orientated to work with what will best suit the situation and organisational structure and challenge. If you are unsure exactly what you need, we can help tease that out for you, so please get in touch with any of the people tagged in this article. Ok plug over !]
