Now more than ever, leaders face increased pressure to accelerate digital transformation, this is not an easy thing to do during a time of crisis and when there is already a change fatigue. So “How can you drive results with speed & accelerate digital transformation?“
The answer: start small but powerfully with cultural hacks. They can be easily woven into an organization’s cultural fabric and serve as an effective way to encourage transformation without exhausting employees.
According to Gartner 2019 CIO Survey, culture is cited to be No. 1 barrier to digital innovations and transformation. Culture is big and hard to change. Big problems are not necessarily to be solved with big solutions. When it comes to Culture- we use culture hacks, it is a small change that exploits a single area where the culture is vulnerable to change. Hacks are small, emotional, and immediate changes that have big impacts.
know what you are hacking towards and be clear about the change you seek!
Here are real cultural hacks examples from Gartner research – The Art of Culture Hacking 2018
A CIO hacks meeting to make the new strategy real in the day-to-day.
It is common for CIOs to spend months building strategies with their teams, to only witness as none of it comes true in the day-to day activities.
One CIO decided to tackle this strategy execution problem with a hack.
A day after the department wide announcement that IT had a new strategy that would change things significantly, the CIO went from conference room to conference room, dropping in on meetings. In every meeting, he asked the same question: How does this meeting advance the strategy that was presented yesterday? Just about everywhere, the meeting’s participants were not prepared for this question and could not come up with a good answer. This is not surprising: In most cases, the meeting had been on the calendar before the new strategy was presented and people simply showed up.
No one had paused to think whether the meeting was still relevant considering the new strategy. And here is the critical part of the hack: Instead of simply warning the teams to think about how their future meetings advanced (or impeded) the strategy, the CIO instead canceled every meeting and waited while everyone filed out of the room. Not only was this physical cancellation more memorable; it also triggered people to think through their broader day-to-day actions more deliberately considering the new strategy, thus making execution of the strategy quicker and easier.
Cultural hacks are seemingly small acts that bring about big changes in everyday behaviors. The hacks create emotional responses quickly and visibly and they are not especially hard to execute.
Are they effective? Yes, indeed especially when you are being thoughtful about where and how to introduce culture hacks to accelerate the change you seek, making it real and emotional, and more memorable and lasting.
At Thynkli we accelerate digital transformation with cultural hacks to drive results with speed & propel the desired change in the digital era. Contact us to learn more!