By Insight UK / 7 Apr 2020 / Topics: Mobility
Getting fit is at the top of many people’s to do lists, but have you considered improving the fitness of your business? Now could be right time to make sure your business is robust enough to rise to the challenge of managing change.
Personal trainers will advise you, the fitter you are, the more energy you have to perform at your best. Similarly, businesses need to be at their peak of fitness to thrive in a rapidly evolving economic, commercial and digital world.
Dealing with uncertainty
If the last few years have taught us anything it’s that we need to expect the unexpected. More than ever, businesses have to be prepared to adapt to changing environments. According to Gartner, fit enterprises are more likely to be able to weather the storms of change than businesses which are fragile.
The health of your business is important.
If an organisation relies too heavily on stable conditions and becomes used to functioning in an unchanging, unchallenging environment, it won’t have the flexibility it needs to manage transformation. Rather like a novice runner entering a marathon without the right training, nutrition and equipment.
The 2020 Gartner CIO survey found that 38% of fit organisations operate a culture of innovation, that embraces appropriate risk taking and learning from failure, compared to just 21% of fragile organisations.
That’s because, fit businesses are change-ready and have the agility to accelerate through uncertainty while their fragile counterparts slow down, run out of breath and fail.
Creating a change-ready culture
Creating a change-ready culture starts from the top. By embedding the qualities of agility and flexibility throughout an organisation, a company’s leaders can achieve a shift in culture, overcome resistance to new technology and drive a positive approach to collaborative working.
However, good leadership is only the start. An organisation cannot be fully agile if its workforce is unable to bend, stretch and adapt to new business conditions. To get an organisation in the best possible shape to flourish in times of uncertainty, its people have to be completely on board.
In an age defined by transformation, your employees need to embrace change.
The best way to encourage staff to break out of their comfort zones and adapt to change is to develop a learning mindset. Your employees may be used to being valued for a specific skill or expertise, but in a changing landscape, they will need to acquire new talents and be valued for their capacity for learning.
In the Gartner research, 34% of fit organisations describe the existence of an explicit and pervasive learning culture. In contrast, only 24% of their fragile counterparts said that their organisations had this learning mindset.
The difference between a business with a learning culture and one without is the ability to continuously adapt to new challenges. These are the businesses that will master the art of welcoming technological innovations, economic upheavals and changes in the competitive environment on an ongoing basis.
Others will be left behind because they can only adapt when forced to by external conditions.
Engaging the workforce
To build a change-ready workforce is no easy undertaking. Whether you are training for an Olympic event, preparing for a charity fun run or taking your very first exercise class, you need professionals who can help.
Having a trusted partner to turn to for expert support can make all the difference.
One way to get your team fit for change is to adopt a collaboration tool such as Microsoft Teams that encourages teamwork at all levels of your organisation. Working together enables staff to share ideas, perform efficiently and accomplish more in a changing world.
However, it’s not enough to simply install Microsoft Teams and send out a company-wide email announcing its arrival. If your workforce doesn’t know how Teams can help them do their job, they won’t get around to using it – much the same as a neglected gym membership.
By engaging a partner such as Insight and taking advantage of its Smart Start programme, your organisation will be able to unlock tools more quickly to get staff working, collaborating, communicating and achieving more for your business. Smart Start is a five-day programme which helps businesses get off the ground by configuring Microsoft Teams and building an adoption plan to get employees ready for effective teamwork.
As with any fitness regime, motivation is key, so Insight will establish a group of champions within your company to promote best practice and share the benefits of Teams. Insight provides expert training to get everyone up to speed with the technology too.
To keep the entire workforce on track with Microsoft Teams, Insight’s Smart Start service provides guidance to drive adoption and help employees make the best use of Teams, so they can embrace the tool and reap the benefits of collaboration.
There is no doubt that businesses which are fit and ready for change will be those that are most likely to succeed. Having the right partner in place can help ensure your workforce is agile, engaged and ready for the challenges of managing change.
