We see many challenges when it comes to the people part of Microsoft 365. We heard it all before: Digitalization is 80% about people and 20% about tech. But what does that mean exactly? How can we face that challenge, and why is it so hard to let people love software? Because Microsoft 365 is not just software - it's an approach to change the way we work because it reflects some principles which we will need in the future. We know already that
- adoption is hard because people don't understand WHY they need to change their working behavior. Without this, they resist change or only change superficially; they don't stay curious and don't adapt to the evergreen approach.
- simply explaining Microsoft 365 would increase productivity is not enough because statements like that don't sell anymore. They don't connect to people's experiences, nor do they reflect their beliefs. People easily confuse being productive (adding value in a meaningful way) with being busy (fulfilling tasks somewhat chaotically and under time pressure), so that increase productivity is rather perceived as putting even more pressure on them.
- without a shared vision and common understanding, we will only scratch the surface of what Microsoft 365 could do in an organization.
The necessity of understanding the real challenge isn't that new: In the '90s, the term VUCA was invented by the US military to describe our modern world and the challenges any organization (not only the army) was facing. This acronym describes a world in which change becomes a new constant, so playability and consistency are not the factors to explain current markets and environments for organizations.
The world is changing faster than ever before, BUT the world will never change as slowly as it is right now. New challenges, competitors, and different unpredictable factors are something we have to deal with. That means that long term planning and the reliability of this planning won't be sufficient for modern organizations.
Predictability and calculability of events are rapidly decreasing, forecasts and experiences from the past due to shaping the future are losing their validity and relevance. Just look at how quickly and comprehensively Covid19 has changed the way we are working right now. Do we have to say more?
We live in a complex and connected world with various connections that are difficult to keep track of, making it challenging to clearly define cause and effect. The world is not just complicated; it's complex.
The aspects described above make it clear that decisions today are no longer straightforward. 'One size fits all' is rarely a suitable model anymore. It is often not a question of WHAT, but of HOW and WHY. This leads to the fact that the demands on organizations today are paradoxical, sometimes even contradictory.
We've build organizations around structures and processes that were invented to deal with different requirements. The way we built up and think about organizations is still based on the idea, that markets are predictable, change can be planned and our world works consistently.
So ultimately, we need a new way of thinking about organizations and the way we work. We need new guidelines and principles that fit the challenges we're facing right now, that fit this new world.
In other words, this new world comes with a need to transform:
Maximizing profit was the main driver for successful businesses for a long time. Yet within a connected world full of information, that isn't the only constant that ensures success nowadays. Customers often have enough information to compare different organizations and can choose who they're engaging with. That appears to customers and employees to the same extend. Nowadays, many factors need to be considered for a successful business: work ethics, social responsibility, the ecological aspect, etc. Those things often come when an organization has a clear purpose, a WHY. Organizations that know why there are doing something, rather than relying on how to have a far better standing in the markets than others: With purpose comes profit, but it doesn't work the other way around. Customers and partners have a pretty good idea of whom they want to deal with, and that's what differentiates a successful organization from an unsuccessful one.
In a world where we have a complicated yet straightforward task with multiple people to work on that task, we need someone who clearly understands what to do. Someone to keep all the strings together and knows where to go. With that comes clarity about hierarchy, line of command, and power. Within a world that is changing fast and context isn't to be overseen by one (or a couple) person, we have the problem that there isn't THE right way, that one person likely can't understand all interdependencies. This person has to rely on others to tackle the current task. Yet, a clear line of command and a strict hierarchy are opposed to this. Self-organized teams, collaboration between internal and external staff over many borders require a different understanding of leadership and collaboration. Rather than a clear line of command, networks work much better these days to connect to other people and create an exchange that meets the requirements.
Let's keep the Hierarchy - Network idea in the back of our mind and spin the thought further: If we can connect with different people, regardless of their physical location, neither their standing within a hierarchy, still we need them to be able to do something. Within strict organizations with constricting processes, built-in communications, and IT departments, people have no chance to make an impact. When we are in the wrong position in the hierarchy, we'll never contribute. But what if the earthshaking idea is in the head of somebody who can't contribute? In this modern, ever-changing world, the top person is not necessarily the one with the best ideas. Often it's quite the opposite: How often do people on the front line, interacting with customers and challenges, know precisely how to solve those needs?
For ages, planability and predictability of strategies were a winning factor of organizations, and the one hero-like manager who could foresee what was going to happen was at the top of the hierarchy. But if we know that the VUCA components characterize organizations' environment, this long-term planability isn't sufficient. The opposite of this business model is one that is characterized by short iterations. A short term experiment that might seal the deal, yet isn't a complete catastrophe if it's not. This comes from every agile approach. Short sprints are way more efficient than the old waterfall approach. Yet, the structures we find in modern organizations don't allow such a system because they still solidify an old mindset.
'Intellectual property is good, and if we have or know something, we keep it for ourselves so we can climb up that hierarchy ladder. And of course, we will build up a competitive advantage.' These thoughts don't make sense anymore and don't fit a modern and agile organization: It is impossible to know which information might become useful in the future and which expert we will need to pass an upcoming challenge. Therefore we need to be open-minded, think in networks, and empower people to participate in the meaning of our purpose.
Digitalization needs to be the accelerator on that, but can never be the primary driver. We need a new approach to think about work in general.
Microsoft 365 can be one step to achieve transformation, but it is not a goal by itself. Just rolling out Microsoft 365 (or a subset of its tools and services) won't solve our Vuca problems. We need to see the bigger picture to figure out which part of it Microsoft 365 can help because we won't solve any problem with assigning licenses to users.
Before we can change how we do a Microsoft 365 project to solve our old world problems, we first need to understand old and desired new ways of working and get the bigger picture of our situation. An excellent tool to facilitate deeper thinking is the iceberg model.
As we know, an iceberg shows only its tip above the water and that most of it is hidden underneath it; it works as a good metaphor for things that are not visible obviously to us. The iceberg model introduces us to 4 different stages, which we will uncover now:
- Level 1: Events
Very visibly, we will find events. An event is the answer to the question What is happening right now? On this level, people only react to what just happened and then stop to think about it. For example: "I caught a cold."
- Level 2: Patterns
Already underneath the surface, we will find patterns: What has been happening over time? What are the trends? On this level, people think about what led to the visible event and try to connect the dots, for example: "I caught a cold more often in the past when I slept less."
- Level 3: Structures
Digging one level deeper, we will see which system supports and influences these patterns: * What affects these patterns? Where are the connections between practices?* On this level, people think about what influences these patterns and try to understand the Why, for example: "Working crazy hours, worrying about problems at work, and eating late at night affected my quality of sleep."
- Level 4: Mental models
Finally, we will *investigate what values, beliefs, or assumptions shape the system and keep it in place? People now dig into which thinking generated the structures that are in place, for example: "Our belief of "work is the most important thing, even more important than health and the more I do, the more valuable I am" led to my behavior (which seemed to be expected, because everyone did that) which resulted in a physical manifestation of unhealthy work ethics that showed as catching colds quickly."
Let's have a look at how this works in the "old world."
- Level 1: Events - what just happened
People can't focus, experience both a lack of efficiency AND effectiveness, waste their time with tasks they shouldn't do, and are instead busy than productive.
- Level 2: Patterns - what was happening over time?
People abuse tools, work around dysfunctional processes, communication patterns, and organizational structures. They are not familiar with the art of collaboration, feel to be under pressure to be always available, and react to everything instantaneously. High frequency of task-switching while working instead next to each other than together is challenging and exhausting.
- Level 3: Structure- What is influencing these patterns?
Typical organizations look like a pyramid, with a few decision-makers at the top (leadership) and the rest of the workforce at the bottom, resulting from the approach to design companies like military institutions with a defined chain of command compartmentalized structures. This led to departments, which don't communicate well and are now rather information silos. The given structure leads to processes that ensure that this structure stays as it is - which conflicts directly with the need to convert from privacy to transparency, from planning to experimentation, and from controlling to empowering. But segmentation of organization is not only an issue across departments (horizontally), but also in the hierarchy (vertically), which leads us to another iceberg, that is responsible for lack of understanding of problems of workforce by leadership:
Leadership, who doesn't understand issues and a workforce that can not regularly connect to their leadership team lead to processes that do not reflect the work that needs to be done, structures that cement the status quo, and decisions about tools and working methods that serve old principles privacy, planning and controlling.
- Level 4 Mental Models
Let's look at which collective beliefs in our culture (which is then only reflected in corporate cultures and way too often reduced to "individual mindset": What do we people believe in, that they design organizations like this? Of course, redesigning takes a tremendous amount of energy (and money), and indeed it is easier to keep the status quo than to change. But why is this status quo, this broken system, still om place? Because we (or at least enough of us in critical positions) believe in "knowledge is power" instead of "Sharing is Caring." The "command and control" approach looks as if it also provides security and predictability, and although we already know better, we stick to this ego-system instead of an eco system.
What can we now do about it? Make people aware of the broken system that doesn't meet our needs anymore, and that forces people into workarounds, unhealthy work ethics, and poor connection to their organization. Please stop trying to fix users when we need to fix this system.
You see what happens here. When we approach a modern workstyle mindset as we usually do, we barely go to the root of the problem at all. We're barely scratching the surface of it. And that is all fair and square, but we also know that our solutions won't sustain when we're fixing the symptons of the problem. Because in the end, we are confusing cause and effect. If we only focus on the reason and just try to fix the symptoms, we barely fix the underlying issue. We need to work on the cause to end up with a different effect in the end. What we want to achieve in the first place is a sustainable change of habits towards a better work environment and a healthy mindset. If we're going to change people's behavior, which we see in level 1, we will need to change our core beliefs and mental models of level 4.
To give you a little guidance, we will turn the iceberg upside down and start at the bottom:
- Level 4: Mental Model
Our core beliefs are a representation of the Sharing is caring - mindset. We don't compete against each other but value and listen to every voice. We are convinced that we can face challenges better together and that Learning, experimenting, and sharing failure and success are essential.
- Level 3: Structures
This will automatically lead to organizations that enable work in cross-functional teams, facilitate open communities so that people can connect beyond their filter bubble (which makes serendipitous coincidences possible), support tools that foster collaboration and processes that work towards a shared understanding and shared vision of organizational purpose.
- Level 2: Patterns and Trends
With this background, people will don't abuse tools anymore and don't need to work around processes anymore. They notice that work works and find a good rhythm of collaboration, connecting, and focused work.
- Level 1: Events
Over time, this leads to a healthy understanding of productivity with some very beneficial implications: Awareness of mental load, sovereignty of priorities, Connectiveness in the broader organization. As a result, we can see that people make fair use of their time and do not need to face obstacles that are usually in the way.
The million-dollar question now is, what needs to be done at Level 4 so that we see the good effect on Level 1? As consultants, we will, of course, say "it depends," but we identified some core concepts, which of course represent our iceberg:
Rather than stating that people need to have the right mindset, we will need to focus on organizational change, which means that it is not sufficient to write down some fancy leadership principles and work on which behavior we show. People don't do what we tell them to do, but we offer them. It is time to consciously reflect on corporate values and how there are filled with life in the organization. As an example: We can tell that we have a good culture of being allowed to make mistakes, but if everyone is cc-ing everyone massively to share responsibility / cover themselves, then it is evident that the excellent culture only existed on paper. Therefore we will need to question ourselves about our values and how they resonate for employees, partners, customers. Without doing this heavy lifting, all approaches to roll out tools, to do champions programs, use case shopping and end-user training will only scratch the surface and come to nothing or won't stay sustainably, which means that we will see perhaps some quick wins, but no long term change.
Some questions to ask could be:
- Do we trust our employees and to which extent? How many control mechanisms that also interfere with people's productivity and frustrate them do we have in place?
- Do we foster transparency? Which structures and processes did we follow to promote information silos instead and prevent people from connecting dots?
- Do we encourage people to learn and share? Which restrictions prevent employees from doing so actively, and how much time is reserved for that?
- Do we have an organizational purpose? How is this why communicated to employees? Is this only one-way communication or a vivid discussion in which everyone's voice matters?
As the fixed hierarchy in organizations seems to be one of the main drivers to prevent purposeful collaboration within an organization, it's deconstruction will be a decisive step towards a modern organization. Based on the answers from above, we will need to ask:
- Do we need to stick to the inherited chain of commands, or can we experiment with other leadership approaches like holocracy?
- Can we institutionalize Learning, failing, sharing, and make this part of our DNA?
- How can we ensure that information silos no longer exist?
- How would permissions, access to data and tools, ownership, and responsibilities look like when we work with Microsoft 365?
Patterns and trends we can observe once we ensured to work towards a structure that is aligned with our organizational purpose and reflects its values are, for example:
- Servant and shared leadership will result in employees feeling more included in decision-making processes and taking responsibility
- Embracing diversity leads to better products
- Breaking down information silos will lead to serendipitous connections
- a #LearnItAll mindset will grant future-readiness
- democratizing access to corporate assets (knowledge, tools, roles) will impact how people feel about their employer
- respectful climate towards everyone results in consciousness and thoughtfulness
Climbing up our iceberg, we will now reach its visible tip, the events that everyone notices. After we did the legwork with core beliefs and organizational values, defined structure and processes that supported these values, and fostered patterns that result in a digitally literate, connected, and aligned workforce, we can now reap what we have sown:
- frictionless collaboration
- healthy productivity
- good working morale
To achieve this, we will need:
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advocates, who explain, evangelize and discuss openly change with their peers. It is essential to include people rather than giving the impression that ongoing change would be already a fait accompli. Good communication is critical. Just sending an email or printing some posters won't light a fire in an organization. Explain the big picture and elaborate on the why of this enterprise. This makes sure that all stakeholders will have an excellent understanding to drive change even further.
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some persistence. Rome wasn't built in a day, and we first need to unlearn the practices from the old world. This is pretty challenging as we easily fall back into old role patterns. The path would be to be patient and to make it easier to follow a new approach. Gamification can help a lot here, but yet again- if we only work on this level, the effects will quickly fizzle out.
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proper guidance and training. Training alone won't be sufficient; people will need examples, discussions, and time to figure out what works best for them.
To see the bigger picture of adoption and how Microsoft 365 could support our digital transformation efforts, it is useful to investigate the corporate mental model, the organizational structures, and patterns. Focusing on visible events only, underestimating the mental model's complexity, and cherry-pick quick-wins will not lead to sustainable change. If we want to evolve from our inherited understanding of work into meaningful collaboration, we need to adopt new working behavior properly. This is only possible if we first care about corporate culture, which will be reflected in all levels above.