I first encountered the topic of people, work and new technologies during my studies, when it was a focus of my professor in industrial management. What fascinated me then, as it does now, is the interdisciplinarity between business administration, sociology and psychology. And the topic has steadily gained in importance.
What began in recent history with production using industrial robots and continued with automation in the service sector is now experiencing exponential growth thanks to digitalisation in conjunction with the mega change driver of our time, artificial intelligence (AI). The big difference today is that AI is something we all encounter both at work and in our private lives. That’s why most of us have already gained experience with the topic and are increasingly integrating it into our everyday lives.
At the same time, I am constantly struck by how great the reservations and fears are in companies and among freelancers when it comes to dealing with digitalisation and AI. This is because most of us still use AI more in our private lives (e.g. instead of search engines) than at work. This will certainly change soon.
Ultimately, the two topics of digitalisation (see also my video) and AI converge. When it comes to digitalisation, a lot has gone wrong in many companies in recent years. The time pressure was and is high, and at the same time the task is complex. When many changes are made at the same time, numerous interdependencies arise, including for the everyday work of specialists and managers.
In almost all areas of a company, the introduction of several new systems at once is often accompanied by significant changes in the organisation, whether in processes, structures or responsibilities. For example, during a large-scale migration of a local service organisation to an international shared service centre, I experienced first-hand how all of this had to be changed and managed at the same time. Processes had to be rewritten again and again, learning content had to be constantly adapted, and responsibilities had to be readjusted.
However, one issue is often ignored or at least neglected: all these changes have a serious impact on the everyday lives of specialists and managers. This not only requires an adjustment of skills, including not only technical skills but also procedural, communicative and social skills. It also requires promoting the commitment of all those affected by involving them in the process.
It is now an important standard in change management to address all stakeholders and all affected individuals with regard to their expectations and to communicate the corresponding benefits for each individual. However, it is just as important to consider the sociological and psychological factors. The latter primarily include blockages that can arise when confronted with a completely new topic. Emotions such as scepticism, fear or even anger can arise here and prevent or severely impair one’s own commitment and teamwork.
In the sociological field, the factors of human behaviour in groups must be taken into account in particular. Beyond the basic ideas of team development with concepts such as those of Tuckman or Belbin, basic ideas from innovation management and new political economy can be taken up here, for example.
In short, it is about managing and positively influencing the innovation processes that exist with regard to the acceptance of new developments for an entire market, an organisation or for individuals. These can be product or process innovations – often both.
For example, when new back-office and front-office systems are introduced and then linked to AI, this often not only throws personnel planning into disarray, but also changes structures, collaboration processes and the technical work of everyone involved.
Jens Möller
In addition to the classic change curve, which can be observed time and again, technical promoters – often referred to as early movers in marketing – repeatedly emerge when innovations are introduced in companies. These are the specialists and managers who quickly and effectively embrace change and, above all, implement it in their own everyday work.
This is where what I mentioned in my last article on commitment and skills comes into play: we need to move away from thinking and towards implementation, action, testing and learning from mistakes, and consistently implementing improvements. This is exactly what promoters love to do.
But beyond the technical aspects, there are also corporate policy considerations: in addition to technical promoters, managers are also needed to ensure that innovations can be incorporated into the organisation in the first place and that the right people in the company’s management are proactively involved with the necessary concise presentation. This is the only way to make the quick decisions needed to accelerate the learning effects in the organisation. At a time when speed is an extremely high priority, often even above quality and cost, this can be crucial to success. It is well known that organisations that learn too slowly risk being overtaken by completely new market entrants.
That is why it is so crucial to quickly and effectively secure, build and systematically increase not only the skills but also the motivation, i.e. the commitment of specialists and managers to innovations in the organisation and its environment, i.e. in dealing with customers, suppliers and other external stakeholders.
A top-down approach is not enough to achieve this. In my opinion, it is not sufficient to gradually derive which technological and organisational changes are to be introduced from the company’s goals and management planning in a top-down manner. Rather, I consider counter-current planning to be important.
Similar to the PRINCE 2 methodology, the first step is to develop prototypes, which in practice may initially be limited to a single team, e.g. in the case of organisational change. Or, when introducing new systems, they may initially be limited to a single department. Or even a test group.
The aim here is to introduce the new systems, processes, procedures or structures in a test environment in order to feed back the learning effects to the management. The management can then decide to what extent further scaling can be carried out on the basis of the knowledge gained, or whether further changes need to be made and tested.
From a technical point of view, one could say: we are already doing that! However, from the perspective of getting specialists and managers on board, it is all too often the case that this feedback does not take place. As a result, we often see that a newly purchased system is suitable for one department but not for another. That a new structure works in one area of the company but impairs productivity in another. That new business processes are accepted by everyone at the highest level L1 (process map), but are not understood or cannot be implemented at the activity or processing level L5 because they conflict with existing systems or procedures or even impair customer relationships.
The necessary processes and methods of collaboration at each individual level or in internal projects or programmes can be designed so successfully that the digitalisation of, for example, customer service processes or sales appointments is a success for all involved. To achieve this, it is important that we look at the upcoming changes not only from a business and technological perspective, but also from the psychological point of view of the individual (e.g. psychological safety, here is a video on this) and group dynamic processes of collaboration. This allows us to involve all stakeholders and not only take a top-down approach, but also a bottom-up one, and gather feedback from all levels in order to successfully scale project pilots.
When we were asked to manage employees for the first time and technical or organisational changes were pending, did we explain to the employees why these changes were necessary, what previous disadvantages they were intended to remedy, and what advantages they would bring for each individual?
Did we start with a small example, demonstrate it, accompany the employees as they “copied” it, and then encourage them that they would definitely “manage” it? I think so, right? Why shouldn’t we be able to do it now? Let’s go!
What do you think? I’m eager to hear your opinion!
Feel free to write to me at info@jmoellerconsulting.com or on www.jmoellerconsulting.com. Take a look at my blog or my videos. I look forward to your feedback!
