Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Just as my trainer says in the gym, “Use it or lose it!” the same can be true of enterprise agility in the digital era. What are the organizational exercises — the squats and the pushups for an enterprise — that make a difference? Some of these, like adopting a new exercise regime, could be quite radical. Choosing new ways of working, changing organizational precepts, and focusing on continuous improvement could be some of the fundamental changes.

I don’t have to tell you about the impact of the coronavirus — you are feeling it. While we are all negatively affected personally, businesses are experiencing a spectrum of effects. Some are seeing an explosion of their e-commerce activities. Others are watching their business collapse as activities at all points in their supply chain slow down. Much has been written about dealing with explosive growth, so let’s focus on the downside case. This is where organizations show their true character.

The coronavirus outbreak is forcing executives, managers, policy makers, and the rank-and-file within organizations worldwide to quickly assess the risks they face and make business- and life-impacting decisions. In Part 1 of this 2-part webinar series, Dr. Laurel Austin reviews how we manage risk, and practices we need to employ to help us overcome common errors in how people perceive, assess, and react to risks they face.

Working agreements establish the ground rules needed to encourage acceptable behavior, create depend­ability, and foster consistency in day-to-day work. They also signal the intent of the individual employees to work together as a team.

With announcements on two regulations, one addressing the certification of unmanned aircraft and the other the certification of carriers using drones for delivery, the FAA revealed the regulatory framework that accom­modates commercial package delivery by drones.

In her on-demand webinar, “Innovation Models Across Industries: A Linear or Complex Path?” Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Katia Passerini considers innovation across many of the key sectors that are being — or will be — disrupted by technology. In this Advisor, we share some of the questions addressed in the Q&A portion of the webinar.

Finding systemic solutions to emotional regulation and social problem solving should significantly improve project performance. This Advisor offers some ideas for project leaders to help solve problems linked to social and emotional cognition.

To effectively manage this “digital shift,” enterprises must not only consider how business processes need to evolve, but also how the people within the enter­prise can become its advocates. More so even than technology, it is the human factor that ultimately determines the success or failure of such a project. This issue of Cutter Business Technology Journal (CBTJ) examines the challenges that arise, along with the opportunities presented by the digital shift from a variety of viewpoints, with a particular focus on the human factor.