Adapt to Digital New Normal and Manage Proactive Business Continuum

It is a continuous journey to adapt to the new world of businesses, faster, always on, hyper-connected and fiercely competitive.

It is a complex world out there with so many variables that determine the success of the business. Closer to reality is that digitalization is a journey, not just a destination, and change is continuously happening in such a dynamic environment of a company. The leading businesses across the vertical sectors are the ones that can adapt to the digital new normal and manage the proactive business continuum.

Continuous communication: The speed of change is increasing, and the digital ecosystem has become more complex and dynamic, business management also turns to be more complex. Communications are the tool to solve problems, it is one of the most crucial soft factors for deciding business success. There are multiple causes for poor communication. Information overload can be a major barrier to communication. The problem most often is the inability of the "speaker" to adequately accept the real nature of the message or the environment. Continuous and consistent communication should replace the 'business as usual.” It is so important to develop an open atmosphere with effective and candid communication, it is also important to foster a healthy working environment where feedback and communication are based on reality and not simply what senior management wants to hear on the top. Communication shouldn’t just enforce the hierarchical “command & control” management style, it needs to be concise enough to convey the key message; creative enough to connect the heterogeneous audience; data-driven and informative enough to become more persuasive; and empathetic enough to connect the minds. It is also important to “over-communicate” for delivering the consistent message and applying the “Less is more” style for ensuring clarity and conciseness.

Continuous improvement: Digital means increasing pace of change and leapfrogging collective progress and societal advancement. Change is inevitable, it will come by itself. Though change is not always improvement, improvement is change. To expedite digitalization, it is important to develop the culture of continuous improvement. Because improvement can only be there if people accept change, and make the most out of it. Improvement cannot happen without change, and change should not happen without improvement. Continuous improvement is performed in collateral activities, meaning that people can step out of their daily job to perform specific improvement activities, and improvement is the reward for being willing to change. The culture of continuous improvement means to continue to discover that "there is always a better way." So, continuous improvement is more likely to be sustained if there is a framework and takes a whole system-based approach.

Continuous performance management: With fast-paced change and hyper-connected digital dynamic, organizational management practices are shifting from silo-based, reductionistic traditional management style to the holistic digital management discipline. The corporate performance management needs to do the similar adjustment, from static, unidirectional and time-bound avatar to a more dynamic, continuous, and interactive state. The very goal of continuous performance management is to make strategy management more tangible, and trackable for achieving the business expectation, and map every individual’s performance and potential with the dynamic business strategy execution closely and seamlessly. Digital companies advocate self-management. They experiment self-performance management to provide employees opportunities for self-assessment and management, encourage autonomy, discovery, and continuous improvement. So, performance management is no longer just the static tool for assessing the past performance of employees, it can be used as a means to develop the digital-ready workforce, engage employees, and create a new way to unleash collective human potential.

It is a continuous journey to adapt to the new world of businesses, faster, always on, hyper-connected and fiercely competitive. It’s important to create a working environment in which the growth minds get encouraged, positive energy flows around, communication is the two-way street, continuous improvement gets recognized, innovation gets inspired, and make a proactive business continuum for getting digital ready.

Posted in: Digital Maturity,Performance Master,Principle/Practice