Resources | Transformation
Executives Feel like They Need to Know How to Do Transformations
Opinion Piece
During our second episode of At Home With Interesting People, I asked our guest Matt McCormack from Cognizant, about the big lessons he’s learnt from his years of doing digital transformations.
He replied: Executives are generally smart people at what they do, but know very little about transformation.”
You can see that they’re incredibly good at what they’ve done and they’ve been able to build their way up to an exec level. And there’s always this sense of “they have to know about transformation” and you look at them go “You’ve never done a transformation in your life!”
“I think it’s very confronting (for them) to understand that they don’t know much about the transformation journey they’re about to go on.”
How can executives being vulnerable result in transformation success?
Matt explains that leaders who are willing to be vulnerable and listen to advice, generally have greater success in their transformations.
“If you can get them over that hurdle of being vulnerable enough to understand that they don’t know enough, you can have a good conversation. That’s been the key learning. The transformations where I’ve succeeded and where we’ve been able to consult the best, are the ones where you’ve had those really tough conversations upfront.”
Watch the video above to hear more of the discussion between Matt and myself. We go on to discuss Green Leaders and how MIT Sloan research shows digital-savvy leaders are a leading indicator of transformation success.
What is ‘At Home With Interesting People’?
Now that a lot of the world is in some form of self-isolation and in-person events are problematic, EPiC thought it would be a good idea to start a new virtual event. We’ve called it ‘At Home With Interesting People’. It’s a one-hour webinar show where EPiC chats about business agility and has fun with an interesting person, while at home.
Our first episode was with guest star, Jody Weir, Head of Agility at THE ICONIC. Watch below: