Beat Goetschi 🚢

Today's business environment confronts us and our businesses with massive levels of volatility and disruption.

The digital economy disrupts market models and creates ecosystems and platforms across entire industries. Our current and future workforce demands new requirements and values in the workplace.

Are you ready to confront these changes?

Here are 3 questions that can help you:

1. Do I need to be more disruptive?

   The digital economy has disrupted industries and ways of working. It represents a risk but also an opportunity. I have to ask myself whether disruption can affect my job and what disruptions have affected the industry I am working in?

2. Am I resilient enough to volatility?

   Economic volatility affects all companies and industries to some extent. How does this volatility affect me and my business? How can I build resilience?

3. Where do I act with yesterday's logic?

   Disruption and volatility require us to change our logic and main assumptions. We can not drive future capabilities by applying the logic of yesterday.

"The important and difficult job is never to find the right answers, it is to find the right question", wrote Peter Drucker.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: Where do you need to apply tomorrow's logic?

One of the biggest challenges for leaders is the ability to change perspective.

How many leaders do you know that can change their thinking from strategic to tactical or from macro to micro? How many leaders you know are visionary, able to mobilise an organisation and get things done themselves? Leaders tend to prefer one of the three lenses only strongly.

Here 3 perspectives or lenses leaders have to be able to manage:

1. Checking the direction lens?

   You could call it a “helicopter view”. This is the lens that looks at the long term perspective, anticipates opportunities and risks, and checks whether you are going in the right direction.

2. Driving results lens!

   The second lens focuses on driving results. On tactical issues. This is the perspective that gets things done. This is plan, execute, course-correct!

3. Learn and adopt lens!

   The third lens is about self-reflection and self-awareness. This is about knowing where to develop and what to adopt to become a better leader.

A good friend of mine ensures that he assigns time to all three lenses in every meeting!

“Mastery is great, but even that is not enough. You have to be able to change course without a bead of sweat, or remorse“ wrote Tom Peters.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: Which of the 3 levels do you spend the most time on?

Key to good leadership is the ability to learn and adapt.

If you want to learn more you have to ask more and better questions. If you want to adapt, you have to learn about your environment, yourself, and your leadership.

Three call it behaviours or habits, are key to being successful on this path:

1. Informal beats formal leadership

   Informal leadership creates more relationships throughout an organisation than formal leadership. Formal leadership only focuses on reporting lines and peers on the same hierarchy level. But it is across informal networks that knowledge, innovation and collaboration lies. As an emerging leader, you must be conscious about when to use the hierarchy and when to use your informal network. If in doubt, go for informal.

2. Don't compensate for your team

   Emerging leaders tend to polish their team's presentations, interrupt them in meetings to specify what they are stating and micro-manage them. Accept and develop! Coach them, and give them quality standards but do not compensate for them.

3. Don't be afraid to ask questions

   Emerging leaders tend to speak up and voice their opinion thinking that this is how they can position themselves. I have heard many complaints about leaders giving their opinion about everything but never about leaders asking questions. Humility and authenticity trump any power games.

"The important and difficult job is never to find the right answers, it is to find the right question", wrote Peter Drucker.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: Which of the 3 habits will you base your leadership on?

Disruption is all over and affects all of us!

Three major change drivers are hitting all businesses today. Change drivers that require companies to transform. Change drivers that act in combination within all industries: A volatile economy, a digital economy disrupting market boundaries and a new way of working.

There are 4 skills needed to act in this environment:

1. Interest and Curiosity

   Interest and curiosity build awareness of risks and opportunities. As industry and market boundaries are disappearing, looking around for disruption and new business models is critical.

2. Ability to paint a vision

   Setting objectives is not enough for today's workforce. Vision and purpose are critical to creating engagement.

3. Ability to focus people

   The key to success in any transformation does not lie in the technology or change itself but in focusing people on the benefits that will be achieved by changing how they do things.

4. Ability to get things done, measure them and course-correct

   Expecting to get things done across a hierarchy is old school. CEOs today need to be able to mobilise their companies across informal networks to get things done. Constant course correction follows agile decision marking and data-driven decision-making.

"Leadership is influence", wrote John Maxwell.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: Are these 4 skills your signature strengths? Which can you further strengthen?

The feedback I received was brutal but fair after publishing ten atomic essays about digital transformation.

Here I am posting the Top 3 Tips:

1. Forget reporting lines and apply diplomacy!

Companies and projects are managed through conversations and decisions. Both happen in formal and informal settings. Usually, things get done in informal settings and are then reported in formal settings.

Your success depends on your ability to manage and drive results through informal surroundings and across reporting lines. And if you add courtesy and skill to manage these relationships, you create authentic power.

2. Apply the “HOW-With-An-Outside-View” perspective from the beginning

Transformation requires the combination of clear objectives, efficient communication (more horizontal than vertical), a corporate culture that embraces diversity and curiosity, and technology conceived as a lever.

Flexibility must be added as there is no single blueprint for success in transformation. Successful companies have shown an interest in technology and made a bet big enough to drive behaviour and culture.

Thus when you do this, think big, not incremental and take an outside view!

3. Draw your Main-KPIs

In order to identify what drives the performance of your business and transformation, draw the cause-effect relationships between your main KPI’s. We tend to think we know the facts and the assumptions behind it, but drawing and testing it out might lead to surprises.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

The best roadmap for digital transformation is the one you define for yourself.

Dozens of models and roadmaps tell you how to approach digital transformation. They all look different and have fancy names but cover the same content. The best approach, however, is the one you develop for yourself.

And here are 4 steps to get your roadmap:

1. Create your own model and build your own vision

   Create a model that answers why and what you want to transform based on the 4 perspectives: Customer Experience, Operating Model, Technology and Culture and Talent. Add a vision as a North Star and to engage and motivate.

2. Start to get small wins

   Start with an outlier in your model to get small wins, first experience and buy-in for the approach. Learn about technology, managing change, and building alliances.

3. Adapt your vision on the go

   Once you are on the go, adapt your vision! Include what you are learning, reflect agility and show commitment!

4. Build your roadmap based on backward planning

   Now you have your adapted vision and first experiences. Now is the time to build your roadmap and connect the different initiatives to a bigger strategy and goal. Start from your vision and build backwards the components you need to get there.

"Translating business goals into digital strategy is a key role that leaders cannot delegate," wrote Tony Saldana in "Why Digital Transformations fail".

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: What small project can you start to test your hypothesis on how to create a cultural change towards transformation?

Governance, in other words, is ensuring that things get done!

Here are three ideas to consider when defining a project's governance and setting up this project for success. All three are leveraging from each other and can be used in any project. They are based on the understanding that project governance is an oversight function that ensures target setting, decision making and monitoring of a project.

Leadership shows direction, and governance enables action!

1. Add networks to hierarchies

   Yes, hierarchies are critical in delivering project results. Essential for formal informational flow and ensuring proper escalation mechanisms. However, projects are driven by "middle-management" roles that act in networks to ensure capacity and capabilities (and rarely worry about politics).

2. Know when to use hierarchies and when to use networks

   Once these networks are set up, you need to be clear about when to use the network and when to use the hierarchy.

3. Think at what level to use hierarchy and network

   Many successful project organisations only use a hierarchic structure at the top and replace everything below with scalable and agile networks. This fosters collaboration and informal information flow and also ensures sustainability over the long term.

"So learning to collaborate is part of equipping yourself for effectiveness, problem-solving, innovation and life-long learning in an ever-changing networked economy." wrote Don Tapscott.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

There are more than 821 Mio. results in Google for "Digital Transformation". Comparing that to "Change Management" with 4'799 Mio. results and "Innovation Management" with 1'188 Mio.

Is Digital Transformation less mature?

When I support companies on the path to digital growth, in the first phase, we answer nine questions that give us an initial big picture and create a sensibility for "everything digital".

Step 1: Drawing the Value Chain

• In which areas are we data-driven when taking decisions?

• In which area are we using external data?

• What data would be required to optimize the value chain?

Within the value chain discussion, the main focus is analytics and mobility in core processes. It is about leveraging available data and thinking about data that would boost the value chain in efficiency or effectiveness.

Step 2: Internal and External Value Drivers

• Which part of our business model can never become digital?

• How digital are our partners?

• How digital are our customers?

Then we discuss dynamics. This step identifies virtuous and vicious cycles and enhances the value chain towards the business model.We identify the main drivers (and "destroyers") of value internally and externally.

Step 3: Transformation Discovery

• If we invest, how would we measure the outcome?

• Which in-house capabilities do we have?

• Is there one area where we can achieve a quick win?

This is about approaching terminology, creating awareness and buy-in and reducing complexity and fear.

"When it comes to any big or complicated question, humility is the only sensible point of view", wrote Scott Adams.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

All businesses today are being hit by three major change drivers: A highly volatile economy that is either met by defensive and/ or offensive strategies. A highly disruptive digital economy where traditional markets are replaced by ecosystems with entrants from industries you could not dream of! A workforce with new requirements and values.

Leaders have to take three lenses to correctly assess these challenges and create a vision for transformation to meet them:

Lens 1: Why transform

Answering the “why” question will give you the direction of travel. While it sounds simplistic, leaders need to decide whether transformation aims at

survival, growth or increasing resilience.

Or on a “lighter” approach: Cost efficiencies, strategic differentiation or innovation.

Lens 2: What to transform

By leveraging digital technologies, companies aim to a) improve their operational processes, b) unlock new services and value for their customers and c) shift to new business models and collaborative approaches. There is a fourth component that relates to talent and culture.

Lens 3: How to transform

Transformation requires the combination of clear objectives, efficient communication (more horizontal than vertical), a corporate culture that embraces diversity and curiosity, and technology conceived as a lever.

Flexibility must be added as there is no single blueprint for success in transformation. Successful companies have shown an interest in technology and made a bet big enough to drive behaviour and culture.

Thus when you do this, think big, not incremental and take an outside view!

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic,” wrote Peter Drucker.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: Where are you acting with tomorrow’s logic?

All businesses today are being hit by three major change drivers. Change drivers that require companies to transform. Change drivers that act in combination with all industries.

Are you ready to compete in this new environment?

Number 1: A highly volatile economy

COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine have made the global economy highly volatile. Volatile energy prices, supply chain interruptions, inflation and rising interest rates affect all market players. Companies either act defensive, focusing on efficiencies and cost and/ or offensive by increasing M&A activities and portfolio diversification.

Number 2: A disruptive digital economy

A second driver is technology and behaviours in the digital economy.

By 2025, the digital economy will represent 25% of the global GDP. 25% that represent disruption across industries and boundaries at high speed. Traditional markets are replaced by ecosystems with entrants from industries you could not dream of!

Number 3: A workforce with new requirements and values

Attracting new talent to ensure future capabilities is another primary change driver. Short-term performance trumps long-term career building. The future workforce looks for transparency and authenticity, not hierarchies. They look for companies with purpose rather than a strong balance sheet. Thoma calls it "gamification of the professional life": immediate feedback and likes such as in Linkedin in the professional life.

"The future is not something to predict. The future is something to build" wrote Franco Ongaro.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: Which of the three drivers affects your company most?

Leading outside of your reporting lines is the key to success today. Our business environment is constantly changing, and reporting lines today are for reporting and information flow only. Successful projects are managed across boundaries, even industries.

So forget reporting lines and apply diplomacy!

The term "diplomacy" has two meanings: the first refers to the set of procedures that regulate relations between States; the second is linked to courtesy and skill. The sum of both leads us to an open sense of diplomacy as the intelligent management of relations between institutions or people.

Companies and projects are managed through conversations and decisions. Both happen in formal and informal settings. Usually, things get done in informal settings and are then reported in formal settings. Thus your success depends on your ability to manage and drive results through informal surroundings and across reporting lines.

This is where diplomacy comes in:

As States do when they interact, you must, in sequence:

1. Set objectives for a relationship,

2. Create credibility and very clear messages, which allow you to

3. Create trust between people and safe spaces for trusting relationships.

With this, you manage the process. And if you add courtesy and skill to manage these relationships, you create authentic power. Not power given by the organisation but by authority.

"Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy," wrote Isaac Newton.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: For which challenge that you are facing will you try diplomacy?

The key to success in a digital transformation process does not lie in the technology but in focusing people on the benefits that will be achieved by changing how they do things.

But how do you measure that?

First, you need to monitor whether you are delivering business results. But there is more.

3 Parts need measuring:

1. It is paramount to measure not only top-line revenue but also the effects of the digital transformation on your organisation's capabilities. Effects such as improving operational capabilities or speed of decision-making need to be mapped in metrics as well.

2. You need to collect a baseline to compare with. Remember that any metric that does not lead to action does not serve its purpose.

3. Map the ability to develop further digital capabilities and digital talent acquisition to ensure that your KPIs also reflect future capabilities delivered through digital transformation.

And here are some examples:

1. Business Performance Metrics: You will want to measure the impact of your projects on top-line revenue.

2. Future Oriented: You are driving future capabilities and will want to know if you are on track.

3. Process and Technology Adoption: Measure the speed in delivering capabilities and the new capabilities' adoption level.

4. Process and Technology Efficiency and Productivity: Did the implemented changes reach the expected productivity and cost improvements?

"If you don't collect any metrics, you're flying blind. If you collect and focus on too many, they may be obstructing your field of view" wrote Scott Graffius.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: Are you measuring only top-line results today or future capabilities?

What is the most significant planning challenge for transformation projects?

Transformation projects tend to follow the calendar of business activities.

By default, their completion deadlines hit predefined dates that coincide with the business calendar of a company. Go-Live Dates are thus commonly the 1st of January or the 1st day of a quarter.

Typically these dates are set before even one hour has been spent on project planning or identification of capacity. In addition, after the project team has estimated a rough plan and identified the challenge to achieve that preset date, a proposal to move the date would jeopardize the whole project.

And the next thing we know, scope is adjusted to maintain the set date and the project loses its real benefits.

What can be done in the project planning phase to ensure the project's success despite "1st of the month" deadlines and expectations?

Transformation projects, where the success is directly linked to a predefined achievement date, need backward planning but, most of all, in the beginning, a clear statement of what resources are required to achieve this preset date.

Tip 1: Alternative Dates based on capacity commitment

If the project team sees a date as unachievable because they do not judge the resource availability as sufficient, the way to address the issue is by stating dates and required resources during the planning to the project stakeholders:

Go-Live Date and related resource Requirements:

1.6.2023 Go-Live Date if 10 FTE ready on 1.3.2023 with an 80% project dedication and Project Lead nominated by 1.2.2023 or

1.8.2023 Go-Live Date if 8 FTE ready on 1.4.2023 with an 80% project dedication and Project Lead nominated by 1.4.2023.

Tip 2: State already in planning what to expect after the Go-Live of the project

Give a clear understanding of what will happen and what benefits will be achieved at what date after the Go-Live.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: Is your currently running project set up to meet expectations, or are you assuming "usual" delays?

Online Sales "only" make up 42% of Amazon's results. Ad Sales "only" make up 57% of Google's results. Sounds surprising, right?

But do you really know what drives the performance of your business?

Let us be honest; we assume that we know what drives results in our company. We tend to know that good service drives retention or that employee satisfaction drives productivity. We tend to think we know the facts and the assumptions behind them.

But once we go deeper, it isn't easy to justify some results or result drivers.

There are many frameworks that were built in the last three decades that look at different aspects of performance:

• Balanced Scorecards aim at getting a holistic view of company performance by connecting across all areas of a business,

• Strategy Maps aim to show cause-and-effect relationships between strategic objectives and

• OKRs as target-setting methodology, also look at tracking progress and connecting strategic objectives.

But one thing is target setting and strategic objectives, and another is following up on performance.

Here's my take on what works to start mapping performance:

1. Make a simple drawing of your main KPIs: Draw the cause-effect relationships between them.

2. Test your assumptions with data, starting with the most significant sources! Pareto applies here!

3. Once you have the main three, check them with your frontline! Ask them for their assumptions.

4. Stick to the main three and dive deeper. Where you need help to confirm your assumptions is usually where the issues are.

"Never mistake activity for achievement," wrote John Wooden.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: Which result drivers make the most significant impact, and which are the most volatile ones?confi

I just signed up for Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole's cohort-based course, Ship 30 for 30, to learn how to write online, engage with an audience and build a system for it.

Here is why I signed up:

1. Writing represents a structured approach to learning: Systematic research, brainstorming, and "asking the right questions" build a robust base to learn as you focus on what you are interested in and not on what appears in front of you.

2. Writing improves my day gig: The skills behind writing: Structuring arguments, analysing and engaging with your audience, and the content I write about are both beneficial to my job.

3. Writing is one of my personal energy sources: First thing I do when I get up is exercise, and the second I take 30 minutes to research and write. After that, I am highly energised, motivated and focused to start my day.

Over the next 30 days, I will be writing about the following:

1. Digital Leadership: What skills do you need, how do you know what to transform, and how to boost and stimulate transformation?

2. Digital Economy: What are the main concepts behind it, and what are its challenges and opportunities?

3. Disruptive Business Models: There are hundreds of different, new, disruptive, successful, and failed business models out there. And every single one provides a base to learn.

"In our messy, flawed lives, the nearest we can get to the truth is consistency", wrote Scott Adams.

I can't wait to read your feedback, comments, questions, shoutouts and suggestions.

And give some thought to the following: What could you achieve through consistency?