Organizing for Work in the Digital Age

To meet the demands of the digital era, companies are looking to move faster, adapt more readily, facilitate rapid learning, and develop versatile, well-rounded professionals. To achieve such agility, businesses are beginning to shift from traditional hierarchical organization structures to more flexible, team-based models. 

Many C-level executives, including CMOs, are actively considering the organization of the future—what it will look like, how it will operate, and what will make it most successful. In the past, when business models were predominantly based on familiar commercial patterns, many companies were organized along functional lines to produce predictable and repeatable results. Yet while these models promoted efficiency, they often created deep siloes that thwarted collaboration, responsiveness, and agility.

By contrast, today’s global business environment is anything but predictable, and complex organization structures are straining under the new demands being placed on them. In response, rather than striving for mere efficiency, today’s organizations are prioritizing structures that provide the speed, agility, and adaptability they need to compete.

According to Deloitte’s 2017 Global Human Capital Trends survey, 88 percent of respondents say building the organization of the future is an important or very important issue, yet only 11 percent believe they understand how to do it. Designing such an organization is likely to be a dynamic undertaking that involves plenty of trial and error. Yet for companies that rise to the challenge, the payoff can be immense in terms of financial performance, productivity, employee engagement, and a host of other benefits.

Digital, Agile, Networked Teams

Only 14 percent of survey respondents believe the traditional organizational model—with hierarchical job levels based on expertise in a specific area—makes their organization highly effective. Leading companies are instead moving to a more flexible, collaborative model of work engagement based on flatter networks of teams that can form and disband quickly. For example, a company may build a digital customer experience group, select individuals for the team, and ask them to design and build a new product or service. Afterward, the team disperses and members move on to new projects.

Designing for flexibility is about moving away from matrix management and functional silos toward outcome-based teams that have multidisciplinary skills sets and one singular goal. Rather than focusing on the efficient delivery of services, these teams seek to make customers happy. Empowering outcome-based teams often requires realigning power inside an organization to leaders who own specific elements of customer experience, for example mobile or in store.

Companies also are using new tools and work practices as they seek to adapt for the future. One promising approach is to apply network analysis to help organizations study who is talking to whom. Organization network analysis (ONA), which can use physical proximity, patterns in emails and instant messages, and other data, allows leaders to see quickly what networks are in place and identify the connectors and experts. Collaboration tools—including those that enable messaging, video and voice calls, project management, and document-sharing—also are helping to facilitate the transition. Nearly three-quarters of companies (73 percent) are now experimenting with such tools and benefiting in unique ways.¹

Last, companies are exploring a new approach to leadership—one that rewards innovation, experimentation, learning, and customer centric design thinking.² This approach requires leaders to foster an inclusive culture and to possess negotiation, resilience, and systems thinking skills. Executives ascend and lead by orchestration rather than direction, and they help their employees advance by providing development opportunities and varied experiences.

What CMOs Can Do

To help create the organization of the future, CMOs and other business leaders can:

Embrace the speed of change. Digital technologies continue to accelerate the pace of business. Consider carefully how this transformation affects strategy, customer relationships, and talent needs.

Adopt a more participative structure. Consolidate talent from marketing, analytics, customer experience, and sales functions into mission-oriented teams with the power to make front-line decisions that satisfy customers.

Make talent mobility a core value. Require executives to rotate through various functions so they understand the new, more agile career model. Build in processes to support team fluidity so employees can quickly return to their home base or move to a different team once a project is completed.

Form an organizational performance group. Ask the group to analyze how high-performing teams, projects, and programs work. By examining the company’s job titles, reward systems, and career paths, this group can help chart the way to a more agile, bottom-up model for business units.

Examine new communication tools. Consider technologies such as Workplace by Facebook, Slack, Basecamp, Asana, Trello, and Workboard. Support efforts to standardize and implement the tools as a complement to the organization’s core ERP and human resource management system infrastructure.

Employ ongoing, feedback-based performance management. Frequent conversations about priorities and performance can enable employees to adjust their efforts as needed and feel rewarded for their work. Employee survey tools can give managers immediate input on their own performance, boosting transparency.

*****

As digital technologies continue to change every facet of business, traditional operating models and practices may no longer suffice. To build the organization of the future, companies can explore a team-based approach, experiment with collaboration technologies, encourage a leadership mindset that embraces learning, and focus on talent mobility. By taking steps to become faster, more flexible, and more adaptable today, organizations can be better positioned to compete tomorrow.

–by Josh Bersin, founder and principal, Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP; Tiffany McDowell, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP; and Amir Rahnema, partner, Deloitte Canada

Source: Wall Street Journal

N700M Was For Purchase, Furnishing Of Sultan's Residence In Abuja - Sokoto State Govt Reacts To Alleged EFCC Interrogation

The Sokoto State government has responded to the alleged interrogation of the Chief of Staff to the Sultan, Alhaji Kabiru Tafida by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over a suspicious transfer of N700 million into his account from the government account.

A statement issued by the Special Adviser to Governor Aminu Tambuwal on Media and Publicity Imam Imam said the N700 million was for the purchase and furnishing of Sultanate Council office and residence of the Sultan of Sokoto Muhammad Sa?ad Abubakar in Abuja and followed due process. He said the funds were captured under the state capital estimates of 2016 supplementary budget and 2017 budget. 

Premium Times earlier reported that crack detectives of EFCC on Tuesday questioned Tafida over a suspicious transfer of N700 million into his account from the Sokoto State government account. He was released on administrative bail on Wednesday evening following what a source described as ?unceasing pressure on the EFCC by the Sultan and the Sokoto State government?.

Mr. Tafida was first invited to the EFCC office in Abuja on Tuesday where he was interrogated by a team of investigators. He was then asked to return on Wednesday for more questioning.

Premium Times source said the money in question was taken from the Sokoto State?s share of the Paris club refund recently made to Nigeria?s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. EFCC sources said they were trying to establish why the funds were channelled through the personal account of the Sultan?s senior aide.

The Secretary to the Sultanate Council, Alhaji Faruk Umar, however, denied any knowledge of the N700 million allegedly linked to the Sultan. Speaking to Daily Trust in his office, Faruk said:

"I am just hearing it from you, therefore I cannot comment on something which I don't know,? he said.

Imam explained further that: ?The Sokoto State Government, concerned by lack of a befitting office and residential accommodation for use by officials and members of the Sultanate Council, approved within its capital estimates 2016 Supplementary Budget and 2017 Budget, the sum of Two Hundred Million Naira (N200 million) and Five Hundred Million Naira (N500 million) respectively, provision and furnishing of of Sultanate Council office and residence in Abuja.?

"Furthermore, the Sokoto State Executive Council, the highest decision-making body in the state, via a resolution of the EXCO with number CC (2016) 5R of Wednesday, December 28, 2016, approved the purchase of the office and residential accommodation in Abuja,? Imam said.

?Following the adherence to laid down procedure, the process of acquiring the property was set in motion upon which some elements are now trying to make political capital out of it,? he said.

Source: Daily Trust, Premium Times, Linder Ikeji blog

Photos: Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, in Lagos

Lunch in London, anxiety in Nigeria By Reuben Abati

What’s gwan inna wa cwantry?”

“What language is that?”

“English of course.”

“Sounds like Creole to me. Why don’t you just talk straight?”

“Nobody talks straight in this country anymore.”

“I still talk straight.  I can’t start twisting my tongue because some people have lost it.”

“Okay, I was asking what is going on in our country?”

“Is that a direct question or a sly comment?”

“Just answer the question”

“What I know is that we are now truly, a country of hyenas, jackals, and small animals.  A big animal kingdom, but when the First Lady Aisha Buhari drew attention to this, recently, we all started screaming that she was rather condescending but right now, with what I am seeing and hearing, I believe she will be vindicated in the long run.”

“I see.”

“We, the people are obviously the small animals. In an animal kingdom, the bigger animals do what they like with the smaller ones, and they dare not complain.”

“But you still haven’t answered my question”

“My friend, why must I always be the one to tell you what is going on in this country? When you want to be mischievous, that is when you ask funny questions. Are we not in this country together? Don’t you listen to the news like everyone else? So, why should I become your newspaper and internet combined. Stop it. But for just this last time, I will use my church mind to tell you that the latest development is photography as a tool of governance. Some APC Governors and party leaders just visited President Muhammadu Buhari in London. They had lunch with him and took photographs.”

“I know about that. I actually saw the photos too. But the whole thing doesn’t look straight to me.”  

“It doesn’t look crooked to me either. People have been complaining that the President of Nigeria is missing in action and they need to know that he is still alive. So, they provide a photograph of him having lunch with his party members and loyalists. How is that a problem for you? We should be glad that the President is getting well.”

APC: The Obstinate Journey To Shame Via London By Pius Adesanmi

Those interested in the dustbin of Nigeria's history will one day find APC inside the rubble, among the putrefaction, just beside PDP, and bring out her carcass for examination.

Such students of the dustbin of history will likely conclude that APC's signature contribution to the Nigerian tragedy is not in the empirical failure to deliver on measurable electoral promises in virtually all areas of national life but in the deadening of the Nigerian mind.

A nation's mind is lost when the capacity for ironic sentience dies. And no group of Nigerians, at any moment in our chequered national history, has contributed more to the assassination of irony than the Confederacy of parochial interests in the leadership of APC.

If blindness to irony stopped within the ranks of APC's leadership, if it was limited to Governors, Senators, Reps, and other political figures within her ranks, I wouldn't be so worried. It would be their funeral. I am not in the habit of shedding tears for members of Nigeria's political elite over their intellectual impecuniosity.

My worry lies in how the leadership of APC has democratized blindness to irony, especially among their followers so effectively. If irony hits you like a Dangote truck and you are unable to recognize it as a citizen, you wear that condition of ignorance like a badge of honor and hit social media for celebration in this APC era.

Chief John Odigie Oyegun fired the first bullet to assassinate irony. APC had just won the election. She was still in that period of grace when the people could excuse anything. Euphoria was still in the air. One message of change that APC could send early and effectively in order to write her name in gold was in the retirement of campaign funds.

The notion of retiring campaign funds is a complete stranger in Nigeria. We have at least two adult generations who have never heard of it because it has simply never been practiced. No Nigerian has ever retired campaign funds. After elections, you privatize the leftover funds, campaign vehicles, and other resources. You keep everything for yourself and distribute some to your cronies. This, of course, is a crime routinely committed by every Nigerian who has ever run for public office: There is no separation between their bank accounts and campaign contributions.

More Clarity on Brexit - EU

European Union Chief Negotiator in charge of Brexit negotiations with Britain Michel Barnier gestures as he addresses media representatives during a press conference with British Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Brexit Minister) David Davis at The European Union Commission Headquarters in Brussels on July 20, 2017. 

The EU’s Brexit negotiator urged Britain on Thursday to provide more clarity on key issues after the second round of talks wrapped up in Brussels with “fundamental” differences remaining. Michel Barnier said after talks with his counterpart David Davis that the two sides were still at odds over Britain’s divorce bill and over the rights of European citizens living in Britain.

“We require this clarification on the financial settlement, citizens rights and on Ireland,” Barnier, a former French foreign minister and European Commissioner, told a joint press conference with Davis.

“This week’s experience shows that we make better progress when our respective positions are clear,” adding that the next round of talks on August 28 “must be about clarification”.

Davis, a long-time eurosceptic picked by British Prime Minister Theresa May to lead the negotiations, said the talks were “robust but constructive” but that there was “a lot left to talk about.” “A solution will require flexibility from both sides,” he added.

The Brexit talks are the second round since negotiations formally began in June, a year after Britain’s historic referendum vote to leave the 28-member European Union, but the first to really go into detail.

‘Fundamental divergence’

The negotiations are dealing with issues around Britain’s divorce — Britain’s exit bill, the rights of EU citizens living in Britain, and the Northern Ireland border — with talks on a future trade deal only set to start if leaders decide in October there has been “sufficient progress”.

The EU wants an outline deal agreed by October 2018, so that the European and British parliaments can approve it in time for Brexit day, which is scheduled for the end of March 2019.

Barnier warned there was a “fundamental divergence” with Britain on whether the EU’s top court would keep jurisdiction over the rights of three million European citizens living in Britain after the UK leaves the bloc. He suggested however that there could be a solution in the way that a separate court overseeing non-EU Norway’s membership of a free trade arrangement with the EU “dovetails” with the European Court of Justice.

Barnier meanwhile urged Britain to set out its position on the amount it must pay before leaving to settle its obligations under the EU budget, which Brussels puts at around 100 billion euros.

“Clarification of the United Kingdom’s position is essential” on the bill, Barnier said.

Davis said he did not accept that Britain would necessarily have to pay anything, but added: “We both recognise the importance of sorting out the obligations we have to one another.”

Scallops and lamb

Davis later hosted Barnier at the British ambassador’s residence in Brussels to discuss the progress of the negotiations over a meal of Scottish scallops followed by lamb, a British official said.The lunch was the two negotiators’ first discussion on what is officially British soil after all their previous talks took place at the headquarters of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm. Davis himself has only been in Brussels on Monday and Thursday, with a team of 98 British negotiators looking after most of the talks in the interim on his behalf.

Despite the EU’s call for more clarity, sources close to the negotiations said Britain would not agree on any figure for the divorce bill until the very end of the talks.

The disagreement over the European Court of Justice promises to come up throughout the negotiations, the sources added. On the border between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland, there has been “goodwill” over maintaining the Good Friday peace agreement and on keeping the common travel area on the island, sources said.

But agreement on how to prevent a “hard border” for the movement of goods and people in Ireland will have to wait until later, they said.

British officials meanwhile rejected “ludicrous” reports that it had come into the talks under-prepared, following a photograph of an empty-handed Davis on Monday across the table from Barnier, who had a stack of papers.

Called from The Guardian.

Ngilari Wrongly Convicted

Appeal court quashes conviction of former Adamawa governor

The Yola Division of the Court of Appeal on Thursday overturned the conviction of a former governor of Adamawa, Mr Bala Ngilari, and discharged and acquitted him of corruption charges.

The court, presided by Justice Olayomi Folashade, quashed all charges against Ngilari for lack of merit and sufficient proof of allegations against him.

On March 6, a Yola High Court sentenced Ngilari, to five years in prison without the option of fine on charges of financial fraud.

He was jailed for not following due process in the purchase of 25 vehicles at the cost of N169 million.

Ngilari was charged with two of his former aides, Secretary to the State Government and Commissioner of Finance.

The court, however, acquitted the two aides for lack of sufficient proof.

Called from The Guardian.