How do you view the digitalization taking place in the workplace? Is it mainly about acquiring tools and learning to use them correctly, or does it also affect things like culture, collaboration, and accountability? In this post, I want to dig deeper into these questions.
I’d like to discuss how you approach the digitalization of your ways of working—what starting point you as an organization or as a leader have. I believe this starting point is even more important than the specific “solution” you choose.
Digital competence development is one of the most important issues in most organizations today. Many workplaces have taken significant steps forward in their digital skills over the past few years—a change accelerated by the pandemic. But this journey has only just begun. The potential to create value through the digital capacity now emerging is enormous and transformative, likely the next phase after industrialization. The majority of companies and organizations still need to explore and raise their digital competence further. The question is how we approach this change, and what we really mean by digital competence. What is our starting point?
Increased competence – reduced frustration
For many organizations, digital competence development is perceived as synonymous with learning to use digital tools more skillfully. But that is often oversimplifying things. The transformation is much bigger than that, and there’s a risk in failing to understand the broader picture and its potential consequences.
Why is this? Because digital competence development right now is very much about becoming more confident and skilled in using digital tools and platforms—pure technical knowledge. Without this, we will never be able to fully leverage them. But we also need greater alignment on how we work together in these tools, ensuring that we become more effective and innovative as individuals and teams. Add to this the question of the physical workplace, which will always remain an integral part of the total work environment, and it becomes clear how important it is to engage in dialogue about how we actually work in practice.
In short, we need a solid foundation of digital competence—digital must support everything we do, wherever we are. Only then can we reduce the frustration and inefficiencies that often characterize today’s work, whether it takes place at home, in the office, or elsewhere.
Tools and company culture
But the digital development that most companies need to undergo isn’t just about getting better at tools and platforms. Equally important is evolving the culture, organization, ways of working, and every employee’s ability to both lead themselves and function as part of a team. That brings us into questions of company culture and the attitudes and behaviors that yield the best results.
I’d like to highlight two different approaches to digitalizing our ways of working:
- A focus on digital tools – How can we learn to use apps and functions more effectively?
- A focus on possibilities – What could become possible for our collaboration, as a company, as individuals, and with our customers, thanks to the tools and platforms we now have access to?
These two perspectives represent different starting points on the journey toward sustainable, effective, and digital ways of working. Let’s look a bit deeper.
Focus on tools
The first approach emphasizes tools—becoming more skilled at handling and optimizing them. It’s relatively easy to get started here and to define what needs to be done to improve proficiency in the most common platforms. The downside is that tools alone don’t create the change we truly want. They can be powerful enough to enhance what we already do well, but also to amplify weaknesses in our organizations and teams.
For example, we often see that moving to platforms like MS Teams or Slack can actually lead to more unstructured “ping-pong chatting” than we had with email, and in poorly organized channels that create more problems than they solve. Another example is that while many have learned to use digital meeting tools like Teams and Zoom, we now face the challenge of hybrid meetings. Studies show we’ve had more meetings than ever during the pandemic, but many still feel distant from their colleagues on a human level. Perhaps we need to more often ask: does this even need to be a meeting?
This type of change is often driven by those enthusiastic about new tech, or by those who fail to see the connection between technology and culture. Without experience in leading an organizational journey where everyone must come along, the result can be that many feel insecure and frustrated in their collaboration—not the best foundation for creating real results together.
If there is already a strong culture and clear ways of working in place, this approach can be the right one. It can deliver quick results and adapt you to new hybrid ways of working.
It’s easy to draw a parallel to Peter Drucker’s famous quote: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” The reason why actual improvement often falls short is that investments in digital skills and behaviors alone don’t change how people engage with and are motivated by their work. For that to happen, we need to work on these questions over time—and above all, clarify what we really mean by our updated ways of working.
Culture and tools
The second approach is to connect culture development with digital tools—and to involve, or even delegate, responsibility to the organization itself.
Here, a group begins exploring new ways of working. It could be leadership, but it doesn’t have to be—the crucial factor is time, interest, and willingness. This exploration is a mix of building digital competence and clarifying how new skills and behaviors connect to cultural expressions such as purpose and values. In other words, the work becomes much more hands-on early on compared to traditional culture development. The group iterates more often, and after a period of learning and experimenting, formulates what they see as desired and undesired behavior patterns, as well as the guidelines and agreements needed for sustainable, effective work.
Concrete examples that often arise during this process include:
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A genuine, human comment in an open Teams channel is an expression of authenticity and can strengthen relationships and belonging.
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A shared and well-structured plan for the day or week is an example of leadership based on ownership and accountability.
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An “open” leadership team agenda in Planner fosters trust across the organization.
These insights can then be documented in a playbook and used as inspiration and support for other groups embarking on the same journey. We see this kind of change as more “inside-out” and “short-iteration” rather than “top-down” and “all-at-once.” It’s always more inspiring to follow someone who has made the journey themselves than someone standing on the sidelines telling others how to do it.
This perspective strengthens understanding of how company culture and values are affected, as well as which behaviors and skills need to evolve. The advantage here is that all the dimensions necessary for true digital development are included. The downside: it requires an ongoing process—it’s not a quick fix.
Tomorrow’s ways of working are already here
As most companies and organizations now step into hybrid work, clarity on what this means is essential. The digital tools help us work smarter and better when used thoughtfully, but they should rarely be the driving factor in change. Our values, awareness of our behaviors, and the skills we need to develop are likely better drivers—and the great thing is that we can now manifest culture through the way we actually work.
Many have talked about culture for years, but now is likely the right time to take action. The journey is extensive, but the first step can be simple.
How are you approaching your journey toward the new normal?