Navigating complexity can be intimidating for non-technical leaders. However, effective leaders know how to slow their thought processes down and consider every angle when approaching issues.
They can assist their teams to do the same. This means encouraging clear and open dialogue among non-technical team members as well as creating space where ideas can be refined and clarified.
Educating Non-Technical Leaders
Recent years have witnessed an escalation of challenges: financial pressures, workforce issues and more - all stemming from an increasingly complex environment for leaders to navigate. Yet traditional cause-and-effect thinking doesn't produce the desired outcomes - instead we must shift our perspective and learn to manage ambiguity more effectively.
Project professionals understand the significance of being adept at managing complexity as an essential skill that will remain an essential element of project work in the future. Many factors contribute to this situation, including increased diversity among projects, distributed teams, social media channels, new technology advancements and the increasing demands to deliver more business value using limited resources.
Navigating complexity requires developing at all levels within an organization, including technical project management, leadership and strategic/business management skills. Every project environment and initiative has unique aspects that must be considered; such as the need for extensive communications so all involved understand what's happening and why; it may also necessitate spending a great deal of time clarifying and explaining; furthermore managing knowledge transfer requires having enough information available so individuals don't hoard it themselves within the team.
Non-technical executives need to be properly educated on technology in order to meet their company's business goals, especially those leading small to mid-sized businesses, which often have a very limited technology budget and rely heavily on IT employees for solutions.
One effective approach to accomplish this goal is ensuring IT managers and other technical employees are available for non-technical CEOs with queries or concerns, providing an opportunity to build trust and credibility between business leaders. In addition, technical employees should take time to explain new technologies or innovations so they are easily understandable - giving non-technical business leaders confidence that they are making informed decisions regarding technology in their company.
Listening to Your Non-Technical Leaders
While it can be tempting to focus on the technical elements of project management, non-technical leaders require tangible results which are easily measured. Achieve these requires having a deep knowledge of their business needs as well as a commitment to meeting them using cutting-edge technologies.
Navigating Complexity: A Practice Guide (PMI, 2014b) defines complexity as "any characteristic of a program or project or its environment that makes it challenging to manage due to human behavior, system behaviour and ambiguity". Project and program managers must possess strong leadership competence so as to align programs and projects with organizational strategic goals and objectives.
In order to achieve this goal, it's necessary to understand all levels of technical knowledge within your organization - not only project and program managers' technical expertise but also those responsible for documentation, marketing, corporate leadership advocacy and middle management roles.
Finding out more about your non-technical leaders' IT skill sets requires reviewing their IT asset inventory and interviewing key stakeholders, as this will enable you to determine the most efficient means of communicating with their audiences - this ensures no wasted time explaining concepts they already understand or that don't apply directly to their roles.
Once you understand the IT capabilities of your non-technical audience, you can begin implementing simplification strategies that will reduce infrastructure complexity and enhance security. Virtualization and containerization may reduce hardware costs by enabling multiple apps to share one physical server; IT service management and DevOps practices may streamline operations while decreasing risks due to human error.
Attaining a secure, simplified IT environment is an ongoing journey. To succeed, it must become a top priority and you should assess both IT infrastructure and processes regularly, while creating an environment conducive to learning by encouraging non-technical leaders to ask questions. With proper support you'll be able to easily navigate your ever-evolving IT environment.
Encouraging Non-Technical Leaders to Ask Questions
Navigating complexity requires active questioning as a leadership competency, and Gregersen's book "Questions Are the Answer" offers invaluable guidance on this topic. Gregersen offers insight on how powerful questions can lead to innovative solutions, providing leaders with essential skill for managing complex environments that may otherwise be challenging for non-technical leaders to comprehend and navigate effectively.
Knowledge assets and metadata definition are effective ways of helping project professionals quickly access information they require when needed, but leaders must do more than create an efficient system for knowledge transfer. They should foster and promote an environment of inquiry among their teams by encouraging an open culture of questioning and exploration - this may involve encouraging open-ended questions that encourage detailed responses, as well as those designed to elicit potential consequences or risks more fully.
One of the most effective questions for complex situations can be "What would happen if you did this?" Second-order thinking serves as an effective reminder that not all decisions' effects may be instantly obvious or possible to determine when working in complexity.
Asylum Technologies can also help leaders manage complexity more successfully, by helping them to recognize that complex situations don't just represent harder versions of complicated ones; rather they require different approaches.
The OODA Loop, a practical and iterative model for making complex decisions, can also be an invaluable tool for leaders. Herbert Simon's work on Bounded Rationality serves as an important reminder that our ability to solve complex problems is limited and that sometimes settling for an acceptable solution may be better than striving to reach unrealistic ideals.
At its core, providing leaders with the tools and skills needed to navigate complexity is the best way to enhance their ability. Therefore, many organizations are now including complex competencies into their curriculum and training programs, including leadership development courses. HR departments will often review competency profiles of employees to identify courses which could address any gaps.
Creating a Culture of Learning
Learning cultures have been shown to increase employee engagement, foster a growth mindset, spur innovation and continuous improvement efforts, increase retention rates, attract talent and retain employees. They can also help create a more secure IT environment by encouraging team sharing of knowledge among teams.
Assuring your company-wide priorities include learning is one way to foster an environment conducive to development. This can be accomplished by including it in core values or making learning part of new hire onboarding process, or including it into corporate calendar and business strategy as an aspect of strategic development.
An effective way to foster a learning culture is by asking employees to set career goals and strive towards them. Also, creating a safe space where failure is allowed can play a vital role - when employees feel safe enough to make mistakes without fearing punishment, they are more likely to take risks and try new things.
Final point, it is essential that employees and management communicate openly about learning. This can be achieved by creating a collaborative work environment and acknowledging mistakes as acceptable learning experiences. Furthermore, clear roles and responsibilities need to be established regarding each task so as to avoid confusion or conflict when it comes time to assigning responsibility for projects or programs.
To establish a learning culture within an organization, senior leaders should lead by example and make it part of their business strategy. They can do this by participating in learning activities themselves or hosting lunch-and-learns where they share personal experiences or lessons learned; or simply becoming learning advocates who encourage others to get involved.
Establishing a learning culture may be challenging, yet essential to success in today's fast-moving business landscape. By cultivating an atmosphere that fosters collaboration, transparency, and respect between coworkers you can foster stronger teams while more efficiently executing IT projects. If you need assistance creating a more effective IT environment please reach out to Asylum Technologies now for our managed services which include cloud computing, consolidation automation end user training governance practices.
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