Evolving digital transformation and AI create new challenges for ICT organizations' leaders. They have to build a work environment with 3 main characteristics: Care, Results and Learning. Trust and a clear Purpose are fundamental ingredients for people management. Ιδιαίτερη έμφαση στο «καλό» κλίμα, στο κλίμα εμπιστοσύνης, φροντίδας και ανοικτής επικοινωνίας, στον προσανατολισμό στα αποτελέσματα στο πλαίσιο μιας οραματικής προσέγγισης και στη συνεχή μάθηση για να γίνονται οι ομάδες πιο δημιουργικές.

1. Corporate Culture in ICT
Companies in digital era:
Mind the gap …
1
Vassilis Trapezanoglou
Digital Innovation Consultant
27-06-19

2. Strategy and Culture
2
Strategy and Culture are interrelated and both are critical for success
Strategy
Culture
Effectiveness /
Performance

3. Sometimes bad cultural mood might be fatal …
3
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” Peter Drucker

4. Perceived situation - Need to change
4
PWC 2018 survey of more than
2,000 people in 50 countries reveals

5. Leaders are conscious of the need to improve culture
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❑ Alignment of strategy and culture is mandatory
❑ Leaders are conscious of the need to improve
cultural sentiment but they don’t take formal
actions, because:
▪ They have other priorities
▪ “Diving into people’ souls and behaviors” is a
trip into “uncharted waters”
▪ As they don’t have a good insight of the cultural
behaviors they react on the “visible” parts of the
company’s using short-term tools to calm down
eventual malaise
Many leaders understand the problem but they don’t act appropriately

6. Culture remains almost “invisible”
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We see only the visible part of the iceberg (=company’s life)
We are always take care of the
visible part of company’s life
We are rarely divining into the
invisible part of company’s life
The main challenge during digital transformation
projects (and the main area of mistakes!)
Operations
Technology
Strategy
Culture

7. Corporate culture is frequently unclear
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The “invisible” part of the cultural iceberg creates “learning styles” and “action logics”
❑ Predominant cultural characteristics are
not clear and frequently misunderstood
❑ Contradictory “local” cultures create
multiple “learning and action logics”
❑ Aleatory employee attraction-selection
➔ increased attrition
❑ Culture not always aligned with strategic
goals ➔ not supportive
Language
Dress Body
Rewards Symbols Festivities
Food Use of Physical Space
Values Ethics Motivations Beliefs
Mindsets Expectations
Action logics
Competition vs Cooperation
Importance of Time Norms
Perception of Fairness
Learning Styles
Approach of
Problem Solving

8. Culture is a leaders’ mandate
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Many methods and tools to assess and improve corporate culture
Research based on analysis of the culture of 230 companies and 1.300
executives, plus on-line survey of 25.000 employees
“The Leader’s Guide
to Corporate
Culture”

9. Eight culture styles mapped along two dimensions
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FLEXIBILITY
STABILITY
INDEPENDENCE
INTERDEPENDENCE
Spencer Stuart
research
Greater value on
autonomy,
individual action
and competition.
Emphasis on
integration, managing
relationships and
coordinating group
effort. Success through
the lens of the group.
Favor stability tend to follow rules, use control structures,
reinforce hierarchy, and strive for efficiency.
Favor flexibility, tend to prioritize innovation,
openness, diversity, and a longer-term orientation.
How people interact
Responsetochange

10. The eight culture styles
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❑ Caring focuses on relationships and mutual trust
❑ Purpose is exemplified by idealism and altruism
❑ Learning is characterized by exploration, expansiveness & creativity
❑ Enjoyment is expressed through fun and excitement
❑ Results is characterized by achievement and winning
❑ Authority is defined by strength, decisiveness & boldness
❑ Safety is defined by planning, caution, and preparedness
❑ Order is focused on respect, structure, and shared norms

11. Advantages and Disadvantages – Ranking 1st or 2nd
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1
2

12. Main context factors affecting culture attributes
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❑ Region
❑ Size of organization
❑ Leadership
❑ Organizational design
❑ Strategy (strategic goals and plans)
❑ Differentiation strategy, innovation ➔
purpose, learning and enjoyment
❑ Industry
➔ technological companies are required to emphasize on learning, due to
the speed of technology obsolescence and the related market uncertainty
There is no “one-size-fits-all” for culture

13. Style preference depends on the context
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Styles preferred by Strategy and Industry
STRATEGY INDUSTRY

14. Some conclusions (from HBR study)
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❑ When aligned with strategy and leadership, a strong culture
drives positive organizational outcomes
❑ A strong culture can be a significant liability when it is
misaligned with strategy
❑ It’s not surprising that results is the most common culture style
among all the studied companies
❑ In a dynamic, less predictable and more complex environment
learning gains importance to promote agility and innovation
❑ Small companies and those in newer industries (i.e. software,
technology, and wireless equipment) accord higher values in
learning
Different business / market environments need various mixt of characteristics

15. Digital era is more demanding on cultural issues
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❑ Digitization has changed a lot of company’s external and internal processes and has
impact on employees behavior
❑ Gig Economy
▪ Disaggregation of jobs
✓ Automation – outsourcing - narrow specialization - remote work - cloud services
▪ Freelancers (sharing work time in various and temporary jobs)
▪ Virtual and multinational teams etc.
❑ Accelerating pace of changes in technology and markets ➔
turbulences in many industries
❑ Shift in demand in human expertise and skills
Fast changes in workspace, workforce, industries and markets

16. Millennials and Gen X
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❑ Older members: combination of face-to-face communication and computer
mediated communication
❑ Younger members: mainly digital technologies for interpersonal communication
❑ Span of concentration, due to multiple communication channels
❑ Flat corporate culture
❑ Social consciousness, volunteerism
❑ Sports and hygiene
❑ Balance work-personal life
❑ “Less adherent” to institutions and traditions
❑ Be part of various communities & special interest groups
New generations at the heart of digital transformation

17. Technology companies / units: characteristics & challenges
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❑ Younger staff
❑ Male in majority (yet)
❑ Generations X and Y (Millennials)
❑ Extremely stressing working conditions
▪ Many time-sensitive projects
▪ Increased working hours
▪ “Always on” – 24X7
▪ Complex and more demanding interconnections etc.
❑ High speed of change ➔ change is the only constant in
▪ Technical knowledge production and obsolescence
▪ Professions disruption
▪ Business & operational models transformation
▪ Tools and working platforms
❑ ICT units are at the heart of digital transformation
Dynamic, innovative and uncertain workplaces
Young personnel
Uncertainty
Stressing workplace

18. Technology company / units: characteristics and challenges
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❑ Artificial Intelligence
▪ Creates moral and ethics challenges and risks
▪ More powerful and complex information systems (IS)
▪ Radical changes in building and operating smart components
❑ Blockchain technology
❑ Networked company: incorporate “outside” people
▪ ICT companies participate in the Gig Economy
▪ Multiple connected to business partners & outsourcers
▪ Need to adopt diversity
❑ 4th industrial revolution and its implications
Moral challenges asking
for collective actions
Need for “inclusion”

19. The need for an agile work and workplace
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❑ Digital era requires qualities like general cognitive ability,
metacognition, mindset, emotion regulation, and creativity
❑ The most important qualification and ability will be compiling and
synthesizing new smart and/or not-smart “components” in order to
▪ Solve problems
▪ Provide with new solutions ➔ craftsmen who can master any tool
➔ ICT workplaces
➔ will need more agility
➔will face more moral, sentimental and cognitive issues
➔➔ We need something to build more coherent, secure and comfortable workplaces

20. The importance of Trust and how it is triggered
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The expression of Trust triggers brain to produce Oxytocin
❑ The more trust one is shown, the more the brain produces oxytocin
➔ “the hormone of Love”
❑ Trust begets oxytocin, which begets trustworthiness in return
➔ Trust begets trust
❑ Oxytocin makes us feel good to be part of an organization
❑ Oxytocin works by activating a brain network that makes us more
empathic.
❑ Empathy gives us additional information about others; it tells us
how another person is feeling in various situations and why
someone is doing something.
❑ Trust is part of our evolutionarily old repertoire of social behaviors
❑ “I call Oxytocin the moral molecule”
Neuroscientist, economist
Director of Center of
Neuroeconomics Studies

21. Trust and purpose create coherent and efficient groups
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❑ Three components determine performance: People, Organization,
Purpose
❑ Trust requires viewing those with whom one works as whole and
complete human beings, not as pieces of human capital
❑ Culture is a key way that companies attract and retain the best
employees
❑ This is especially true for millennials and Gen Xers who want to work
for companies they trust and that value their individuality
❑ It turns out that both trust and purpose activate regions of the brain
that motivate cooperation with others

22. The impact of Trust on companies’ performance
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❑ Trust acts as an economic lubricant, reducing the frictions inherent in economic
activity ➔ increases group’s cohesion
❑ High-performance organizations have cultures with high interpersonal trust and highly
motivated employees
❑ Employees in high-trust organizations
▪ are substantially more productive
▪ have more energy at work
▪ stay with their employers longer
▪ recommend their workplaces to family and friends, and
▪ are significantly more innovative
❑ Companies with engaged employees are 22 percent more profitable than those in
which employees are watching the clock

23. Oxytocin inhibitors
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❑ Stress: High levels of stress inhibit the release of oxytocin. When you are stressed out
you are not your best self.
❑ Testosterone: The other potent oxytocin inhibitor is a chemical that has a profound
effect on brain activity: testosterone.
▪ The least empathic humans on the planet are young males.
▪ Man’s ability to behave pro-socially generally increases with age.
❑ Competition and status increase testosterone in both sexes.
❑ Oxytocin has been shown to increase not only trust and cooperation but also
forgiveness.
❑ Effective culture ➔ focuses colleagues on cooperation ➔ overcome the competition
➔ less testosterone ➔ more trust ➔ more productive.
Stress, testosterone, competition inhibit oxytocin

24. How do we develop Trust
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❑ Culture is not static. It evolves as the people and purpose of the organization change
❑ The neuromanagement challenge is to design a culture in which oxytocin can be released many
times during the day by positive social interactions
❑ The eight factors that the neuroscience affirms are the building blocks of organizational trust have
the acronym OXYTOCIN:
▪ Ovation (explains 67% of organizational trust)
▪ eXpectation (explains 83% of organizational trust)
▪ Yield (explains 51% of organizational trust)
▪ Transfer (explains 82% of organizational trust)
▪ Openness (explains 65% of organizational trust)
▪ Caring (explains 84% of organizational trust)
▪ Invest (explains 72% of organizational trust)
▪ Natural (explains 72% of organizational trust)
A dynamic workplace that creates multiple positive social interactions

25. Joy = Purpose X Trust
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Trust and well defined strategic goals create the most enjoyable working environment
Organizations should not
try to make people happy
at work.
Joy is the result of
working with trusted
colleagues
who have a transcendent
purpose

26. My conclusion for culture in ICT companies and units
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• Caring, based on Trust, is a must ➔ adopt collaborative tools
• A group without coherence can’t have a development potential
Caring
• Results-oriented strategy, aligned with a Transcendent Purpose
calling for the pursuit of greatness in service of others
• Purpose must shape behavior and be supported by relative KPIs
Results
• Learning in order to be expandable and innovative
• Experiential learning in problem-solving & solution-providing
• Individual learning must be inspired
Learning
Enjoyment
• Joy is a result
• Be happy means to feel the way that you wish to feel
• No one-size-fits-all happiness initiatives

27. Purpose and Leading a Cultural Movement
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❑ Simply explaining the need for cultural change couldn’t work.
❑ Creating a sense of urgency is helpful, but can be short-lived.
❑ To harness people’s full commitment, they must feel a deep desire, and even
responsibility, to change.
❑ A leader can do this by framing change within the organization’s purpose —
the “why we exist” question.
❑ It asks employees to be driven by more than personal gain.
❑ It gives meaning to work, conjures individual emotion, and incites collective action.
❑ Give your colleagues specific goals and the freedom to figure out how to reach them
➔ treat them like adults
❑ Don’t measure culture with data only …
First thing first: create a movement
“Changing Company Culture Requires a
Movement, Not a Mandate”, Bryan Walker
& Sarah A. Soule, HBR, June 2017

28. The Soft Skills of Great Digital Organizations
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if not …. mind the gap !
Do you cultivate a culture promoting
❑ Collaboration and communication skills
❑ Goal-centric thinking
❑ Learning skills
❑ Problem-solving and solution-providing
orientation ?

29. Thanks!
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Go on: Happy customers & users can’t wait !