We love bosses! You have the bird’s eye view. The big picture. This makes you essential for making any important tech decisions for your team, because you can see further ahead. You know where it is you need to go!
But that also means you have blind spots. Flying high in the sky makes it easy to miss the little obstacles that can turn into bigger problems.
If you’ve ever worked in corporate, you’ve probably experienced this. The higher ups announce a great new technology that will make everybody’s jobs so much better. They hype it up. They do trainings. And when they roll it out, it proceeds to blow up in everybody’s face.
One of our favorite studies was conducted by pwc.com. They asked people a simple question: was your technology designed with the needs of your people in mind? 90% of the bosses said, “Yes.” But only 53% of employees agreed. That’s a pretty big gap, and it speaks to a bigger problem.
Look bosses, with all due respect, you just don’t just know everything your people need. You need the bosses for the vision, but if frontline staff are not part of the process, you risk the trust, goodwill, and patience of your personnel. You also risk having to spend a whole lot more money to fix the problems your staff could have helped you avoid in the first place. And when people feel like they have buy-in, it makes adoption that much easier.
When we do a sourcing and setup project, we require frontline staff to be involved from the beginning. Yes, staff productivity will take a bit of a hit, but this tiny little thing (you know, listening) all but eliminates the risk of a (costly) failed rollout. By including frontline staff, you invest in their professionalization, and you have a group of early adopters who can help train your staff and champion the product once it goes into production.
If you are looking for new technology on your own, we highly advise you include people at all levels of the org chart. If you want guaranteed success, let’s talk. Initial discovery is always free.
Book a call so that the money you spend on tech for your team truly helps them be their best!
David J. Dunn
David is the founder of Undaunted Consulting. He specializes in data management system optimization and rapid app development for social service, social justice, and environmental justice nonprofits.