You can only innovate as much as you know.
Even in a world surrounded by tech and the surge of mobile and disruptive solutions in the home and workplace, you can have more but be less operationally efficient and productive. Your knowledge of the nitty-gritty ‘How-Tos’ can help elevate your innovation tendencies. My smartwatch incident sets the scene for the summary indicative points.
I lost my smartwatch while changing flat tyres sometime ago. However, I noticed that the watch’s mobile-app would sync periodically as I drove to work, which gave the first indication that the watch was in proximity. This knowledge is premised on my understanding that the watch would sync with my phone’s mobile app using Bluetooth technology. To narrow down and validate the possible location of the watch, I walked about 10 metres away from the car with my mobile phone and noticed the synchronisation stopped with a notification that the watch was not nearby. I was able to focus efforts on searching within the car and eventually found my smartwatch in the trunk.
Innovation is not only in the “big-bang” world-changing solutions, but it also comes in the little creative ways to enable efficiency, do things better and even do better things. This brings to the foray, even in these disruptive times, the need for learning and development (L&D) and change management to nurture and support the desired digital and innovative culture, by following these recommended digital transformation onboarding steps:
- Develop an all-inclusive change management strategy for smoothening out changes due to new product/technology roll-out. This should cater to marketing, culture, learning, motivation e.t.c
- Don’t just hand over tech/solutions to your users/learners; provide awareness sessions, i.e. Instructor-led sessions (physical or web-driven) on how the solution can be both fit-for-use and fit-for-purpose.
- Think localisation – not just language. Identify your intricate organisational demographics – age groups, generations, cohorts, community archetypes, sex, race – and tailor the instructions and messages! What is good for the Goose, might not be great for the Gander.
- Beyond the event, provide performance support enablers using digital learning, short videos, FAQs, Knowledge management wikis with short, actionable anecdotes that can be used to drive “doing”, not just “knowing”.
- Make them “findable”. When a user desires to explore and frustratingly does not know where to find help, it leaves a bitter learner experience (LX) and instantly dissuades the passion. Use indexes, tags and taxonomies to allow users to find these resources. As much as you can also send these resources to them. It’s about enabling the two-way push-pull knowledge pathway.
- Where possible, design the performance support enablers in the form of use-cases to bring theoretical knowledge to life, and also get them thinking of replication avenues.
- Capture success stories and recycle them as new knowledge objects for your performance support channels and marketing artefacts. These also go a long way to credentialise inherent possibilities to the nay-sayers and get the people believing.
If your people don’t use the new solutions and you are not getting the right utilisation and innovation results, you can start by asking – “Are we sure they know about it?”
Written by:
Olayemi Olatunji
Managing Consultant
