The digital revolution will not be televised! Its already here and televising a modern revolution simply will not be enough. The revolution will be live streamed in virtual reality for everybody to take part in!
Gil Scott Heron will be smiling from on high; to think that the immortal statement of wild abandon and a commentary on a somewhat dystopian future will never come true, largely because technology moves faster than the ‘humble’ human being can! The song and poem by Gil Scott Heron is said to be a reaction to the song “When the Revolution Comes” by The Last Poets, from their eponymous debut, which opens with the line “When the revolution comes some of us will probably catch it on TV”, how many of us are sitting by and waiting for the digital revolution to happen so we can watch it on TV.
In the last two weeks I have been stopped dead in my tracks whilst presenting with the same type of question;
… all this new-fangled technology stuff is all well and good but how do we manage inclusivity if so many services in healthcare become reliant on the digital platform we ‘all’ have?
As digital leaders, or in reality just as leaders, we need to humanise the issues we have if we are to truly achieve digital transformation then we need to discover a way to engage everyone, not just those involved in the revolution but those that want to watch from the side lines as it happens. Engage, engage, engage needs to be the phrase we use every day as we try to create a future that has a foundation in digital and is powered by digital capability. Whether building a new hospital here in Leeds or trying to delight a customer of a commercial organisation then humanising the digital change is imperative to success and engagement through digital will ensue once we have delight in digital channels, a truly omni-channel activity for all.
The urban myth or ‘trueism-research’ that suggests that waiting staff adding googly eyes to a tip jar will see the tips leap up by 6% is said to be because the customer in the café feels that it humanised the experience of tipping is something we can learn from with engagement of people in all that we do.
We need to marinate the problems that digital presents people with together rather pouring on salt.
I love that phrase, I heard it recently in a bar in reference to people being nice to others but it applies just as equally to the issue of digital transformation, let me try to explore and explain.
A plain steak, not a great steak just a plain one; by adding salt you can widen the flavour but you will never give it any depth, but, even a plain old steak marinated in spices and sauces chosen together by the chef and the customer will broaden the appeal and depth of flavour, lessen the harshness and achieve a better result for everyone involved. I think this works well for digital transformation, success will be achieved by working together on the flavours that we are trying to deliver. Digital leaders need to seek the advice, guidance, needs and desires of the ‘customer’ to ensure that the type of transformation works for all no matter the taste buds and previous culinary experiences.
Just a note here though, I’m not comparing the digital capability in the NHS to ‘any old steak’ I hasten to add!
Creating the right recipe for working together is a consideration for successful transformation. Agreeing on the desired outcome at the beginning of the project or deliverable and ensuring that everyone is clear what the outcome will be at the end is how success can be achieved. The same can be said for so many ways of working, in digital healthcare cross organisational teams, cultured networks of sharing have been created, but not everyone wants to join in even today in 2019. The accusation of not invented here still exists, the need to have the local flexibility needs to be in place but this cannot stop us all from marinating the issues we face today together and creating the best way forward for the whole system. In the most recent of years this has started to occur in digital health but perhaps not in other parts of healthcare delivery or even in single hospital teams. Things like Hello My Name Is… has created a framework that ensures that the patient is considered first and foremost but our cultural statements are still to fully impact on how we work together as one organisation with the right impact on each other all of the time.
The #PinkSocks world is a prime example of the wonder that can be achieved when people come together in new ways of sharing and supporting. Nick Adkins set about creating a way of connecting disparate people, people who traditionally were not empowered to share, in fact would often have been in competition with each other in reality. By gifting a pair of distinctive socks, by encouraging a hug as a greeting, by defining what ‘heart speak’ amongst peers should be like the movement has marinated the problems we shared rather than rubbing salt on them and the digital health world is way better for it.
Just be kind is the ethos of Ted Rubin as a leader in digital marketing. His theme extends into the realms of marinating the issue too. He suggests that ‘old’ marketing was dictation and ‘new’ marketing is communication and that we need to change from convince and convert to converse and convert. When we set about digital transformation this is what we need to use our Chief Clinical Information Officers (CCIO) in healthcare for. They have the immediate language skills to converse and convert that sometimes we don’t they also have something that digital is yet to create fully in the digital world, an even playing field of respect. We need to build the role of the CCIO as a forever role, a role of co-leadership and co-creation; the digital leader role is not to be sub-subservient to the CCIO in this new relationship, the role is now an equal, in leadership capability, in unique knowledge and experience and in position within the team. Getting that right is the new challenge of the CIO and CCIO. Ted offers some more words of wisdom in this;
You have to give to get. No relationship can survive without trust; simple in concept yet not always easy to see executed.
Ted’s # to follow is #RonR ‘Return on Reputation’, CIOs and CCIOs can together create the reputation that is needed to marinate not salt those problems that exist across a team.
If you haven’t read Humans by Matt Haig go and do so now, it will help with this issue too. Professor Andrew Martin the key character in the book has arrived; food sickens him, clothes confound him and he cannot understand relationships, the only person to ‘get’ him is Newton, and he is the family dog. Professor Martin is a human ‘possessed’ by an alien sent to earth to evaluate the who, the what and the why, and he falls in love with the Human race! Something that I think we all need to do again to be able to achieve the delightful transformation that drives us in so many ways.
If you read Haig’s book then have Professor Adam Rutherford’s The Book of Humans: The Story of How We Became Us and Mark Britnell’s new book Human: Solving the Global Workforce Crisis in Healthcare right next to it. We need to learn from how we got to where we are, we need to be able to see in to the future and we need to be able to laugh at our own naivety, silliness and stupidity that occur every day as we strive to be a better me. These three books will enable us to do just that!
If ever there were three flavours needed for the marinating of the issue then these three pieces of written thought leadership applied in different ways are it!
And that is it really I think, lets understand our past and learn, lets predict our future together and do something about it and lets laugh from both the silliness of the past and the possibility of the future, two different types of laughter but two types we can get right together.
Its time to get down and marinate!
Huge credit goes to my good friend Bolly for passing on the marinated Vs salted comment, with her permission it appears in a slightly changed manner. Originally the phrase was related to people, those that know how to marinate and those that simply salt everything, Bolly is an expert at marinating beyond anyone else I know.