Executive Leadership, Talent Development & Navigating the DEI Divide
The landscape around executive leadership and talent development continues to evolve rapidly. Who is offering what? What to source externally versus what to build internally? How to measure impact of investments? What’s the strategy to make decisions about who gets which development opportunities and when? What internal policies and practices need to be assessed and changed to account for the continually evolving landscape in the United States (including compliance with recent applicable Executive Orders) and globally? How to tie investments to other strategic business initiatives underway so they aren’t viewed as one-and-done or check the box?
We can help you understand and navigate this landscape, work through these and other tough questions, and ultimately develop and implement a strategy that is aligned with your mission and core values, that focuses on executing your business strategy and creating value for all your stakeholders, is effective and inclusive, complies with applicable laws, and is the best fit for your organization, your leadership and your talent. The multi-generational makeup of our workplaces is both challenging and full of exciting opportunities when it comes to leadership and talent development. We will also help you incorporate the effective infusion of external talent that also needs to be part of any organization’s leadership and talent strategy.
We are also committed to working with our clients to navigate the DEI divide more broadly. How you engage with your Board of Directors on these issues is of paramount importance, and we can be a strategic partner to you and your Board in this journey. It is understandable that the constantly changing environment and controversy around DEI can cause confusion and uncertainty about how to proceed. Our point of view is that the assessment of whether to put in place, stop or pause, or modify your DEI strategy needs to be based on a clear understanding of the purpose of your DEI strategy and how it aligns with your corporate mission, gathering and analysis of relevant data, an understanding of future recruiting and retention needs, and an understanding both the culture and demands of your current and next generation of employees. We can help you with these strategic assessments, formulating your future state plans, and implementing them.
Also on the table – AI and digital transformation in general as well as other novel technologies have enormous consequences for the future of work. These transformative changes create a totally different set of dynamics when it comes to your go-forward strategies and programs for executive leadership and talent development. We will help you understand and tackle these important challenges and opportunities.
Change, Innovation and Growth
The success of any transformational change initiative is dependent on your investment in the people that make that change happen. So many transformational change initiatives fail because the organization did not pay enough attention to the people and culture aspects of the change. At Ovation Global Strategies, we make the focus on the people and culture aspects of a change initiative a priority.
Ovation Global Strategies provides unique and distinctive advisory services that focus on the relationship between risk-taking, change, innovation, and growth, and how those, in turn, need to tie in with your executive leadership and talent development strategies.
Growth requires people to change. Change in turn requires people to take risks, embrace the new opportunities that arise, and do things differently, because clearly just doing more of the same is not enough to drive an ambitious growth agenda. When you are asking people to do things differently, it is crucial to recognize that you are asking them to take risks. Some of those risks may be small, others will be large. But it is imperative to understand that you are asking them to take risks, and therefore to equip them such that they can maximize the success of the change.
Engineers say a new idea has been ‘invented’ when it is proven to work in the laboratory. The idea becomes an innovation only when it can be replicated reliably on a meaningful scale at practical costs. In engineering, when an idea moves from an invention to an innovation, diverse component technologies come together. Emerging from isolated developments in separate fields of research, these components gradually form an ‘ensemble of technologies’ that are critical to each other’s success. Until this ensemble forms, the idea, though possible in the laboratory, does not achieve its potential in practice. The same philosophy applies to developing a culture or culture of calculated risk-taking in your organization.
Our services in this arena focus on the critical factors that converge to create a culture of calculated risk-taking in organizations for you to be able to drive change and innovation and realize your growth goals; and how to in turn tie those into your executive leadership and talent development strategies.
AI, Digital Transformation, and the Future of Work
At Ovation Global Strategies, we are both intrigued and enthralled by AI and digital transformation and both the challenges and opportunities they present to create vastly different possibilities for organizations along with continuing to realize the full potential of their people. This will require both discipline and creativity in integrating people, processes, policy, governance, technology, and data, and supporting leaders in navigating the complexities of AI and its impact on culture, leadership, and talent. We can be your partner in this journey.
AI and digital transformation are not the same as other technologies. The challenges of both accessing resources and retaining talent are at levels never experienced before. AI and digital transformation projects are harder due to the skill sets required, handoffs that happen between different teams, blurring boundaries of functions, figuring out who is going to bear the cost of experiments, defining and comparing outcomes relative to no AI, balancing efficiencies versus friction, monitoring for and eliminating algorithmic bias, privacy, and security, as well as a host of other factors. Adoption of AI is a continuous process, so organizations need to either reinvent around AI or recognize that there will be new players that build up around AI.
AI is a tool; the choice of how to use those tools is ours. In most organizations, the pace at which younger generation employees want to learn, experiment with, and embrace these technologies far outstrips the readiness and comfort of C-suite executives. We are on a long road to see if AI will democratize its gains or return its gains to a smaller and smaller number of people. AI is fundamentally shifting decision-making rights in organizations. The consolidation of power and influence, and building trust with AI are real issues to be considered. Regulatory and governance approaches are still in their early days.
Every single one of these issues will undoubtedly influence the future of work as organizations need to grapple with how to organize around appropriate use cases for AI and make sure they really understand what is the problem they are trying to solve; where to start; what the right funding model; how to scale; having the right governance in place; defining markers of success, markers of concern, and contra-indicators; and defining what the arc of participation looks like in AI initiatives.
Finally, leadership commitment really matters with your AI and digital transformation initiatives, so understanding what that means and how that actually manifests is crucial, at all levels of your organization. As with everything else, how all this ties into your executive leadership and talent development strategies also really matters.
Program Management for Technology, Regulatory and Compliance, and Operational Initiatives
At Ovation Global Strategies, this is one of our sweet spots. We have accumulated years of experience leading various facets as well as entire programs of complex technology, regulatory and compliance, and operational initiatives. We have been the bridge between legal, compliance, and technology teams, and the business.
In many cases, the solutions require a blend of organizational change management, technology, and operational skills, seamlessly brought together through deep program management expertise. The solutions almost always also require the ability to work effectively with stakeholders at all levels of the organization, from C-suite executives to managers and staff, and at times external stakeholders.
Companies in industries such as financial services and healthcare are continuing to significantly increase their spending on regulatory and compliance initiatives. However, resources with the necessary expertise are extremely hard to find. Even harder is finding the resource that can provide deep program management expertise and act as an effective bridge between legal, compliance, and technology teams, and the different business areas being impacted by the government-mandated regulations and compliance needs.
At Ovation Global Strategies, we bring the necessary experience to fill the program management needs you have in this fast-moving, ever-changing arena.
Our technology and operations program management expertise includes, but is not limited to:
Program Management Office and Governance
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS)
Swap Data Repositories (SDR)
Data Analytics