Doing Well and Doing Good

The following sections are included:

• About the Authors
• Acknowledgments
• Contents

The following sections are included:

• The Call to Action
• Balancing Doing Well and Doing Good
• The Human-Centered Digital Transformation Leadership Framework
• Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
• The Case Studies
• Leadership Concepts and Acknowledgments
• Conclusion

Amanda hadn’t signed on to lead a meaningful digital transformation in the global enterprise where she was employed. At the time she joined the company, the word “digital” wasn’t even in most people’s vocabulary. Yet there she was, heading up a team of people like herself who understood a lot about how to lead a change project but very little about technology. A CDO had been hired a few years prior to lay out the digital strategy for the company, but it soon became clear that she was just one person and that change would require action on the part of thousands of global employees who did not report to the CDO or even understand exactly what the CDO was saying. The new CEO came from a technical background and was strongly supportive of digitization efforts. His vocal support for the CDO’s plan did little to move things ahead. Oh yes, people were listening. Each unit leader heard the CDO present the digitization strategy and appointed someone in their unit to get right on it — whatever that meant. Clearly, the CEO was demanding action and it wouldn’t do to disappoint him. Besides, moving ahead quickly meant that whoever took this project on would get a lot of positive attention, some budgetary support, and freedom to do whatever they wanted…

The chief commercial officer (CCO) hung up the phone. She was tasked with managing a $40 million client portfolio in the Americas, the revenue lifeblood of the company. The customer she’d just spoken with expressed his absolute dissatisfaction with the new cloud platform, a system intended to transform how the company integrated and analyzed data — and threatened to rescind a multi-million dollar contract. The CCO was ready to resign. In fact, it was the third conversation she’d had in as many days with clients wanting to move back to the old platform. She’d already spoken with the new CTO, who had been elevated to his role after the acquisition of his European company. The acquired company’s clients tended to be smaller and less complex than those in the Americas, and the CCO had voiced her concerns that the new system did not scale to accommodate the Americas’ clients. The CTO assured her it would — but surely the proof was in the clients’ pudding? After several conversations, the CCO decided to escalate the matter and called her boss, the CEO, to voice her concerns, knowing full well that he’d made an enormous bet on the new system. The conversation, filled with denials and accusations, did not go well. Despite the CCO’s concerns, the implementation of the new platform proceeded apace. The company subsequently lost three of its largest clients, and multiple changes were made to the executive leadership team…

Acme Energy’s senior leadership group has worked with the organization to create a transformation mandate: Reduce electricity consumption by 25%. The transformational mandate has been tied to specific profit goals with a clear story of how the organization can contribute to the UN sustainability goals on climate change. The organization has rallied around this goal, which ties to both doing well and doing good. Informal teams have begun working on a variety of initiatives ranging from innovation and ideation to prototype testing to executing existing projects. Individuals across the organization find themselves working together in new ways and with people they have never worked with before. One informal team has taken on a project to investigate personalized digital services to its customers that also encourages energy-saving habits. Industry best practice research shows that benchmarking an individual customer’s energy usage against the customer base can influence customers to conserve energy. The team agrees that this would be a customer-centric approach to achieving the goal and begin working on the idea. Team members focused on innovation speed ahead, only to find that the data governance and privacy protection team has locked energy usage data down as private and secure — and is reluctant to provide access.

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Organizational Capacities for Digital Readiness
• The Case of the African Retailer
• The Case of the Multinational Chemical Company
• Stages of Digital Readiness
• Key Takeaways and Actions for Organizations
• Conclusion: The Human-Centered Approach for Organizational Digital Readiness

The board of a company that creates sophisticated digital platforms for global organizations faced a dilemma. The company, backed by private equity, would be going up for sale in a relatively short time period. High growth had been spurred by an innovative business model that catapulted deal sizes from an average of six figures to seven, and proof points of the new business model were critical for a high valuation. A seven-figure deal was on the table with an eager and highly known brand. But the customer was in a business that many people find distasteful: Though not illegal, the products were known to impact users’ health. The board debated whether the sales team should continue with negotiations and sign the highly lucrative contract. Their views considered many inputs. Some members noted that many private equity companies would object to the presence of this company in the portfolio. Others noted the absolute importance of the proof point to a high valuation, which would create a great deal of value for employees and shareholders who had worked diligently for four years to reach this moment. Others reported that the tech team was intrigued by the opportunity to use their technology skills to solve a challenging problem. Others objected because of ethical concerns with marketing and health impacts of products manufactured by the organization. Back and forth it went. What would you do?

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Why EDI Is Good for Business: Doing Well
• Where the Industry Stands
• Radical Reflection: Challenging Yourself on Your Own Beliefs and Values
• Embedding EDI in Our Tech Talent Strategy
• Small Steps Lead toward Systemic Change
• The Dangers of Biased AI
• Good Intentions and Fragmented Actions
• Key Takeaways and Actions for Developing Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive Technology Cultures
• Conclusion: The Human-Centered Approach to EDI

In September of 2021, the New York Times published a guest essay by Sixto Cancel, the CEO of Think of Us (TOU), an organization dedicated to driving equitable systems change “so that the youth and families most impacted by foster care have the greatest power and opportunity to reshape it” (Cancel, 2021). In his remarkable essay, Mr. Cancel described the trauma he experienced as a foster child and his determination to change the broken system struggling to serve over 600,000 US children. With Mr. Cancel at the helm, TOU has become a catalyst for changing the foster care system, one that uplifts, rather than exploits, the youth and families it is meant to serve. This case study explores that journey as Mr. Cancel and the TOU team combine technology, data and analytics, partnerships, and policy advocacy to create positive outcomes with and for the people with lived experiences in the foster care system.

Sustainable mining? Mining that improves people’s lives with technology and digitization? Sustainable mining may seem like an oxymoron, but the words embody the transformation this leading global mining company has mandated. In this case study, we’ll refer to the company as MCo. MCo exemplifies responsible digital transformation through human-centered leadership in their efforts to develop mines that are integrated, automated, carbon neutral, use far less water, and are mindful of the communities they serve. MCo recognizes that the dual responsibilities of broad transformation through digital enablement can be realized by developing leaders with the right mindset and behaviors to execute “doing well and doing good.”

Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, coined the term Fourth Industrial Revolution in 2016. Previous industrial revolutions focused on automation, liberating humankind from animal power, creating factories for mass production, and bringing the possibilities of digital technologies to billions of people. In his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Schwab describes a world that encompasses diverse fields from material science to nanotechnology, energy, and biology, supported by a range of new technologies that are “fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies and industries, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human” (Schwab, 2017). These new technological wonders have the potential to create a better future for humanity. However, Schwab also issued a stern warning that without deliberate collaboration across geographies, industry sectors, and research disciplines, societies will become increasingly fragmented and the socioeconomic chasm will become insurmountable.”

The following sections are included:

• Human-Centered Leadership Concepts and Definitions
• Appendix
• References
• Index