Episode 34: Deep Dive: Digital Deca Part 1: 10 Management Truths for the Web Age

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Transcript

Lisa Welchman:

Hey Andy, I am really excited to get started on this season's deep dives. You are indulging me. About 10 years ago, or over 10 years ago, I wrote an ebook called The Digital Deca: 10 Management Truths for the Web Age, where I sort of came up with 10 maxims of how I thought organizations would have to think, change, be, given the advent and the rising of digital in the world, in the business world, in the civil society, the world at large.

So I thought it'd be great if we could just kind of revisit those, and so this is the first of maybe five episodes where we're going to look at two of them at a time. The two I think we're going to look at today, Truth Number One which is, your web presence is the digital manifestation of your organization. And Truth Two which is, in a digitally transforming business environment bold leadership is vital. So what do you think?

Andy Vitale:

I love that. Having looked at these and seeing the ones that are still very relevant today, the same things that we're talking about, the same conversations, it makes me think like, "What has changed over the last 10 years, and what can we do to hold these truths?" So I'm really excited for the deep dives for this season as well.

Lisa Welchman:

First one I'm going to let you start. Your web presence is a digital manifestation of your organization. What do you think of when you see that?

Andy Vitale:

It feels like it was 10 years ago that it was written. You know, when the web was the primary source of traffic and primary online presence for organizations. I think now when we look at a lot of companies, they try to represent the ability to meet people where they are. So as mobiles become more prevalent, I think we're seeing a lot more touchpoints. How does that manifest across the entire ecosystem that customers can interact with a company? So I think the web is still very much that foundational experience for people.

There's a ton of companies that still probably don't have a mobile experience unless it's mobile responsive. But they all have websites except for obviously there are street vendors and things that don't. But for the most part, I think web is still very foundational. What we're starting to see is people take a mobile-first approach as we become more interested in native applications. Where things shift for me a little bit is this talk about, as we've seen in China, as we've seen in other places, a super app and if the super app replaces that web as that true digital manifestation of the organization.

Lisa Welchman:

Yeah. I mean it's interesting to hear you talk about these things that I wrote so long ago. And yes, the web, I think when I wrote these it was mobile was just taking off and social media was just ... In fact, I think in the ebook I called it Web 2.0. That's how early it was in the social media aspect. But the part that's interesting to me about this, and the part that I was really focused on, is that it's the digital manifestation of your organization. So I agree with you a hundred percent. It's multi-channel. It's the entire experience.

So I think looking at this through my governance lens and knowing how I was thinking at the time, this reads to me even now is that who you are online from a brand, from identity, ethics, morality, safety, all of those concepts that we talk about all of the time, that what you're doing online really represents your organization. It's telling people who you are, and so if you're messy online, or uncaring online, or unethical online, you can't get by anymore. You can't cover up anymore and just say, "Oh. Well, that's just stuff on our website," or, "That was just the social media channel." That is you. You are equal to what is your digital presence.

Andy Vitale:

And where my brain goes with that, as you were talking, is it's also trust. It's trust in the brand. Because if your brand or your company is showing up in a way that doesn't feel fresh, and modern, and instill confidence with your potential users, then that trust is going to be gone. And I think that that thought in my mind from when you put it looking at it now, was way ahead of its time.

Because looking through that governance lens and now all the things that we've seen that are becoming more about ethics, and how companies show up, and social responsibility, those are front and center in that digital experience. And if they're not, then people are more likely to go to the company that does show that they have similar beliefs. So it's so interesting

Lisa Welchman:

When I wrote this, I believed that people already knew that you couldn't make big mistakes online, that there was an impact. But there's this sort of subtle shift that I think has occurred that you are alluding to or even talking about directly where you really can't mess up anymore. And it's not just brand. So people like to talk about brand. In fact, a lot of the clients that I'm working with they're like, "We're trying to get control of our brand online." It's like, "No, you're actually trying to get in control of your organization on the whole online."

Andy Vitale:

Right. Exactly.

Lisa Welchman:

Which is why I think the governance part is really a push. And so I think we're going to see more of that coming into the future. And if you were to really put it in words that people like to use, this is really what a digital transformation is.

Andy Vitale:

Right. Exactly.

Lisa Welchman:

Is going from this channel management, even going from user experience, and understanding that there is no difference between your organization and how you are online. There's nothing. There's no difference. It's all the same.

Andy Vitale:

I know you touched upon the lens that you were looking at back then. But if you can dive deep and kind of remember a little bit more around like this is Truth Number One. Why was this the absolute first truth on there? And what was the thinking back then of how this would drive the rest of the truths?

Lisa Welchman:

Honestly, I think it hooks into what I was just describing which is, I've often said, or to people, I don't know if I've said it on the podcast, and I've written about sort of like my naïveté going into digital spaces. I started my career in the mid '90s coding pages, and so I'm definitely one of those hands-on webmasters and was very involved in the early web. Which actually is an advantage to what I do for a living because I've sort of done all the jobs, so I sort of scale out and get specialized. But in the beginning you kind of had to do everything.

And I really believe that some of the maturity issues that I was seeing when I worked inside Cisco Systems, some of my early clients, and particularly governmental clients and nations, that people would wake up to this. To how real the web is, how extensive it is, how pervasive it is, how global it is, how fast it is, and how the way that you behave online is actually real. I think this is first on the list because it's key. And I think a lot of organizations would just nod their head at this and not get the reality of what that means.

It means the ways in which you control the behavior of people, human beings, and experiences in the real world in order to protect people and to protect your brand are just as relevant online. And I think when people compare that particularly ... This season we talked to Roger Rohatgi from BP, they have a real world presence. When a catastrophe happens in a company like that, it's real in the world and people get outraged by it. But you don't see the same outrage online when you sort of have the same types of catastrophes, and so that's kind of what I was getting at.

Andy Vitale:

No, that makes sense. And speaking about another guest that we have this season, Judy Ma, who's at 3M. When I worked at 3M one of the challenges that we had is, 3M had so many sub-companies, and other brands, and other companies, and other products. And what does it take to have a single 3M presence that ties all of that together?

And that could be any company that has multiple brands, auto companies, even companies like Alphabet. What can they do to have those individual presences but then have something that ties it together that shows what that whole company is all about and what that whole company stands for so that people can understand the differences?

Lisa Welchman:

Well, that's interesting because one of the examples that I have in my book, Managing Chaos, I'm talking about team structures, and I won't get too technical here because it drives people crazy. But I'm talking about the part of the team that actually creates policies and standards, which in my mind I call them the core team. And I have this very special case called a dispersed core, and it addresses exactly what you're talking about for something like a holding company. I think the example that I give in the book is Clorox. That might be the example.

And at the time that I wrote the book Clorox, this may not be true now and I haven't gone back and looked, they had a very diverse portfolio. Obviously, if you're in the US, Clorox Bleach, Burt's Bees Lip Gloss, Kingsford Charcoal, Hidden Valley Ranch Salad Dressing. Now, they may not have those now, but at the time when I wrote it they did. And so there were aspects of that that you really wanted to not be the same. So that's why the subtitle of my book is Digital Governance by Design, because it actually has to fit the case.

But to your point, the part where there was sameness, where there was sameness in the model, it was at the policy level. And it's usually the policy level that addresses the harm, the big opportunity, and the big risk, that risk management assessment. It's like what behaviors, what must we actually keep in line because we are a single corporate entity? So a lot of times they would have completely diverse set of standards depending on the brand involved, but it would all map back to a similar policy core. So there's a lot of really mature things that are beyond product development that are required in order to hold these things together.

And my prediction is, the next time we talk about this in 10 more years, is that you're going to see companies that are much more mature on the policy front and much more mature as organizations actually leapfrog a little bit over some of the dot-coms. This is where dot-coms stumble. They don't sort of have this mature, robust policy front to tie back to. Mostly because they haven't gotten burned, and when they do get burned, they don't really know how to react. Or the reaction is coming out of a founder whose sense of taste as opposed to sort of a deep, deep policy core. So this is good. This good news to me because I think it means we're maturing, but we've still got some distance to go.

Andy Vitale:

Yeah. I think we're seeing that now with a lot of the bigger dot-coms who in 10 years from now if they can't handle this like a mature company can, they won't be the same as we know them today for sure.

Lisa Welchman:

Yeah. I mean at a certain point you're not young anymore, so these are the late adolescent years. You've got a driver's license, you've been giving the keys to the car, and you're able to go out in the world by yourself. But are you going to handle it or are you going to play dumb when something big happens? So I think I'm really interested in this next sort of 10 to 15-year cycle to see where things are going.

I think just as we did in the early days, there are a bunch of brands out there, particularly in the dot-com space that seem like they're impenetrable and will always be there. And I think some of them will drop. They just won't be able to sustain and they'll be replaced by safer versions of themselves. So Truth Number Two. You ready for that one?

Andy Vitale:

Number Two. I'm ready for it.

Lisa Welchman:

Oh, this is in your wheelhouse.

Andy Vitale:

I know. This one looked like my favorite when I saw it.

Lisa Welchman:

Oh, you saw it? Yeah, I'm going, "This one's in your house." So Truth Number Two was, in a digitally transforming business environment, whatever that is, bold leadership is vital.

Andy Vitale:

This one to me, I've been talking a lot lately about how to advance a design practice and how that requires strong inspirational and fearless leadership. But it goes wider than that. When we think about truly transforming a company, it's about those people, those leaders, that are going to be able to solve large-scale organizational problems and truly take the company through a lot of difficult decisions that they need to trust their gut and get data as it comes in to support their decisions.

But to be bold enough to say, "Hey. The way we've been doing things all along isn't going to get us where we need to go for the future." And being able to really champion that change in the organization, and build those relationships, and figure out the right ways to continue to get wins, and gain momentum, and just take that company and turn that ship little by little until it's completely turned around and showing all new value. It requires really, really strong and bold leadership.

Lisa Welchman:

Yeah, I mean this one I think for me is as true today as it was before. I think what I'd like to kind of pick apart with you, because you're in a leadership position in a large organization, is it's transforming. Transforming the market space and just transforming itself is what bold means. So I think one of the interesting things, particularly in the digital world, I see in the.com world, and I seem like I'm picking on them a lot, but I think it's trace is the sense of leadership and bold leadership is actually a little bit skewed. I think sometimes people think that just means making the wonky decision, or being different, or being ...

And you alluded to some pretty traditional things. Like sometimes it's important to hold the line, or sometimes it's important to stop and pull back, or sometimes it's important to get organized, and the importance of sometimes making an unpopular decision and sort of holding to a certain set of values and a vision which is what I think the job of a leader is to do. Sometimes, and I don't think you mentioned this one, sometimes sitting back, and enabling your people, and sitting back and allowing them to flourish, and creating the environment in which they can flourish. So boldness isn't like a personality trait. Right?

Andy Vitale:

Right.

Lisa Welchman:

It's more interior.

Andy Vitale:

Exactly. It's not bravado. It's how do you teach people or create an environment that allows people, like you said, to flourish, to drive a new way of working, or deciding that the way of working is right. These decisions are met with resistance quite often, and then it's how do you take these core decisions and show that these are new ways of providing value? Whether it's building a new product, or offering a new solution, or doubling down on what you have and saying, "You know what? Our portfolio's too big, and we're just going to focus on our core right now."

It's really those decisions as you're able to take an entire organization out of their comfort zone and be able to lead through ambiguity with confidence. And I think when we think about some of that where my brain goes is to governance from other conversations that we've had. Because it's about defining or reframing the way the organization and you and your team show up and add value. And for us, that's how you start to make sure that the entire organization is speaking the same language and hitting a lot of the same key points.

You know, not everybody's going to agree and be on board, but if you can disagree, and commit, and be aligned coming out of the conversation that this direction is something that's worth exploring and we're going to test and see where it goes, that's the hard work of a leader to really pull people along with you when you have these ideas.

Lisa Welchman:

You said bravado, which is a really great word to use. It makes me think about some other work that I'm working on right now, which is trying to define what digital maker culture is. What are the components of it? And one of the things that I'm talking about sort of in a critical way is innovation. There's always room for innovation. There's room for innovation in any space, and we always need that aspect. But perpetual innovation without maturity doesn't really get you anywhere.

Perpetual innovation without maturity is probably research and development. Which is good, everybody needs research and development. But you also need an operational arm. And some of the things that you're talking about, and I think most of the work of digital right now in a large organization is operationally focused.

Andy Vitale:

Right.

Lisa Welchman:

Right? Yes, there's an innovative arm and there's a research and development arm, and we need to stay forward, and we need to make sure that we're not disrupted in our own space, and all these other things. But I think one of the challenges right now for leadership, particularly leadership that was born out of our perpetually moving and changing web, is that a lot of the problems that they need to solve right now are maturity related.

It's just like, how can I install a sound operational strategy, because what I'm doing every day is basically commoditized? There's really not anything exciting going on with this app. Not that there can't be added features. Don't kick me people. Not that you can't constantly enhance things. But sometimes a car's a car and you're just deciding whether or not you want to paint it, right, or-

Andy Vitale:

Right, exactly.

Lisa Welchman:

... it's not like, "Oh, we're going to reinvent the car every single time." That's not usually what's going to happen. And so I think that that's one of the biggest challenges, and I think it's going to be one of the biggest leadership challenges from two fronts. One, I think that the leaders that come out of the digital space don't get that. They're thinking like, "Change, product development. Change, product," like constantly over and over again. Then also, the culture of digital doesn't want to align with it as well, so I think that's going to be interesting.

Andy Vitale:

Yeah. Where I'm seeing a lot of leaders have the ability to inspire their team in this moment is, you talked about R&D and companies like to make the big bet and see how that goes. And in a company that's stable, having the ability to drive the now plus focus on the tomorrow and the big bets is really strong. But what we're seeing in this economy, the way the market is shifting, and we're seeing lots of layoffs in places, these companies are really needing to improve the now, the table stakes, their core offerings and their core experiences to win today.

It's great to have the opportunity to build a long tail right now. But right now, when companies are hurting they need to focus on how do I provide value today? How do I move the needle for my company today? A lot of people might not think that that's the sexy work, that's not the exciting work. "I want to build the new thing, the next big thing." But the now is so important to be able to build that. But I think even from a boots-on-the-ground perspective, the leaders have to inspire the team that like, "This work is providing impact. It's meaningful. It's shipping work today."

It's all the things we talk about, or we used to talk about. My team wants to ship. My team wants to have impact. Then it kind of shifted over the last few years to like, "My team wants to figure out the ambiguous strategic space." And it's like, "You can't do both all the time, and they're both equally as important." How do you get the organization to understand that now leaning in provides more value? That's another lens of transformation, which is something that a lot of people don't think of when they think transformation.

Lisa Welchman:

Yeah, I mean all of this, I think I used this word before, all of this I think points to maturity and the fact that whether we like it or not, digital design, digital experience, content strategy, the stack, and all the other technologies that ride into it, social, like this whole multi-channel digital experience is beginning to mature and harden a little bit. And I think that's really counterintuitive and hard for some people, but that is the work of the next cycle, which is how can we stabilize this so that we can actually make it usable, and safe, and reliable for our customers?

I think it's going to be really, really fascinating. I mean there's a whole generation of digital makers and people working in the digital space who are just not used to that dynamic. Like their whole career has been making wild, new, crazy stuff. And to a certain extent, this is not how the world works. At a certain point things mature and stabilize. And at some point they'll be so mature and stabilized that they're ripe for disruption and could fall apart and be replaced by things. But that is just the nature of how things roll.

I think that's the role of R&D, which is, while you are stabilizing and commoditizing your digital presence, and your digital products and services, and your full integrated experience, do you have an R&D arm that's actually looking at the next thing, and are you effectively have a way to feed that into the system? Those things sound so slow and crazy to people on digital teams. It's like, "Well, I could stand that up in a second." And it's like, "Well, we've seen what happens when you stand stuff up in a second and then you scale it globally without thinking about these things." It's a cluster. I mean it's a mess.

Andy Vitale:

Yeah, it's a mess from an ethical perspective as we've seen. It's a mess from a data perspective. It's a mess from things are just built. Technologies advances pretty quickly in terms of like updates to languages and frameworks. So having systems that are not able to connect to your core system because it was built 10, 15, 25 years ago in some industries, that doesn't serve the company well to do that unless there's a plan to modernize that stack and figure out through APIs like can this actually still talk to my new product? Or can my new product talk to my core business?

Lisa Welchman:

Yeah. Well, we haven't talked about technology debt at all. That's a whole nother conversation that's sparking up from what you're saying. But anyhow, I think we've gotten this one down as well. Anything else you want to say on this? I think we are agreeing that at any time, in any place, bold leadership is vital. It's also rare.

Andy Vitale:

Exactly.