Angela Diamond, director of Diamond Communication Services, says one of the most-important factors in ensuring the adoption of new technologies is effective leadership.

With the pace of technological change sweeping the business world showing no sign of abating, organisations must either adapt the way they operate or risk falling behind their more nimble competitors.

Participants at The Australian Financial Review and Telstra Culture Tech roundtable agreed the perception that Australia was a nation of early adopters of technology – while encouraging – was not necessarily accurate in some areas of business and commerce.

Deloitte Australia human capital lead David Brown says his organisation recently undertook a global study which found that, while 72 per cent of organisations understand the importance of new technologies, only 9 per cent consider themselves ready to make use of them.

“It’s indicative of the exponential nature of the speed at which things are coming at us,” says Brown. “The interest is there, but organisations are just not keeping up.”

Telstra’s head of key accounts, Chris Russo, says much of the challenge stems from the management structure that exists within many organisations. Often, this is not conducive to rapid technology adoption and usage.

Russo says the business world is still filled with hierarchical structures which can stifle the implementation of technologies that could actually help organisations evolve and grow.

“There is a very interesting debate to be had about how inculcated the hierarchies of our large corporates are and how quickly can they re-imagine themselves to truly take advantage of the innovation that is there and ready for them to have,” she says.

Chief executive of mortgage lending specialist Aussie, James Symond, says the financial sector is one area in which competition has led to rapid technology adoption.

“It was only 13 or 14 years ago that you went to a customer’s home with a pen, a pad and a receipt book and that’s all you needed,” he says. “Today, it’s totally changed and we’ve taken a view that you’re either part of change or a victim of it.”

Symond says it’s vital for companies to “get on the bandwagon” and invest in appropriate technologies while also ensuring they take their people on the journey.

“I don’t do anything but have a brand and a great service proposition, so I need all the help I can get,” he says. “And technology, for me, is front and centre. It makes the process easier for the customer and, for me, it’s an edge.”

Director of corporate stakeholder relations company Diamond Communications, Angela Diamond, says one of the most important factors in ensuring the adoption of new technologies is effective leadership.

“It really has to be from the top and the executive team has to embrace it,” she says. “Because if they really want the innovation that they say they want, they have to invest in it.”

Diamond points to popular technologies, such as communications platform Yammer, which often fail to provide the benefits sought by organisations. “They die a sudden death if they are not supported (by management),” she says.

“If it’s seen just as an IT project, which it often is, then there can be a disconnect. There is also a big disconnect because people in their private lives are so connected, and they expect it internally.”

Ovum’s global lead analyst, government, Kevin Noonan points to the technology adoption trends occurring in developing countries, where many businesses have effectively skipped the last part of the 20th century and jumped straight into the 21st century. “When they talk about changing organisations, they don’t have too much legacy holding them back,” he says.

“I think the biggest problem that we have to face is this idea of the business and IT as being separate entities,” he says. “It’s no longer this idea that you can somehow run a business and think about technology as this thin veneer on top of old ideas.”

Chris Russo (Telstra), David Brown (Deloitte) and Justin Drape (The Monkeys) at The Australian Financial Review and Telstra Culture of Tech roundtable in Sydney.

With the push on for Australia to become an “innovation nation”, businesses are searching for ways to foster an internal culture that supports this goal.

While technology success stories such as Google and Facebook are often lauded as shining examples of innovation cultures at work, the approach can bring significant value for companies in any sector and of any size. Creating a spark and then fanning the flames is the big challenge.

Participants at The Australian Financial Review and Telstra Culture of Tech roundtable agreed nurturing innovation was critical for all Australian businesses and more attention needed to be focused on how best this could be achieved.

University of NSW associate dean Professor Nick Wailes says one of the key factors that has made innovation a powerful force in a company such as Google is that it has become “a habit”.

“You can’t just think, ‘I want an innovative workplace’,” he says. “You actually have to have people, time and skills, and the opportunity to develop those type of skills.”

Wailes says taking a structured approach to the challenge is particularly important. It’s not a matter of simply allocating half-an-hour of staff time here and there, but rather having a sustained and methodical way of working. Staff need to be given a real opportunity to develop their ideas and assurance that the organisation supports their endeavours.

“They talk a lot about being free to fail,” he says. “That failure is to try something [and] learn from that experience so that next time you do it, you do it better.”

Innovation agendas

Telstra’s head of key accounts, Chris Russo, says she is seeing increasing numbers of Australian companies committing to their own innovation agendas. Often these incorporate significant financial investments, a dedicated program of work and a departure from the normal economics of a business case.

“If you were to look at 90 per cent of the client base in the capacity of my role, every one of them will have had some demonstration of an innovation head, an innovation lab [or] an innovation think-tank,” she says. “They’ve been given free rein if you like, and now they can actually truly start to transform the rest of the organisation.”

The chief executive of mortgage lending specialist Aussie, James Symond, says when creating a culture of innovation, it is vital an organisation ensures its staff understand what is happening and the benefits that will be delivered.

He recalls when his firm first issued its brokers with laptop computers in 2002. Many were so reluctant to use the new technology that they left the firm.

“At the time, we didn’t take them on the journey,” he says. “We just said: ‘This is what you’re going to have to use’. I think half the battle is won if you get them to embrace it, to understand it [and] to go on the journey.”

Symond admits it was a hard lesson to learn then, but he fears many companies are still failing to get a buy-in from their staff when it comes to taking new strategies and being more innovative.

Angela Diamond, director of corporate stakeholder relations company Diamond Communication Services, agrees that buy-in is critical for innovation programs to work within organisations and deliver the kinds of benefits that are possible. She says the role of innovation team leaders is critical.

“They have to almost be a servant to the team and provide them with everything they need and allow them to try different things and not even have a plan, which would be terrifying for most people,” she says.

Challenge accepted notions

Rather than following a prescriptive agenda, teams should be allowed to examine ideas and challenge accepted notions of what might succeed. While such an approach is unlikely to generate success from every idea, it will at least allow multiple opportunities to be explored.

Deloitte Australia human capital lead David Brown says many companies will have to fundamentally change their organisational structure if they are to become truly innovative and take advantage of future opportunities.

He points to US-based serial entrepreneur and angel investor David Rose who says any company designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st.

“His whole point is that, for bigger organisations, disruptive innovation is really hard because they’re hard-wired for success now, which is not success for the next 20 years,” says Brown.

Justin Drape, co-founder of creative agency The Monkeys, says much of the culture change that will be required within organisations comes down to the way in which employees are managed and inspired.

Drape recently visited Google’s headquarters in the United States where he met with executives and staff to gain an understanding of how they had been able to be so successful in generating this type of environment.

“It was quite inspiring and intimidating the way they have cultivated such an innovative culture,” says Drape. “Every part of that business is set up for innovation.”

He says staff are encouraged by being publicly recognised for the ideas they come up with and the work they do to bring those ideas to life. Everyone on the company staff aspires to that kind of recognition.

“There’s a big open dining hall [where] you go in, you sit down, and you chat about ideas,” he says. “People probably stay there for hours and have some gems that they come up with [and] all of the different parts of the business seem to assimilate.”

If we can’t persuade someone, how can we expect them to act differently?

Our content-obsessed environment can easily lead to info overload. Our goal should at least be persuasion – the basic communication goal.

Six things have to occur for a person to be persuaded by any form of communication*:

1. Exposure: the person must see or hear the communication (many believe that’s where it starts and ends)
2. Attention: the person must notice the communication (an obvious point)
3. Comprehension: the person must understand the intended message or arguments of the communication (easier than it sounds – knowing your audience is a good start)
4. Yielding: the person must respond favourably to the intended message or argument of the communication
5. Intentions: the person must plan to act in the desired manner of the communication (call to action)
6. Behaviour: the person must actually act in the desired manner of the communication.

Persuasive communication should be the focus of change management, leadership communication, digital communication and marketing – basically any type.  If there is a breakdown or failure in any step along the way, then there won’t be a successful communication.

One implication is to increase the odds for this to work, communicators must increase the likelihood that each step occurs. For example, the right audience/consumer is exposed to the right message at the right place and at the right time.

Digital or social marketing, especially in retail sector illustrates this is happening but unfortunately it’s not the case across the board.

Even in internal or employee communication, where we have access to a plethora of data and an easily accessible audience, rarely is there a targeted approach.

Think about the range of people in any organisation. They differ in terms of business unit, function, role, age, culture and perhaps geography etc. Organisations are set up for mass communication without taking into account the culture, team preferred way of communicating, language, interests and needs of their people.  Too much time is wasted on ‘campaigns’ that centre on ticking the channel box.  It’s about time we moved past this.

*Leading Yale social psychologist, William McGuire’s position.