Help! What To Do When Your Boss Won’t Ride the Technology Train

I just worked with a group of meeting planners in San Francisco- these meeting planners are corporate planners within multinational organizations. My presentation to this group was on the topic of convergence. Integrating technology with business strategy and human output.

My consulting firm Synthesis at Work Inc recently conducted surveys of organizations ranging from $3 million in revenues to $100 million on what they feel is holding back their profitability potential and innovation. The number one response was the number of leaders resisting the solutions that could be provided with increased adaption to available technology.

When I presented the survey results to the corporate meeting planners group and asked them if this was a challenge for them I received a unanimous ‘yes’ response.

In fact one young lady came up to me after the presentation and asked if I could talk to her boss because the boss refused to use the program that had been implemented in the company and made it clear to the team that she didn’t intend to adapt or learn it.

The reality is as technology increases in the workplace the need for individuals to align and adapt to using the technology will be the next big opportunity for businesses.

We cannot just mandate the use or adherence of technology- heroic leaders must provide rationale, address the emotional resistances and offer incentives to get everyone on the team on board.

First we must understand why some individuals will resist using the technology.

For many of us who have not been born into technology (Baby Boomers) we have had the biggest adaptation challenge of the workforce. An insecure leader can feel vulnerable and exposed when learning a new technology and they fear that they will appear less capable or lose control as a leader.  Also it comes down to work habits- a long time leader who has gained great success by writing things down has a hard time switching to a paperless approach to goal setting, time management and project leadership.

At the same conference of meeting planners I sat beside a Baby Boomer who was taking notes in a session. I was using the Notes app on my IPhone 4S. She turned to me and said that she likes the old fashioned notes. I asked her what she does with the notes when she gets back to the office. She said she typically puts them in a pile and hopes to get to the content in a timely manner but typically the notes get lost in a sea of paper and she never really acts on them.

I suggested that by using the Notes function on my phone my notes appear automatically in my Mac Mail and any URL I enter in my notes is hyper linked. This allows me to instantly access the information being presented either while in the session OR immediately after so that I can act on the new information I have just gathered. I can forward the notes to colleagues I can save them and upload them to Google docs for sharing with the team and they become immediate tools and follow up.

When I told her this she immediately saw the value and the productivity as well as the incentive to switch from taking paper notes to using technology to be more efficient. This is a key point when helping your boss to ride the technology train- you have to share what the value is for them in their world. Take the time to demonstrate the uses of the technology and how it can save them time, energy and create more space for other leadership activities.

Really for those who have been around to remember Stephen Covey’s original book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” or Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” what we are doing with technology today is simplifying and organizing using new tools.

For those who weren’t even born when Covey’s book came out in the early 80′s it is helpful to have patience and awareness that there is a huge demographic that has on the job experience AND want to know how to further leverage technology to expand on what they know.

It comes down to respecting perspectives, being willing to teach what others don’t know and ‘selling’ the positives of getting on board the technology train for the benefit of all.