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When people are your business, it goes without saying that you need to have the right talent strategy in place. And making sure the processes and technology are implemented, adopted and able to support it is every bit as crucial. These are the stakes Seán Morris, Principal and US Talent Transformation Leader at Deloitte, is dealing with as the firm embarks on its largest-ever digital transformation.
Prior to this, Morris led 16,000 US and globally deployed personnel as COO for Deloitte’s $4 Billion+ US Government & Public Services (GPS) business. With over 28 years of experience as a consultant, he has been involved in some of the most ambitious HR change projects the public and private sectors have seen, with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 among his many achievements.
In the latest episode of our Talent Transformation Podcast, Avature CEO Dimitri Boylan sat down with Morris at Deloitte’s office in Washington, DC, to learn what he believes are the fundamentals of successful large-scale transformation, why talent teams provide the best place for exploring AI, and how tech is helping skills-based talent strategies reach their long-vaunted potential.
From reiterating the importance of key principles to advocating for novel approaches, we’ve selected some of his key takeaways for you to enjoy.
To Start with a Strong Vision, You First Need to Make that Vision Strong
Morris is adamant that for the success of any transformation, digital or otherwise, there needs to be a ‘North Star’, a clear vision of where you want to go and how to get there.
It may seem counterintuitive to some, but inviting doubt and criticism of this vision makes for greater certainty in the long run. Much like you would temper a blade by subjecting it to intense heat and pressure, a talent vision only becomes a robust strategy by subjecting it to the opinions and feedback of the stakeholders upon whom its success will depend and eventually serve. Morris is convinced that the process of hardening that strategy is ‘a major piece of getting everybody to coalesce’.
I always like to start with a strong vision and strategy. And what I really mean by that is a vision and strategy that has gone through multiple turns across your organization, across your stakeholders to really beat it up and make sure that it’s hardened. Because it will be challenged on that multi-year transformation journey and you need to make sure that everybody agrees with it and can get behind it through the good times and the bad times.”
Seán Morris
Principal & US Talent Transformation Leader at Deloitte
Invite Talent Professionals to Craft the Solution and Avoid Them Becoming Part of the Problem
To achieve a hardened vision and strategy, it is therefore essential to identify and involve key stakeholders early on and communicate consistently and bi-directionally from the outset. Morris believes that not only will this help to ensure that the strategy serves its purpose, but by bringing end users into the conversation early, they will see their ‘fingerprints’ on the change and be far more receptive to it. By making them part of the solution, they are less likely to become part of the problem when it’s time to go live.
You want to bring your talent professionals – those groups that are going to be most affected by this transformation – on that journey in a continuous way… I’ve seen some failed transformations over the years, and one of the reasons that I’ve seen them fail is because they weren’t adopted by the individuals that were being affected by them. The change management approach was flawed and didn’t go far enough upstream and then stay consistent all the way along. It typically waited until right near the end before the implementation date [to communicate]…But [end users] are surprised and they don’t see their fingerprints on this transformation as you would if you’re further upstream, making them part of the solution.”
Seán Morris
Principal & US Talent Transformation Leader at Deloitte
Get Leadership Buy-in Before You Embark on a Digital Transformation
It goes without saying for most, but having strong leadership backing is an integral part of any successful transformation. For reluctant stakeholders, it lends weight to everything you do while ensuring that when difficulties arise – and they will with any transformation – you have the financial and strategic support that you need to push through.
For Morris, it must always be clear and visible to leadership that the objectives of your project align with those of the business. This may involve not only selling them on the value of the change, but also building their confidence little by little that your organization can reach its goals.
You’ve got to have all of your partners and managing directors, your core leaders on that journey from the very beginning to understand, ‘Okay, why are we spending our time and resources to do this? […] You have to prove that you’ve got the fortitude in an organization to take that [digital transformation] on.”
Seán Morris
Principal & US Talent Transformation Leader at Deloitte
Pace Your HR Transformation According to The Drivers of Change
Knowing why you can no longer stay where you are is often just as important as knowing where you want to be. Being clear-eyed about the drivers of change will help you structure your approach to manifesting it.
In some cases, the driving force will be a vision of how the talent landscape will look in five or ten years’ time and the need to position yourself in advance. Morris says that this will allow for a more ‘slowly, slowly’ approach, in which you can craft your strategy as you go. Alternatively, your transformation may be the result of unforeseen shifts in the market, in which case the speed of your reaction will be paramount.
“It depends on what the forcing function of the transformation is in the first place. if your competitors are eating your lunch, then you may not want to be quite as incremental. If you are visionary in your space and you believe that the horizon that you’re looking at is multiple years out, maybe you can be a little bit more incremental in it. So it just depends. And it depends on whether [your organization] wants to be a first mover in a particular space. In some industries, that’s a good bet and in others, we know the road is strewn with first-mover disadvantage.”
Seán Morris
Principal & US Talent Transformation Leader at Deloitte
Ambivalence is the Silent Killer of Transformation – Learn to Smoke It Out
Both Boylan and Morris are in agreement that the generations in the earlier stages of their career are more vocal about what they do and don’t want. They ask more questions and have stronger opinions. From a change management perspective, Morris sees this as ‘a gift’ and a sign that they are engaged. If you address their concerns they can be brought on board and help refine and push through the solution.
By contrast, it is those who might pay lip service to transformation without really engaging that are often more damaging to a change project. Ambivalence is dangerous precisely because it tends to slip under the radar and only surfaces once an implementation has fallen flat, or as Morris puts it, “ambivalence will bite you on the back end when you go live.” It’s far harder to diagnose and treat issues if you don’t know what they are.
Fortunately, there are ways of mitigating such risk through careful change management and the intelligent use of data.
There are a number of techniques that you want to bring in. One is having embedded ‘change leaders’ in different aspects of the organization connected to populations that maybe you don’t have the most immediate reach into. [Also] ask and listen and calculate that data on what the sentiment is about a particular process or move that [you’re] contemplating and measure that constantly. You can actually start to pick out some of the ambivalence from that if you structure it correctly. There are some great tools […] that give us key insights about key populations that maybe are further on that change curve than others.”
Seán Morris
Principal & US Talent Transformation Leader at Deloitte
Talent Teams are a Great Place to Start Incorporating AI, But You Have to Build Trust
We all know that artificial intelligence as both a tool and a context will have an increasing impact on how we work in the immediate and long term, and that navigating the pitfalls and opportunities it presents will require a culture change as much as a technological one. We’re only beginning to grasp its potential applications, let alone to create the technology to harness it. While nobody is expected to have all the answers yet, it is a good idea to start asking yourself some questions.
Morris believes that there is ‘no better place in the enterprise structure’ to start exploring and incorporating AI than your talent organization. This is due in no small part to the vast amount of use cases in which it can be applied, but even more so because of the shifting profile of people now joining the HR space.
You have, increasingly, a very innovative set of individuals that sit in this important and increasingly important function of any enterprise. And they also, play an important role, from a guardian perspective, of our people and their data and the rules that we are required and should follow to protect our individuals.”
Seán Morris
Principal & US Talent Transformation Leader at Deloitte
However, when it comes to encouraging adoption, Avature CEO Dimitri Boylan is quick to point out, “just throwing ChatGPT on top of everything is a no brainer bad idea.” To feed curiosity and encourage exploration of the potential of AI, Deloitte has instead pulled together a group of volunteers from across the business to do just that.
The theory of this was ‘let’s create a community that can apply it to some aspects of their day-to-day. Let’s put guardrails around it – you know what we can do and what we can’t do – but let’s see what innovative approaches they can come up with and in doing so, let’s build the trust level up and share that as a community. And I think that’s been a game-changer for us. They’re coming up with some wonderful ideas and approaches, which we’re then sharing.”
Seán Morris
Principal & US Talent Transformation Leader at Deloitte
Looking Ahead: Skills Dominate the Horizon
As Morris keenly emphasized, transformation is not a commodity but a journey. With the conversation beginning to draw to a close, the topic shifted to where the journey will take Deloitte next.
What really has my attention right now, and we’re moving out on it at speed, is skills. We’ve thought about the value that having a comprehensive skills approach can bring for decades. And the reality is that the technology just hasn’t been there. It never got the complexity of the data that you’re talking about. And we’ve just had leaps in that technology… [which is] enabling us to think about skills as a currency within an organization. And the use cases we’re working on around that are very, very significant.”
Seán Morris
Principal & US Talent Transformation Leader at Deloitte
Boylan and Morris are in agreement that the AI-driven software that supports a skills approach is now reaching the requisite level of maturity to become a real game-changer, with applications that touch on everything from innovating our approach to sourcing to achieving truly effective talent management.
If you can increase the speed and accuracy with which you can deploy an individual because of this new currency, which is much more predictive of success, then that’s a substantial positive from a bottom line perspective. And honestly, from a talent experience perspective.”
Seán Morris
Principal & US Talent Transformation Leader at Deloitte
And so, we’re once more left with plenty to ponder about the future of talent and the unpredictability of what lies ahead. For those most experienced in negotiating a path through change, however, it’s clear that there are guiding principles to help light the way and approaches that we would all do well to consider.
