Digit Group’s Corporate Insights Series are short Q&A interviews with today’s leaders and influencers, who like all of us are adapting and evolving in this current market.
Andrew Coppens – Leader in Strategy, Agility and Transformation
This week it was my pleasure to speak with IT Executive Andrew Coppens, whose background includes major strategy and leadership positions within blue chip organisations such as Australian Unity, CGU and ANZ and more recently partnering with executive leaders to drive business, IT and Agile transformation.
Damien: Andrew what is your field, background and area of expertise?
Like many I am in a transitionary period as a result of the pandemic. During this time I have given great thought about two of my favourite subjects – how I help people with agile transformations, and how industry leaders will look to lead out of this crisis. I’ve also been doing some fundraising and charity work with Whitelion.
Damien: Interesting. What do you see leaders doing once the world starts returning to normal?
Andrew: From my experience I know that leaders will be faced with an overwhelming amount of operational and tactical work just to restart everything and get people back to some level of normal function. I think there is a huge opportunity being created by this crisis. A good leader will be planning how they use this upheaval to drive a real transformation of their business. Not just a restructure, not moving seats around, but really delving into every facet of the business with flexibility, agility and clear thinking.
Good leaders will be thinking about how they create a better corporate environment for their customers and their people. Exceptional leaders will be working out how they engage their people in designing the new world.
Damien: Why would they be thinking about more change when people are already dealing with as much change as they can cope with?
Andrew: Simply because the role of a good leader is to anticipate the future, how we can make things better for our people and our organisation, and then map out a path towards that future. So the opportunity as a leader is to be ready. Ready with a clear vision of something better, a plan on how to harness this energy for change, and most importantly – a way to involve their people in the design of the future they will ultimately have to live within.
Damien: Sounds like you have identified a great opportunity here – but you are saying we will have to wait to do it until people are ready before they start thinking about this?
Andrew: Yes and no. Timing is everything and you need to be able to anticipate the right time for your organisation and your people. This is something no outsider can answer for you, and every organisation will be different.
However, as a leader, you will probably never have the opportunity or the time again like you do now to get ready for it.
For people to have confidence in the organization’s ability to pull off a change like this, you need to be able to answer a whole range of questions. Some examples of these are:
- What is your organisations purpose for being?
- Who are the customers? What are their needs? How do we know?
- What is the vision for the change? Why are we changing?
- What are the constraints – what we will do, what won’t we do? Why?
- What are our services or products? What is the optimal way to deliver them? How far are we from that?
You will also need a list of experience and capability for designing and successfully implementing a change like this that aren’t necessarily business as usual, such as:
- Organisational Design
- Lean/Value Stream capability
- Job design and skill mapping
- Agility Expertise (Assuming you go down the agility path)
- Transformational level change management
- Leadership programs
- Training capability
Having clarity on the first list means everyone can work towards the same vision. Having the skills and capabilities available in the second list means your team can create with the right support and guidance.
Damien: Thank you for your time and insights Andrew.
Should you have any further questions about Agility and or Transformation you can contact Andrew Coppens via coppensandrew255@gmail.com or 0413 705 472.
For any recruitment enquiries please contact Damien Moss from DIGIT Group: dmoss@digitgroup.com.au or 0408 690 787.
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