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By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Excitement is building here in my hometown of Kansas City for the start of the NFL season. As an avid Kansas City Chiefs fan, I'm beyond excited! With a rebuilt defense, new additions to the offense, and a more competitive AFC West, it’s going to be an exciting season. To help fuel the excitement, I’d like to share a back story of a key individual that the Chiefs would have never won the 2020 Super Bowl without him. And it’s not Patrick Mahomes! That man is Brett Veach, the General Manager for the Chiefs. He is an excellent case study of effective leadership. So, here are four leadership principles we can all live by that Andy Reid, Chiefs Head Coach, used to describe Veach: 1. Let’s Explore Brett has a fantastic track record for putting in the work to find good players. He knows what he wants, searches to find the players that meet his criteria and he goes after them. Lessons learned: Dig deep to understand everything you need to know about your situation or problem. By doing in-depth research before you make important decisions, you’ll lay a good foundation for your next steps. 2. Let’s Not Be Afraid to Go There Veach is "fearless," according to Andy Reid. He's not afraid to make wrong decisions. For example, Brett was instrumental in discovering and insisting that Chiefs select Patrick Mahomes in the draft. So, if it weren't for Brett, Patrick most likely wouldn't be a Chief! Many other teams thought he was too much of a gamble to pursue. Lessons Learned: Once you’ve done your homework and your pathway forward is more straightforward, be bold in your decision-making. Go after your goals with a single-mindedness to achieve success. 3. Let’s Not Say It Can’t Be Done “Impossible” is not a word in Veach’s vocabulary. Many industry experts said it would never be possible to keep the Super Bowl-winning team together. But Veach set his mind on the goal and has worked relentlessly towards keeping the 2019 team together. Lessons Learned: Refuse to believe something can’t happen. Just make up your mind to get ‘er done and tenaciously work towards that. And this leads to the last point: 4. Let’s Find a Way To Get It Done Veach proved all the naysayers wrong by bringing back all but two of the team’s starters before the start of the season. He accomplished this through a foundation of trust built with his players, which paid off during contract negotiations with star players Patrick Mahomes and Chris Jones. Lessons Learned: Work towards building trusted relationships with your team. When they see your willingness to go the extra mile for them, they’ll be more willing to do the same for you. This base of trust will help you more quickly iron out conflicting objectives with them so that the whole organization will be more empowered to reach its goals. Likewise, business leaders can build strong business teams. Michael Cantu and I talk about this extensively in our newly released paperback, No-Nonsense Digital Transformation. The e-book debuted on Amazon as the #1 New Release in IT, #2 Best Seller in IT, and #3 in AI and Semantics. If you’re interested in learning more about the book, click the button below!
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By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Image by wayhomestudio - Freepik Whew, it’s over! It’s been such an incredible week getting Michael Cantu's and my paperback book, No-Nonsense Digital Transformation, launched. It was a labor of love and took so much work, but it’s definitely been worth it.
Now I can rest a bit. Ah, but wait, I have a newsletter and blog to create, and it’s Friday night at 4:00 pm. What do I do now? Well, I’m going to try something different this time since no tips nor lessons learned (that I typically write about) are coming to mind. Instead, I’ve decided to write a free flow of consciousness from this brain of mine to yours. I'm not even sure what words will come out as I type this, so this could prove interesting—for you and me! One thing I do know—my heart is overflowing with gratitude. I am truly a blessed woman. So, what am I thankful for? First, I've had so many friends and colleagues who have helped me out on this book journey and my whole entrepreneurial journey, in general. There have been quite a few lean times over the past seven years of Kent Business Solutions being in existence. Thankfully, I’ve had so many coaches, mentors, referral partners, and colleagues that have been my cheerleaders. I'm grateful for all of them, some of whom are reading this now. Without all of their help, I'd probably be working a 9-to-5 job, which is not my cup of tea anymore! I'm also grateful for the personal growth I've experienced over the last seven years. One thing I do know, I’m not the same person I was when I first started. I’m more confident, grateful, wiser, and now I’m having the time of my life! It’s certainly not been an easy journey, but I wouldn't change anything. The lean and challenging times of being an entrepreneur can either make you or break you, and you can get better or bitter. I've chosen the upside, and it's made all the difference in the world! Finally, I’m grateful for meaningful work that challenges me every day to be my best self and help others in the process. Helping others is what life’s about, and I’m thankful I have the opportunities to do just that. So, that’s where I’m at tonight, at 4:30 pm on Friday, August 19, 2022. I hope you enjoyed my stream of consciousness from my brain to yours! So, I’ll leave you with this one question: What are you grateful for in your life? If you’d like to share your answer with me, leave a comment below! Or, reach out to schedule a chat! Click the button below to get something on our calendars.  Image by Nicola Barts Did you know a series of studies conducted by several heavy hitters (the likes of McKinsey, Oxford University, and KPMG) revealed that 70% of all respondents said they knew an IT project they were about to start would fail from the onset? Talk about seemingly insurmountable odds! Despite this statistic, countless companies begin their transformation journeys with high hopes and grand plans yet often don't achieve their goals. But then, there's another end of the spectrum where companies know projects will fail from the very beginning! With all these grim realities, how does a business leader ensure success from the onset? One way to go about it is preventing those things that could go wrong. Along those lines, here are the three top reasons why digital transformation initiatives fail, all from a people perspective: 1. Wrong Mindsets Good mojo flows down from the top of an organization, and if the CEO isn't supportive of transformative IT initiatives, success will be hard to achieve. So it's essential to have support from the top. Also, when companies continue to keep employees on board who are resistant to change and can sabotage change efforts, this can cause problems. 2. Wrong Culture If an organization has too many siloed departments and collaboration is minimal, IT projects are destined to fail. It's essential to establish an atmosphere of cooperation. When an organization can foster an attitude that everyone can win with the proposed new technology, that's a game-changer. If there aren't effective change management systems in place along those lines, end-user acceptance will suffer. Finally, if management does a poor job of encouraging an environment where team members are free to be themselves and can voice feedback without repercussions, chances for success are minimized. 3. Wrong Talent Not having the right talent mix for your team can impede your efforts. For instance, a team leader who doesn’t do a good job assessing their internal human capital and filling skill gaps will suffer in the end. Also, when team leaders don't include team members during the interview process with prospective hires, the potential for friction in the team increases. You want to ensure new members can easily integrate into the team. One undervalued idea is having highly skilled people on your team who have experienced firsthand failed initiatives. That way, they can bring their expertise and prior knowledge of what doesn't work on projects. I've only scratched the surface with these three possible reasons digital transformation efforts can fail, all from the people side of things. For these very reasons, that's why Michael Cantu' and I wrote our best-selling Kindle book, No-Nonsense Digital Transformation. We wrote it with two types of business leaders in mind. First, those who aren't familiar with the ins-and-outs of digital transformation and would like to have a step-by-step roadmap to success. We also wrote it for leaders who have experienced failures in the past and want to avoid similar problems in the future. And if you haven't heard already, we are launching the paperback version of our book TOMORROW, August 17! Michael and I are excited, so say the least! If you'd like to learn more, click the button below. By: Kathy Kent Toney, CEO & Founder of Kent Business Solutions  Image by rawpixels.com - Freepik Many remote workers these days become routinely frustrated that they don’t have everything they need at their fingertips to do their jobs. For them, the days they could run down the hall to quickly talk to someone are long gone. There is a better way! It centers around harnessing the power of Digital Transformation (DX). To learn more about how DX can benefit organizations, I interviewed Michael Cantu of Accelerate. I wanted to discover how the use of workflow automation software, a major component of DX, can radically transform organizations and can also make remote working much more productive. For the complete interview, click here. So, what is workflow automation software? Here’s a definition: It connects disparate systems, people, data, content, and workloads to accelerate your workforce. It streamlines your work, enabling you to have at your fingertips what you need to do your job more effectively and efficiently. There are too many benefits to list, so here are some highlights: 1. Increased Productivity Some platforms, including Accelerate, connect siloed IT systems. With Accelerate, these systems can be integrated into the platform, so you only need to use one interface, negating the need for employees to log into multiple systems to do their work. 2. Improved Customer Experience It allows businesses to quickly communicate with customers and provide immediate answers to their concerns and queries. Automated data entry saves time as well and offers consistent services while minimizing errors. 3. More Effective & Efficient Remote Working Remote workers often spend too much effort going back and forth with email, and work can be disjointed. Everything you need with a tool like Accelerate can be at your fingertips in one system for better working-from-home scenarios. 4. Quicker Implementations & Increased Ability to Innovate Lower costs and quicker implementations leave more time and money to launch more innovation projects with lessened lead times. Because Accelerate has a drag-and-drop user interface, simple processes can be automated in less than two hours! Workflow automation platforms truly deliver outstanding results. Here are some real-life examples that Accelerate clients have achieved:
In the first two examples, layoffs weren’t necessary, despite the productivity increases. They are now able to take on more sales and grow their companies. As you can see, workflow automation tools can improve remote working experiences, increase productivity, and reduce overhead and development costs. And who wouldn’t want that for their organization? # # # Speaking about workflow automation, Michael Cantu and I are excited about our upcoming paperback launch of our book, No-Nonsense Digital Transformation. It was the #1 New Release in IT on Amazon (Kindle) in November, 2022! In it, we talk extensively about workflow automation platforms. We also provide a step-by-step roadmap of how to successfully plan for and implement these platforms in companies. Are you interested in learning more? Then click the button below to get started! |
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