To sustain your business, the key challenge in the economic context of recent years is to know how to conduct effective change. To do this, a digital acculturation strategy will be essential. Here’s everything you need to know about the definition of acculturation and its implementation in the company as well as the 10 methods that will help you get through the digital transformation milestone without missteps.
Digital acculturation in business, why and how to implement it?
The definition of acculturation states that it is a way of adapting to another culture for one person or group. In the context of innovation and the drive for change, it is necessary to understand acculturation as the strategy that will enable you to achieve your digital transformation goals.
What is acculturation? Integrating digital into working methods
Emerging digital tools have radically transformed workspaces and the way a company’s employees interact and perform their duties. In this changing environment, business leaders must adopt a change-driven position to support their teams in this digital transition.
“Acculturation does not mean losing its corporate culture”
Olivia Scotti, Head of New Culture at Schoolab
Olivia Scotti, Head of New Culture at Schoolab, explains that a good acculturation strategy will be one based on your company’s existing culture and not just applying solutions without prior observation: “It’s important to understand that acculturation does not mean abandoning one’s own culture but rather adapting innovation to the culture that already exists. You have to know how to observe the composition of the terrain and then adjust the solutions in each company.”
Working acculturation to instil the culture of innovation will therefore require time to set up projects and direct all teams towards a common goal. “We must accompany the teams over time and propose several acculturation tools to develop learning. For acculturation to take place, communication is essential, we must succeed in bringing together the visions of each team towards a common goal” says Olivia Scotti.
What are the most effective innovative ways to successfully transform digitally?
To drive change and successfully acculturate to digital in your business, you can call on innovation partners such as Schoolab. You will then have the right support to make your employees as aware as possible about digital transformation. Different innovative methods exist to accompany your team in this essential step of driving change.
The 10 tips and methods for a successful digital acculturation
1/ The key to acculturation: starting from the existing culture
First tip: observe and understand your company’s existing culture. Indeed, acculturation will never come at the expense of your basic culture because the idea is not to bring a new culture unsuitable to your environment. This will allow you to see how teams have responded to previous methods of innovation and understand solutions that have not worked.
Then, thanks to this observation period, you will be able to work on a path to grow your employees and reveal the innovation potential of your company. To do this, there are different offers and innovative methods.
2/ Inspiring innovation through learning expeditions
Organizing a learning expedition in San Francisco or in innovation hubs to inspire your employees will allow you to travel to discover the places that are most advanced on innovation. For example, organize a discovery trip for the FinTech Executive Committee in London, a discovery day at Station F or 2 days of startup meetings in Berlin.
3/ Engage employees with intrapreneurship
Intrapreneurship will allow your employees to carry out projects and test their ideas through the idea of new solutions within the company. Infuse the entrepreneurial spirit in your Innovation or HR directions with workshops or reverse mentoring.
4/ Federate by organizing a hackathon
This solution promotes teamwork in a friendly atmosphere and brings together all the talents around a common goal: solving a business or technical problem. In 2018, for example, Schoolab organized a hackathon with students from School 42 and a business law firm to create a new tool ready to be used by professionals to facilitate billing.
5/ Farming by the project
It is by doing that we learn! Create an environment to bring all types of projects from design to implementation and concrete implementation of the tools to empower your teams. The result is entering areas of discomfort to learn better and see the results of projects.
6/ Opening horizons with new methodologies
Inspired by the methods of the best-performing startups, innovation methodologies such as design thinking, lean startup or business agility will help you give a new perspective to your methods of collaboration for quick and effective results.
7/ Promoting the ecosystem with an innovation laboratory
How can we enhance the innovation ecosystem by bringing together entrepreneurs, startups and experts? By designing an innovation lab to accommodate all the talent in a changing workspace that will be designed to respond to all current problems.
8/ Launch a new product quickly with the Lean Factory
This program brings together multidisciplinary teams to work nimbly on creating a prototype and launching it in a matter of months and then testing it on real users.
9/ Group different profiles
To succeed in digital acculturation, it is also advisable to work with different profiles to highlight the multi-disciplinary nature of the teams. Schoolab’s CPI offer allows students from high schools to collaborate.
10/ Learning through failure
Finally, the easiest advice to put in place to work digital acculturation is to be wrong! “Farming is doing and therefore learning by doing. It is by encountering practical questions in a project that we will be able to cultivate ourselves. Accepting failures to bounce back and become agile is the key.” explains Olivia Scotti.
