Which soft skills foster successful transformation initiatives?

Soft skills in the area of people skills, communication skills, effective leadership and hands on mentality will help laying the foundation for successful transformation initiatives.

The most important soft skill is empathy. Transformation initiatives inevitably leads to changes and disruptions in employee's workflows. In many people this leads to feelings of uncertainty and concern - especially in long standing staff. In others it can lead to frustrations as they may feel the transformation will make their role harder or less productive. Utilise the trust you should have already built to listen to those frustrations and concerns directly from the employees. This is the only way to know how address those issues either on a personal level, or in a modification to the transformation.

Soft skills, in addition to requisite technical skills, can help IT teams be more effective and resilient during digital transformations.

Some of the skills that employees should have that can foster success include 1) Communicating effectively when translating technical information to business stakeholders, 2) Creative problem solving, 3) Collaboration with cross-functional and department teams, 4) Adaptability to change course when challenges arise, 5) Emotional intelligence, and 6) Accountability for project success.

Define what success looks like, Define outcomes, Define metircs that reflect progress and health and have an unambiguous way to measure them, Good program management, Good communication, Ability to manage upward, influence stakeholders, and be a change agent.

It is very important to develop and manage efforts not only from a technology perspective but to understand and apply other skills to be a successful leader. The first of which comes to mind is empowering your staff/employees - this could be done through skills training, listening to their feedback, educating them, and giving them autonomy. Second, it's important to communicate well - to all parts of the business, internal/external teams, and actually do something with that communication and make it actionable. Third, listen to your team, listen to the leadership, the trends, your peers, and competitors.