The role of the c-level and the board in digital transformation with Jorge Arevalo

Welcome to Definitely Maybe Agable, the podcast with Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock Discuss the complexities of adopting new ways of looking at scale. Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Definitely Maybe Agile with your host, Peter Maddison, Dave Sharrock. And today we are joined by Jorge Arabello, who's a fantastic leader from South America who's been doing some amazing work down there. And I'm looking forward to a great conversation today. And uh today's topic is going to be on the role of the sea level and the board in digital transformation and why it's important uh for there to be digital literacy in these groups. Uh so with that in mind, Jorge, would you like to give a brief introduction to yourself?

Thank you, Peter, and uh thank you, Dave, for inviting me. I'm uh uh computer sciences graduate um from Colombia. I'm also from El Salvador, and I've been working in different uh industries through 30 years of experience and my most recent experiences with banks in Colombia and in Panama. I'm currently living in Panama. So I've been uh working in most of the Central American uh countries and in some of the South American countries, and I have experienced different kinds of digital transformation projects in different industries. So I hope I can bring some uh value to this discussion.

And I think one of the interesting things, uh Jorge, is your your experience at the sea level in these organizations as well, and seeing how the the board operates and how the influence the sea level has during these uh digital transformations. And so with that with that in mind, what would you say the role of the the sea level and the board is in digital transformations?

If I'm uh kind of a purist, uh the the sea level and the board of directors are the main guidance in in a transformation, right? Even if not digital, but in any transformation, because they have or they they need to have the vision of what needs to be transformed, right? But in fact, in my experience, sometimes they lack that vision, and sometimes they are just moving, guided by what is happening in another company that do the same thing, right? And they don't particularly think about how this thing or what we want to do affects our particular company, right? And uh and I think because it's because uh and particularly on digital transformation, they like lack some knowledge about what is uh digital transformation and what are the responsibilities of all the people involved in this digital transformation. And I think the main thing that many people get wrong of digital transformation is that digital or the IT or technology is not the focus of the transformation, but a means to an end, right? And that's what I have been seeing through all these years in in projects here in in South America and Central America.

Uh Jorge, I just wanted to pick up on what you're saying there. Um it's uh so the the Scrum Alliance a couple of years ago released a state of agile survey that highlighted successful transformations. Obviously, they're looking at Scrum or agile transformations, but they were identifying that executive leadership and in this conversation, that sea level board level leadership was a critical factor in the success of those agile transformations. And I think what's essential, and I think what you're pointing at, is that uh driving that transformation, a digital transformation, needs to be understood as the end goal, not the means to the end goal. And that the board and the C level team are responsible for clearly understanding and articulating that change that is necessary, the end goal from that change, rather than how the change happens.

And and sometimes what we get wrong, because everyone can get wrong, is uh the basic things. What is digital transformation? If we begin asking that, many people are not going to answer, and many people are not going to have, let's not say a right answer, but uh a correct answer in their own context, right? And uh it happens with many things. Digital transformation is a big umbrella. There are many things uh going on in a digital transformation. But if we can zoom in in a particular part like adopting GDPR or data privacy laws, you when you have a conversation with the C level and the board of directors, you right away get to know that the basic concepts are not understood, like what is private data, for example, and what is affect me and what are my responsibilities. And it is the same for a bigger digital transformation project, right?

I it's interesting because the the board, for example, are there because of the experience that they bring to the table, because they've done this in many ways beforehand. But what's interesting with the digital transformations is that these aren't things that have been done before. When you're talking about GDPR, that those requirements are new, they change our business, our mindset, how we approach things fundamentally. And so that experience that the board has is now a gap between where the whether what they've experienced before, what they can point to and say, we've done this before and this is powerful, and now there's a gap to the new transformation needs. And I think that's part of the challenge there, right?

Yeah, and one of the main responsibilities I see in in the C level and in the board of directors, it's to be a good counterpart for these initiatives, because you cannot um what I'm seeing in in Latin America, it's the board either said this is an IT thing, and I don't know anything about technology, so I'm not gonna be involved. And sometimes they have some knowledge, basic knowledge, or knowledge through their own sources, and they say, Okay, you must do this, and I I I don't care how this is going to affect our employees, our clients, our providers, or anybody. It's just the company across the the aisle is doing the same, so we need to do it. And one of the things it baffles me a lot, and these companies uh hire a lot of contractors and and a lot of companies, uh consulting companies, and they don't tend to not hear the message. Many, many, many uh consulting companies do do the right thing and said, Okay, this is my point of view. I'm I'm probably uh 100 feet away from the problem, but please, the first step is to review the TC's proposal uh with your particular needs, and then come up with a project. And sometimes I recently have uh some experience with that. A big one of the big four was uh working with the bank I was working in, and they said, okay, don't put the horses in the back of the cart, right? The the first thing you need to do is review your process, identify what needs to be improved, and then ask if you need technology to do that transformation. And the the question doesn't end there. Then, if you see that you need technology, you need to ask yourself your current technology can do it or not. If you cannot do it, you can think of some ways to achieve what you need. Either you modify your current technology and adapt it to the new process, or bring in more technology, right? But in the case of the bank I was working in, the part of reviewing and assessing was lost. And in the end, the project became a platform implementation project. And it's insane because the gains you are um trying to get are not going to be met just by implementing a platform.

So they they hear the they hear the part about oh, okay, so uh implement new technology, and they didn't hear any of the words before that. Like if that's what you got, see what see what you look at your process. Well, how should you, where should you improve? None of that, all that gets lost, and they just focus on need new technology, let's buy something.

And and I think banks are, sorry, Dave, to interrupt you, are a good example because banks buy technology by the dozen, they spent a lot of money, and the royal of that is little at least, right? And the success of these digital transformation initiatives are really, really poor.

What I was going to add to that, and it this is quite a really interesting, subtle piece in the conversation because the tooling, the technology, actually, there are people away from the board and the C-level execs, which are much better placed to make the evaluation and the changes and drive some of those tooling platform conversations, technology and platform conversations. But Peter and I discussed this week in, week out in our podcast, which is the cultural transformation. And one of my realizations in this conversation is that the C-level execs and the board are really, really well placed to observe a need for a cultural transformation more so than a need for a technical implementation. And so there's a really great opportunity there for that sort of guidance towards a significant cultural shift, which is what would in many cases would make the technology transformations, the digital transformations that we're talking about really resonate and stick and be sustainable or have the benefits that we know they can have in the right circumstances.

I think there's a there's an interesting piece here to build on that too. Because we we started from the the idea that the what the role of the C level and the board is in the digital transformation, I think we're we're sort of getting around that that cultural direction they provide. And so the second part of that was around like why is it important that they have that digital literacy too? Because if they don't have that digital literacy, maybe this is this might probably lead them to start to make these wrong decisions, like, hey, I'm just going to implement a platform and that's going to solve all of my problems, without actually understanding, well, that isn't really. So what is the underlying pieces we need to do? Uh sohoye, what what would you say if uh how can you go about creating that digital literacy at those highest levels of the organization?

It's very tough because when you are dealing with C level and board of directors, at least in Latin America, you have people with little to none background on technology, basically technology users, sometimes technology lawers, but no, they don't have a clear understanding of how things work, right? And sometimes they have just a little bit of knowledge. And I think it's it's it's best if they don't know anything, because if they know a little bit, uh it's going to be uh very difficult to interact with them because they have these uh assumptions, right? And the other thing is the board of directors and the city level uh normally are composed of people that come from finance, accounting, lawyers mostly, and they are in a certain uh range of age, right? Most of them are more than 50 or 60 years because they have a lot of experience in the industry, and so they haven't been formally introduced to technology, they they don't have formal programs to train them and to give them the basis. In in my alma mater in my university in Colombia, uh they did a pilot of something very interesting. A few very wise directors of several companies approached the university and they said, Okay, my gut feeling it's the projects they are the C level are proposing are not quite well, but I don't have knowledge enough, and these are the points I need to know a little bit more. And it was done very com with a lot of confidentiality, and the the people selected to train these people didn't know who they were talking with, and I think this uh approach allows uh the people to be honest about their uh shortcomings and um the things they don't know about it. But this case is is not very common, right? There's uh sometimes a little bit of arrogance in in the board of directors because of their work experience, and and and it's very uh we can understand that, right? It's not not easy to to say a people with 35 years of experience you need to know about something else because what you know is not all you need for the current times and and how the companies and the market is is moving, right? Because I I I understand it is is is uh a little bit hard because uh especially technology changes really fast. And and there are many things that are new and many things that, particularly for people not involved in technology, that seems to something that pop up from the air and and and and it's it's difficult to keep the pace, right? But we need to to approach the board of directors on this level in a way that they understand that knowing a little bit about certain topics will help them uh making better decisions and creating more resilient companies that can adapt in a better way to the changes.

Yeah, there's the uh what got you here won't get you there, and uh and yeah, how encouraging them to have the uh humility to actually go and look at this. You you were telling a story just before we started recording that I thought was uh quite pertinent to that, that the the idea of that uh introducing somebody to an environment where they clearly um don't know everything about it because they're in a different space with different people talking about it in a different language about new new things, uh is is a way of like getting people to start to realize, well, actually, maybe I don't know absolutely everything, even though uh I might have spent all of these years getting to where I am and I've had a lot of success, but that doesn't mean I know everything about every topic and uh there are more things to always learn.

Yeah, and and and and sometimes is uh not only realizing that there are certain things you don't know, but also to to have uh everything in a context. Uh probably a board of directors is not going to have to know how to make a Python program, right? But the basis, the things that give you context for making decisions. It's not you're going to go to a boot camp with all the board of directors or something like that. It's more there are specific topics that impact any initiative, not only digital transformation initiatives in the company, and you need to know a little bit more, and and that's it. And if you have a strong knowledge on the basis of the things, probably you're not an expert, but you can talk with an expert and have uh an opinion and you can make the right questions that sometimes even myself that I have been in the other side of the equation, uh presenting projects to the board of directors. In the few times that I have a good counterpart, it will enhance and make the project better. Because when you are discussing with a person that question you, even sometimes criticize you, you think about it again, and either uh you say, Okay, there are things that we need to detail even more, or things I didn't specify or communicate well, or you say, Okay, I answer all the questions, so probably I'm good to go. Right.

I think um what you're describing there is uh you you need that foil on the other side to ask the right questions to kind of hold, to be curious about what you're trying to achieve, so that you can hold the accountability is the wrong word, but so you can explore what you're trying to solve in the right way and really strengthen the solution, the the the way forward. But in order to do that, you don't need the sort of random questions that come from a poor understanding or a little understanding. You need the the expectations being set from someone from with some knowledge, right? With an understanding. And we and I don't think we need deep level understanding, but we need a thoughtful, I really it's almost that humility to have a white, a blank sheet and begin building your understanding around, let's say, technology or the impact of AI or a lot of these different topics, that it doesn't matter where you look. There's a new need for a new perspective. And how do we build a knowledge of that up so that we can ask the right questions, so that we can set expectations to come back to your story earlier on, that it isn't a platform that we need, but it is thoughtful analysis of what processes are working, what processes perhaps need improvement, and whether or not we have the technologies already that can support that, or whether we need new technologies.

And I think there's a there's there's a piece here to when we talk about the how is that um when going in to have that conversation, uh, if it's so say you're the CIO and you're turning up at the table and you are ready to have this conversation, you're bringing aspects of the digital transformation, and you want to have that foil on the other side asking you those questions. I think an important part of this is leading up to that all-important meeting, that you're meeting with each of the people who are going to be there and you're having this conversation, introducing them to the concepts, introducing to them, and then as a as because we were talking about like how you might go about getting that digital literacy and that understanding in in a one-on-one session, enabling uh the people that you're with and on the board to be able to ask those questions and and also to an extent see just the questions you want them to ask you when you get to the moment that you're in it, so that the so that then everybody can hear it. So it's on the the Well, that's a great question. I think you should ask that when we actually have the session.

Yeah, I I have a recent experience with that. The bank I used to work didn't have an a unit for uh business architecture or any architect, technology architects. And when presenting to the board, you need to have that unit, you need to explain what is business architecture. And um, we came up with an analogy with the uh the human system and how we have different systems between them, the the circulatory system, the empathic system, and everything, and uh as a way to explain the concept. And something I usually uh suggest to many technical people is forget about our booth words and all these acronyms that we like too much. You need to explain that so the people understand, not to to just to show them that you know, right? So you need to first think in your audience and how design these uh different people uh backgrounds to be able to explain that, and and the one-on-one conversations we did it that with the C level, with the CRO, with the CFO, with the CEO. And once we have all in the same page, we move to the board of directors, and and was not easy, but it was better because sometimes our um the people from a technology background are very in love with the words and the terms they use in the daily in their daily work, and and and that's a barrier that you need to uh put out of the table. And the other thing is I have mixed feelings with the term digital transformation for me, and especially for banks, the digital transformation was made in the 80s and the 90s. What we lack right now is uh a digital mind, right? It's the the ability to think how technology, how we can leverage on technology to achieve our goal, knowing that technology is not the goal, it's just a way, some tool to help us achieve our goal. And in what we are discussing, right? It's very obvious that it's not that easy to get people to have a digital mind because you need to first uh make a lot of questions, don't make assumptions if you don't understand, you need to ask. And if you feel something is wrong, don't say okay, it will solve in some way, ask and keep going. Because um, with that in mind, uh you're going to have a a better project. And sometimes we we forget that the first part is of the process is the most important, is yeah what we decide to solve, what is the problem to solve. And many, many times, and especially in banking, I don't know if in Canada or in the state is the same. I think it is, but they keep uh solving the the wrong problem.

I I think what you're saying about the digital mind is such a it's almost like a new, uh a fresh outlook. I whenever um one of the notes that I was making here is, and I think Peter referred to this is you you can't solve today's problems with yesterday's solutions or yesterday's mindset. And of course, at the board level, at the sea level, a lot of the reason that they are there is they've had great success in the past solving yesterday's problems, but today's problems need that different approach. And I really like that curiosity, and it's not something we look for a lot of times. A lot of times we look for direction or agreement, but not necessarily that we're prepared for that curiosity. I'm reminded of David Marquette and intent based leadership, right? When he's saying, What's your intent? And from what you were just saying, is that next question is help me understand your intent. But it's all curiosity as questions, it's not direction.

People willing to have a constructive conflict with a conversation, are they willing to ask those questions? Is it a safe space in quite when you get that to those levels? In addition to the uh questions, making sure that people are operating just because that's kind of email any kind of digital transformation or development, any kind of digital mind because it's uh people are going to look at problems in a different way. Exercise curiosity because it's not going to be a safe space to do that.

Yes, um, most of the time it's it's not a safe space. We need to be uh very honest about it because some in particular in banking and financial institutions, there's always more than one agenda in a room, right? The the coo has his point of view, and uh the CRO has his point of view, and they want to push their ideas, and and especially when they are in front of the board of directors, it's uh who shouts more uh and who is uh visible, right? And um, sometimes or most of the times it affects the process we need we we want to change or we want to transform, or we need to transform because the decisions are not being made on the best interest of the whole community, that is uh the company, the clients, their employees, but in the benefit of uh certain groups between the company, right? Um, so it's it's not impossible to do it. There are some steps to reach a point where we get to have safer environments to discuss and to be critical with ourselves. And one of the things I have experienced a lot, I I have been leading programmers and uh designers for many years, and you know when you criticize their work, they are unable to appreciate that you're criticizing the work another person, right? Because they're interlined, because they're creative people, and sometimes uh the same happens in the two level, right? And what is funny when when you are a little bit on the back, sometimes you see that two people are arguing and shouting to each other, and in your mind is why these people are shouting if they are saying basically the same. And the only answer I have is nobody's listening, and it happens a lot. And to link this with uh what we were being discussing, if if you don't hear the other part, if you are only there just to to make an argument and and to be visible, uh it's not going to work, you're going to spend uh an awful lot of time, uh people's time and a lot of money with meetings uh through meetings to meetings with no end because uh you need to hear and you need to it's a clich no question, it's it's a dumb question. Sometimes uh dumb questions make you realize that either you are not structuring well your message or the way you are communicating is not helping to reach out to the others, right? So to be able to receive criticism and to do uh an internal review of how you're presenting. And and I I I've been uh guilty of doing that. Sometimes I I forget that it's not what I'm saying, it's what is getting to the people about the heart, right?

The comment you're making a reminder of safety. Sometimes we think the borders have thick eyes, we can just go in and you know say what's needed or approach it in a more direct way. And I think there's a real reminder here that you build consensus one conversation, one voice at a time, you don't do that in one big conversation, right? And that safety of being able to allow people to be curious without being seen by everybody to ask them questions if that makes sense to be curious without them to get an understanding. I think it's so important and sometimes forgotten in that rush to get a decision, in the rush to move on to the next thing, is how do you bring people on along on that journey so that they're comfortable that they're not on the outside looking in, that they're not unsure of where things are going.

Yeah, and and sometimes when I'm not presenting something, but I'm part of a meeting and someone asks a dumb question. You see the faces of many people that uh say thank God, this guy or this woman ask what I was thinking. But they're the first to say it's a dumb question. And it's we need to change that because uh it is not because you were thinking about the same thing. That didn't feel safe enough to ask it.

I think it's all fantastic ones. I really enjoyed the uh conversation. Uh and I would like to start these talks with sort of three main takeaways for uh and so um switching on as part of you, Dave. What's your main takeaway from the conversation today?

I was going to say I think the big one is just what we were just talking about about safety. But if I dig a little further back earlier in the conversation, we talked about the need to understand that it isn't a platform, it's not a technology, it's the end goal. What why are you trying to change becomes the critical thing that we want to focus on, and I think just that understanding the why piece is one of the takeaways for sure.

I'm in line with Dave. I think uh you need to understand why you are doing things to be able to come up with the best uh answers to that. But uh also the create a safe environment to be able to have this discussion is important, and uh in the C level and in the board of directors, sometimes there are too many egos. So you need to very to be very thoughtful of how we are going to communicate, to be able to reach a point where you have the safe of the safest environment possible to have the discussion, to come up with the question: are we really going to do this? And why is that we are going to do this? I think that's the main takeaway.

I think uh we can have a good conversation around this role of uh sea level and the error. The need for the digital literacy comes as much from ensuring that those conversations are well, uh that communication is happening well and uh jumping into situations where um we know that the people around the table from experiments, and uh this isn't something they're familiar with. So helping them be successful by uh giving them the time to absorb the information and be ready for those conversations. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you as always, Dave. And uh and uh if my listeners want to reach out, they can definitely maybe agile and subscribe and get all the latest uh episodes. And uh thank you all again. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, thanks a lot. You've been listening to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where your hosts Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock, focus on the art and science of digital, agile, and DevOps at scale.