Digitally aware professionals are all around you. They’re designing virtual reality use within their organisations, quickly changing business models to sidestep risks from new innovations, and they’re looking oh-so-impressive on LinkedIn.

It’s time to get all of your people up-skilled fast. Technology skills, agile mindsets and being highly productive are required to compete as emerging new technologies – like sci-fi-sounding brain enhancement advancements – are being integrated into business. It’s all about digital intelligence. 

Organisations with digitally savvy people naturally experience these great benefits, plus more.

• A great feeling of dynamism from people responding fast, being empowered about technology and open to innovating, experimenting and tweaking.
• Related organisations are regularly in touch to offer partnerships – aided by every person’s Linkedin, online profile and published updates being impressive.
• Location-independent and virtual work happens easily. People learn where and when they get their best work done for specific types of work; they use this skill without questions from others.
• Talented people are attracted to work in the organisation. They’re keen to hang out in organisations comprised of like-minded, curious and up-to-date leaders who have digital nous. They are globally well-connected and want to work where the great experiments and successes are happening.
• People naturally research areas of interest, analyse with respect to their work and take action on the findings. Each employee tends to different topics such as new tech, product innovations, new entrants that are disrupting usual business models, new systems and processes like crowdsourcing, and/or different channels to consume information.

How to teach digital leadership for business growth

Before Kodak and Nokia’s decline, their leaders thought they were making the best business decisions.

With increasing technology, the reality is that all employees need digital intelligence (DQ) to make the best decisions.

DQ means:

• Having an agile, open mindset. Quickly learning and experimenting with new tech, integrating the useful bits and collaborating with others (including customers). Being able to see and mitigate personal and organisational data risks.
• Polishing your online profile – from your LinkedIn profile looking impressive, to how you look via a Google search, on to what you publish online as an expert.
• Regularly researching, having clever personal information systems (one may like Twitter or Linkedin, another Reddit, another gravitates to influential websites and Google alerts) and growing your global network to receive relevant insight.

Every industry is being enhanced or disrupted by technology, and you never know which employee might uncover the next innovation opportunity or business risk.

It’s time to complement your emotional intelligence (EQ) and leadership programs with digital intelligence (DQ). It doesn’t take long. Since people are already clever at their business, it’s about meeting them where they’re at and adding more digital learning into their daily work. They can take it from there.