In 2012, Gerry McGovern surveyed over 1,000 web professionals and their number one challenge was not competitors, but their own senior management’s lack of engagement and understanding.
In other words as web professionals we seem to believe that senior management either don’t understand the web or just don’t care about it. But is that true? And if it is true what can we do about it?
These are the questions I address in my upcoming book ‘Digital Adaptation’ but they are also issues I would like to discuss on the podcast.
Questions we must answer
For example we say that senior management is unengaged but what exactly would we like them to be doing? We also claim they don’t understand the web, but how could this be solved? Is it a matter of sending them on a training course or is more radical action required?
What is our role as web professionals in all of this? Should we be doing something to help senior management ‘get it’? Should the digital lead in our company sit on the board or perhaps they should have an outside digital non-executive director?
In short I want us to use the comments to get to the heart of this issue. I want to hear about the challenges you face working with senior managers and any advice you have that might help others.
Let’s see if we can stop complaining about management and come up with an action plan for change.
“mature business man working with his laptop” image courtesy of Bigstock.com
