Digital Transformation - tech is the easy part!

“The biggest part of our digital transformation is changing the way we think” Simeon Preston, Bupa 2019

In my previous blog Why I don’t like the term ‘Digital Transformation’ I explained that with a clear, well communicated strategy the smart use of technology will be a powerful way of achieving organisational change. But technology is not the hard part. Leadership, teamwork and culture are vital for the success and these are the hardest to change.

Getting culture right

Over 30 years ago, Prof. Carol Dweck became interested in students' attitudes to failure, noticing that some rebounded while others seemed devastated by setbacks. She and her team coined the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset to describe the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence. These characteristics are contrasted in Table 1, produced from her excellent book Mindset”.

Table 1: Growth versus fixed mindset

This gets even more interesting when extended to business. In her work on Organisational Mindsets, Prof. Dweck observes “it's possible to weave a fixed or growth mind-set into the very fabric of an organisation to create a culture of genius or a culture of development”. She contrasts the two organisations styles - and their normal ways of acting - as summarised in Table 2.

Table 2: Organisational Mindset

In his 2018 HBR article Successful organisation change begins with mindset Reed Deshler observes that “Transformational change starts in the mind. One of the most critical roles leaders play in any change management situation is to build a success mindset throughout the organisation.” 

Reed explains that this can be really challenging because “change involves taking people out of their comfort zones - the things they are good at - pushing them to do things differently.”

Figure 3: The Comfort Zone

Comfort Zones can explain the reaction of an individual to organisational change. Things feel familiar when we are in our comfort zone. We are at ease and feel in control of our environment. When we are asked to do things differently, perhaps by downloading and using an app to record our time each day rather than filling in a paper timesheet each week this can change, moving us outside our comfort zone.

This can push us into the fear zone, where we are tempted to make excuses and feel self-conscious - thinking that others can already do this, hence undermining self confidence. There are two ways to go from here. Either back to filling in the paper timesheet and complaining about the new app (the comfort zone) or adopting a growth mindset and moving into the learning zone.

For a transformation to be successful, its essential that employees at all levels take the growth mindset-motivated approach into the learning zone. Pragmatic actions can help this. The attitude of leadership is critical. If the board and senior management go first, then others are likely to follow. If the solution is well designed and intuitive to use - without the need to read thick manuals or attend weeks of training - this will help. And if everyone can see how the new solution fits in with the organisational strategy and helps achieve business goals, this will help too!

Who’s job is it anyway?

“The Information Technology department own our digital transformation.” WRONG! A transformation will only be successful if the whole business takes ownership. The tech department will be responsible (directly or indirectly) for delivering the technology transformation projects but business operations and services at all levels from the CEO downwards play a critical role in owning the transformation and ensuring success through strategic alignment.

If the business abdicates responsibility to the tech team, the transformation will fail and investments will be wasted. The reasons are pretty obvious. The tech team were hired for their knowledge and experience in designing, executing and supporting technology projects. They should get close to the business but they will never understand day to day operations as well as their colleagues who are responsible for business specific functions. 

Effective transformation requires a balanced contribution from technology and business specialists in an organisation.

Role of the tech & business teams

Once the strategy is clear, communicated and understood a balanced collaboration between the technical and business teams is the best way to guide optimal transformation. A good way to achieve this is for the board to select and empower small tech and business teams to lead the lead the incremental, agile transformation process which I will describe in my next blog post, reporting progress and removing blockages through periodic board interaction. 

The role of each team must be totally clear (as shown in the Table 4 ) but balanced and collaborative working will be key to success. 

Table 4: Roles of Tech & Biz Teams

What do I mean by ‘balanced’? Each team has something special to offer to ensure that the transformation projects make the most impact on the business, and make the best use of technology available. 

There must also be balanced membership of each team. The business team must combine operations / lines of business with business services such as human resources, finance and marketing. Equally the tech team must include those responsible for systems and applications development but equally infrastructure, end user support and security / privacy.

Without this balance - for example, in the ‘abdication’ example I cited earlier - the transformation will be non-optimal and could be doomed to failure.

In summary, once the organisation’s strategy is clear, meaningful digital transformation can follow. Cultural aspects need full consideration and careful leadership action to ensure that everyone in the business embraces the change - rather than fights against it. The transformation must be owned by the whole organisation and not ‘abdicated’ to the technology team. Indeed the business and technology teams must work closely together to plan and execute the transformation.

In my next blog post I will introduce an incremental, agile approach to digital transformation and explain how this can be used to combine structure with flexibility in the transformational journey.

I would much appreciate comments on this blog post, or feel free to contact me directly if preferred.