Digital Transformation Turning Management into Digital People

By Thomas B. Cross CEO TECHtionary.com and SocialStreamingTV.com

Digital transformation is the process of automating business functions.?It is the elimination of people in doing those business processes.?Telephone operators, tellers, clerks, warehouse, accounting, human resources, food service, network operations and the list goes on and on.?Often called process automation, simply put any operation that is now filled or provided by humans will be eliminated or nicely put, automated. ?The result is a digitally-driven management system focused not on people but business operations that can increasingly operate autonomously.?Robo-taxis, autonomous delivery functions, drones and self-driving vehicles are just visible operations of digital functions.?The pursuit of this kind of digital process automation results in a digital people approach to management of humans.?Those in executive positions don't make decisions based on people but increasingly on how much more and how much faster these digital functions can be eliminated.?Seriously management has never been about people except to the end results in higher profits and EPS-earnings per share. ?

In one dark sense, people are viruses that need to be eliminated for the business "being" to survive.?Have you ever noticed that every time a CEO lays off people the price of the stock rises often quite a bit??As once was said, "the ultimate value of the CEO is the stock price."?Investors know that people are the root cause of and the majority expense in any business.?If people can be eliminated, then the organization can restructure based on the new business "butterfly" that emerges. This is often where businesses cut customer service by outsourcing or forcing customers to do their own "self-service" support.?Self-service is just a nice name for outsourcing customer service to customers - you are the data entry clerk not them.?Along with the all-important transition forcing customers into doing their own self-service such as ATMs, online ordering, smartphone buying, banking and billing, management becomes more data-driven. ?This is very generational.?

Businesses don't start with typewriters (how many people have even seen one lately), they start with the latest technology businesses grow, they add people to do jobs.?Then digital transformation attacks the issues that people have created, figures out a way to do the same work and then people are eliminated and not replaced allowing the business to grow.?

The new digital people approach to management has emerged as this next generation of management is not confined to the ways of "digital immigrants" as "digital natives." Any one and everyone can build new businesses with digital-first or virtual-first business operations.?This generation and those ahead see digital transformation from the beginning, and they won't hire a "beehive" of people in expensive office spaces wasting time, energy and their lives commuting to and from offices that make no sense to the knowledge work they do.?

Digital people also operate differently with other people in good ways.?They don't see diversity as an obstacle to overcome as it's not part of their persona to begin with.?They look at what needs to be done and use digital transformation and only, when necessary, have people do it.??They don't have to bring people together to collaborate, they do that digitally as well.?Digital people are not cold people, they just operate in a new and different way.?

Digital management operates as 1/0 (ones and zeros - on or off), narrowly focused and far less "grey" as jobs are more functional, factual, data-driven everything, feature-driven, and financial.?Digital people see digital business functions differently as they start with technology and then, and only as necessary, add people to the mix.?The new digital corporate culture will also be driven by digital people as the way people work together.?All the permutations of digital people means that the next generation of businesses that are started now and, in a decade, and beyond will become even more driven by digital.?Technology always changes the way we think faster than people and society can adapt to its impacts and consequences.?The pandemic has shown us that we can adapt faster even when we are forced too, though the unintended consequences of all this are only beginning to emerge.?Digital people will drive all forms of society from government, nonprofits, associations, education and more.?

You may have noticed I did not address any specific technologies such as AI, machine learning, quantum computing, implant tech, wireless and so many others.?The reason is that all forms of technology are going through their own digital transformation as their processes and operations are transforming more exponentially than more traditional business situations.?As the saying goes, "you ain't seen nothing yet" as technology will change even faster than we can imagine.?

Summary - The reason why people don't want to go back to the office is that is for most people the office is a "soul-killing" place where the pace is slow, people are hateful or annoying and that commuting to and from the office is a mind-numbing experience fraught with a high likelihood of disability and dying.?

Digital transformation is replacing the nonsense of the legacy office with digitally-driven communications, operations and work processes which for many is faster, easier and more career-fulfilling, leaving them more time to be the people they really want to be. And, there will be as much digital transformation on every other aspect of peoples' lives from recreation, family, religion, social, intimate and personal lifestyle activities.

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