Of Disruptions, Digital Transformations and Don Quixote

Literature, like history, has the ability to create metaphors that we ignore at our own peril time and again. One of the most endearing such metaphors is that of Don Quixote and his feudal sidekick called Sancho Panza .

The plot revolves around the adventures of a noble who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza , as his sidekick. Don Quixote, does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly code. Miguel de Cervantes created these stories way back in 1605.

Even in these times of Digital Disruption there seem to be valuable insights that these hilarious stories offer us, if we care to look. What I personally find most amusing is the influence that Sancho Panza has on the course of events even as a feudal, status quoist who is invested in Don Quixote, more than in good sense. In a story of course, this is cute. It has leadership lessons that are priceless, though.

Disruptions as they are called firstly, spring on those of us who believe that we can keep-things-as-they-are ignoring developing currents for too long. Either, because we are blindsided by narratives or predilections, or worse still, vanity.

This makes Don Quixotes' out of us, building the belief that we can tilt windmills. The Sancho Panzas being the eternal side-kicks have no mind of their own, only selfish-interest, and so just tag along,, with no positive interest in the outcomes.

With their vastness and speed, Digital Transformations make some of us commit to tilting windmills. Perhaps it can be written down to being an occupational hazard!!

Here are a few insights that are relevant to Digital Transformations - drawn from this phenomena, that have manifested themselves in our past experiences but we have continued to ignore.

?01.??Various attempts to meet lofty transformative goals in the past hinging on the implementation of Information Technology driven change, in programs public and private; have met unceremonious death due to a lack of adoption. Transformations in the past have presupposed behavioral change. We steadfastly refuse to accept that, and yet continue to take it for granted. The reasons could be a lack of acuity, a misplaced belief in the power of personality or office, or just the Sancho Panza effect ie. listening to the vested interests. Reality is, that adoption is inversely proportional to the behavioral change required. The more change required/presupposed, the lower the chances of adoption.

?In a federated, democratic environment, the continued failure of reform or transformations, with a feudal approach rooted in the 1970s, or even our longer cultural past some would argue, should not be a surprise to those who look at it with some common sense. Contrast the rate of adoption of our loud, top-down initiatives, like the Sarkari style solutions, with the Adoption that Facebook, Amazon, Netflix or WhatsApp have achieved. The Travel apps are another great example of this.

Can we afford to ignore the importance of User Experience and User Interfaces any longer? Should we refuse to learn from our own experience? Could User Experience design afford to leave the Users and Domain Expertise out? Can legislate or mandate adoption without planned engagement ?

?02.?Disruption or transformation are just two sides of the same coin. Private Investors who have leveraged domain expertise based thinking, seem to have done a much better job of figuring out the currents and contours of change, in stark comparison to generalists and fee based, much haloed consulting firms, who have no skin-in-the-game. The Private Investors and entrepreneurs may not have written elegant prose and slick slide-decks, but seem to have called the toss right very often. This is evidenced by the billions of dollars of capital they have invested and the number of unicorns they have produced by getting out of their armchairs.

It is perhaps a good idea to follow-the-money. Keep an eye on where the investments are being made by smart investors. Leadership wisdom lies in not only learning from your own experience – but also to learn from others’ experience.?

?Most of today’s investors are investing in solutions that are frugal, count on leveraging public infrastructure, open-source innovations which are based on technologies that are inclusive and capable of leveraging innovation from large open communities and do not result in vendor lock-ins. Such systems continue to evolve by need and not on the whim of a vendor or his balance sheets. They are not seeking comfort in the familiarity enterprise class solutions or tweaking them to pretend like mobile first, cloud first solutions but yet come with the ball-and-chain of old technology that is already at the end of its road.

The golden rule to gaining these insights is Follow-the-Money. The investors and innovators are the ones letting the genie out of the bottle. Once out, the genie can’t be put back in. Containment and exclusion are outdated Industrial age strategies, that are useless in the Knowledge Economy.

?Should we then continue to wear the strait-jacket of dated policy? Should policy continue to remain rooted in the past or should policy boldly rise to serve its stated purpose of public good?

?03.?Putting the Cart Before the horse is another industrial age approach to transformation that reflects excessive faith in command and control. Can existing vendors who need to keep their businesses running and offer continuity to their customers; really be expected to act as a volunteer army and take the risks of pioneering change management out of sheer altruism? Can they really be expected kill their existing products and revenue streams or forced into carrying the burdens of policy and governance in transformations and shoot themselves in the foot? Business prepares early and stays ready for change, but does not implement new products or changes until they are incentivised to do so. Those tipping points need to be created by a mix of policy and governance. These are delayed too long, either for a lack of understanding of the domain or bad advice and narratives that are deliberately built to confuse decision making.

?04.?The most incredulous part of such big-bang undertakings, is the ironical lack of a voice or engagement of the beneficiary. The ostensible beneficiary, gets reduced to a fatalistic spectator even when it is his fate that hangs in the balance. That though, is a debate for another day, as it requires deep cultural introspection and behavioural change of another magnitude, in another realm.

?We continue to nurture glaringly obvious fallacies like the ones discussed above.

To an observer it would seem like we are living in the hope, that common sense will stop working someday.

Or it is just that we are pursuing, Failure by Design.

#Disruption #Innovation #Investment #Digital #Digitaltransformation #Behavioralchange #Behavioraleconomics #Governance #publicgood #development #SDG #publicpolicy #exponentialorganizations

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