The illusioned causal loop of digital strategies and the importance of the human readiness

As the world is becoming more digitalized, companies are reacting with new corporate digital innovation strategies. New roles such as chief digital innovation officers are appointed to ensure the design and rollout of holistic digital innovation initiatives, fed by outside-in views. Their intention is clear: To rapidly increase the digital technology readiness.

A simplistic view on this causal relationship is depicted in the figure below, showing the reinforcing digital transformation loop.

With the increase of the digital technology readiness more digital innovators are developed within the workforce. Those can then help to create new and customized ideas for digital application fields which then feedback into the digital strategies.

However, this simplification completely ignores the fact that the increasing technology readiness as well results in a significant confusion of the workforce. The figure below shows a broader view of the situation with the addition of the reinforcing workforce effectiveness loop.

While the confusion inside the workforce is growing as well is the skill gap. Consequently, this is dividing the workforce into digital experts and digital beginners. Further, there are new inefficiencies e.g. Employees taking longer time to handle the new digital tools as part of their roles. Directly, this then has an impact on the overall productivity which consequently decreases.

The next figure below highlights the area for action. Companies really need to think about how they could stop the trend, shown in the workforce effectiveness loop by e.g.

• Consequently acting on strengthening the workforce skill set and the transformation of the work culture
• Openly communicating digital intentions and creating intuitive engagement platforms for employees
• Proactively developing new forms of simplification for the new technologies, their application purposes and benefits on an easily tangible level

The described phenomena or principle is not new and surely a known problem in all strategic and change initiatives. However, the difference in digital change initiatives lies in the unprecedented complexity combined with the vast change speed.

What you managed to learn yesterday, is already obsolete today....

Now let's think about all the non-frequent users. "Human" readiness for the digital transformation it's more important than ever.