Mind over matter or matter over mind?

What’s stopping us in digitalisation efforts? We explored this as a question at our recent breakfast webinar with trade body ILA ("the voice of corporate governance") and it got me thinking.

Of course we can all listen to explanations about and imagine the advantages of digitalising our work, processes and business operations. It sounds great to be able to ease our work by automating all the manual checks and tasks we have in corporate governance, for example, - KYC, AML, etc. And cost savings for our business; reduced margin for error; more efficiency. All systems synchronised and automated; process management done at the click of a button; sounds awesome!

...only 40% had yet started their digital journey...

I certainly could and did imagine a professional life and business and market where I no longer got so frustrated by fragmented and duplicated documentation and bureaucracy. I do recognise that I'm a bit of an extreme case (!) since this led me to teaming up with my twin tech-pro brother Rob and setting up our business. Several years later, together with a team of other inventive minds, here we are leading Governance.com to achieve its mission help other firms use digital solutions to help them in their work and business.

But all the time we are hearing about the blockers to the digitalisation agenda: 89% of a recent poll we conduced with Institut Luxembourgeois des Administrateurs (ILA), for example found digital corporate governance to be superior to manual (“paper” boards and meetings) yet only 40% had yet started their digital journey, citing several barriers standing in the way of their digitalisation.

And of course back at our headquarters (the House of Governance!) we seek to find ways to demystify FinTech solutions; the Cloud; to articulate how easy it is to digitalise and automate chunks of our work effectively. Which it is!

But just like not going for that quick run or walk or nor taking the time to eat a good lunch away from the (home) office instead of rushing it through... What’s stopping us all from jumping off the hamster wheel and jumping head first into the FinTech wave?

FinTech is no longer the future; it’s already here.

Mindset? It’s too easy to keep the status quo; to get stuck. We have all been there.We think we can't. But here’s the thing. We can! We can and while all these blockers are valid, any digital transformation starts and ends with mindset.

The question now is, how much is down to our own individual mindset and how much is down to the mindset of those we are working with (and for). And how much depends on our company’s collective mindset? The entire market’s mindset?

Whatever the answer, we can each individually start with: YES, we can! It takes one small positive step and then another to follow. Small steps lead to bigger steps; a leap and before you know it your company and your own work load is joining the surfers of the FinTech wave.

FinTech is no longer the future; it’s already here.

So here’s a new take on mind over matter.?Let matter not take over our mind; let our individual mindsets lead the way over matter (resistance!); and collectively we can transform the market into a safer, more efficient, and more fun one.

Mind over matter: Wins every time in my book; how about yours?