The Paradox of Digital Transformation: Human first, Technology second

Every time change in society has forced businesses or institutions to transform or change so that they remain relevant. One such change that is impacting all spheres of our life is the technological change happening around us. It is not unknown how technology is impacting the selection of government, public opinion and to some extent, change is social structures. We are now living in a digital world and technology has slowly entered each aspect of human life. If you go to any of the AI conferences, it feels like we are coming to an end of the human race. Looking at these large changes around us, new jargon is going around in all organizations i.e. how we digitally transform our organization and prepare it for the digital future. As one starts these discussions, I feel all such conversation revolves around the use of technology and new digital tools which is imperative but in my view, this is the biggest paradox of Digital transformation, it is less about technology, more about people. Technology is just an enabler.

Before I get into this, let’s understand what transformation is all about. If I go by the dictionary definition of transformation:- 

(n.) A marked change in form, nature, or appearance.

(L.) A process by which one figure, expression, or function is converted into another one of similar value. “

Yes, transformation is ‘to change’, but the second definition sums it all, the final outcome has to be of similar value. So if any organization has to go through a transformational journey, it definitely has to change but should solve the same problems of end consumers or stakeholders. A bank going into digital transformation after a successful transformation should be able to solve the financial needs of customers and delight them.

That leads me to the question, who will bring this transformation? Will it be an army of the consultants or tech companies offering digital technologies that have the solution to all business processes? And how the organizations of the future will have a competitive advantage if everyone is drinking water from the same fountain of eternity?

I feel organizations do not Transform! People Transform! What is an organization without its people? A successful digital organization of the future would be one that would be able to transform its existing workforce who can then transform the organization. That is the most difficult task and that is one of the reasons, in my view, most of the digital transformation projects fail as everything is focused on the use of new technology or a new way of working while there is little focus on the people who are going to bring this change.

That is the paradox of digital transformation, though it is about digital and technology the route to this transformation is through humans.

I feel the digital world is a non-status quoist and a great leveler. Due to advancements in Social, Mobile, Cloud, and Data technology, even a small business can deliver the same kind of products and services which was earlier possible only for large corporations. The first paradox is that the people who have the power and authority to transform the system, are most likely to be in their current positions because of their success in the old system. They themselves have to spend a lot of time in unlearning and must begin their own journey first to become more digitally inclined. They should be aware of the Hippo syndrome (Highest Paid Person Syndrome) i.e. allowing decisions to be made according to the Highest Paid Person's Opinion in the room and can develop their own way to tackle it. Secondly, they should be able to say I don’t know and be ready to learn. As someone said, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

I think this one act can have more impact on digital transformation projects than any technology they buy. In my view, no one understands this digital world in all its complexity besides its ever-changing nature. We all are perpetual Beta. What is relevant today is obsolete tomorrow. Even the biggest tech companies in the world are working together to fix the missing pieces of this big jigsaw puzzle. By this small acceptance, by the leader that he doesn’t know and he is ready to learn, just this small exercise will motivate people working under him/her to accept their own shortcomings and start the process of learning thereby transforming the organization.

If one is serious about digital transformation, two departments are of strategic importance namely, Recruitment, and Learning & Development. And the person who is responsible for digital transformation, in many cases, the CEO of the company, should keep a close eye on the functioning of these two functions. L&D is the most important out of these two as it has the power to transform the warriors of any organization to the new ‘Alfa Digital Warrior’ and can make organizations ready for any challenge in the digital world.

From my own experience, I can confidently say that it takes only 20 Hours to learn any new skill and if we are able to bring a culture of security where it is okay to fail sometimes, one can implement these new skills in a real-life business environment. I have seen a transformation in my own team where people were able to successfully transit into new roles and learn new skills. We only have to give them ‘20 hours of learning challenge’ and then provide them a small budget called ‘failure budget’. The motive for calling this budget a failure budget is to set expectations right that the objective is to fail and it’s okay to fail. Success is nothing but your ability to face failures and having the grit to stand up and start all over again.

A successful organization is one that would be able to do digital transformation by learning, wherefrom the CEO to the lowest level employee is learning daily. We are all comfortable with our imperfections and daily make an effort to become better versions of our self. The following image from Atomic Habit by James Clear shows the power of tiny gains, show the power of daily improvement

If everyone in any organization is improving by 1% daily by the end of the year, I am sure either the top-line or the profit would be 31 times more than the previous year. Who needs the digital transformation then?

I am aware that we don’t live in a utopian world and all this is easier said than done, which makes it difficult, and most organizations are not able to compete in this digital world. It’s not because they don’t have the technology or tools for digital transformation but they failed on transforming their own people who could have transformed the organization. As the journey from caterpillar to butterfly is full of pain and we all mostly fear change. I feel if you see any organization doing digital transformation successfully, it is led by leaders of exceptional quality who are able to transform its people. The following quote from Martin Luther summed it up quite well:-

“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.”