People matter in a Digital Transformation

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During his interview with Accenture, the General Manager of Cross Industry Solutions at Microsoft, Eric Chaniot said, “Transformation of a traditional company is 95% about people, mindset, and culture, and only 5% about the technology”.

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Contrary to popular belief, digital transformation is not about technology. Rather, it is about getting your employees ready to compete in the Digital Age. The technology will follow when you engage your people, educate your workforce, define a coherent strategy, and develop new behaviors within the organization.?

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On the other hand, if you choose to lead with technology and impose that technology on an organization and workforce that isn’t ready, you generally end up disappointed.

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• Nobody loses weight by wearing gym clothes:

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Similarly, providing an organization with the newest technologies is not enough to achieve the expected results. Transformation is much more about people than it is about technology. It’s about building customer value through customer and employee experience. It’s about cultural shifts, changing beliefs, and change management. Of course, technology strategy is an important piece – but getting the human element right helps reach the organization's goals.

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1. Cultural shifts:

Developing a new organizational culture is a challenging task that requires a lot of communication and patience. And when faced with a digital transformation, the organization must make sure that employees care about solving customers’ problems and adopt the new proposed values.

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What are the cultures to be implemented?

It is crucial that a digital company implements new core values and encourages individuals to adopt them. The most important culture to implement is the innovation culture. This environment supports creative thinking and advances efforts to extract economic and social value from knowledge to generate new or improved products, services, or processes.

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One might wonder, Why should employees care about this? It's not because they are being paid to do it, but because they understand and accept the purpose of doing it: THE HOW

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The first step in cultural shifts is communication. Create an emotional connection with employees through the articulation of a clear vision behind your initiatives. Communicate the “why” of the initiative before laying out the “how”. People connect to the reason behind change – they are less excited by the tactics and technicalities of the how.?

Without this initiative, a digital transformation can

• Take longer than anticipated which means higher implementation costs
• Create a feeling of frustration and confusion among employees
• Create a gap between IT and other departments, which impacts corporate culture
• Never be appropriately adopted by employees

Therefore, teams are encouraged to use multi-channel communication, engage all employees and encourage them to adapt to the new company culture and make sure IT communication is not purely technical.

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We should also emphasize the importance of collaboration in bringing teams together and creating successful changes. Departments in direct competition with one another don’t get the most out of their digital investments and are ill-prepared to respond to opportunities – or threats. In such times, the internal competition represents a liability to the company.

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As an actor in the digital transformation in your company, pick projects that bring departments together, make sure people speak the same language, and reward collaboration.

2. Changing beliefs:

Changing the beliefs of employees within an organization is a complex task. It starts with a broad cultural shift and relies on, afterward, changing the mindset and the behaviors of the involved individuals.

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To do so, leaders need to:

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• Have Shared Leadership from the Start:

Actively include all stakeholders in the identification of what mindsets need to change and how. Establish a common language, agree upon what success looks like, and include those most affected by the change in leading the effort.

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• Set reasonable, yet challenging goals (SMART)
• Know how and when to delegate. Sometimes you need to step back and allow others to deliver results

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3. Change management:

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Unlike project management—where it’s easy to point to schedules, tangible objectives, and specific outcomes—change management follows a more reactive and indefinite route. It’s more about the introduction of new technologies, the sudden appearances of new market opportunities, and shifts in the way consumers choose, interact with and apply standards to their brands.?

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When it comes to digital transformation, these responsibilities should start at the C-suite level as they will be responsible for:?

• Raising awareness of the need for change
• Communicating the how and the why of the change
• Minimizing disruption and frustration
• Reinforce and empower the change process
• Stopping the resistance to change through encouraging employees to take an active role in the change process and listening to them to create a more positive vibe around the project.?

As easy as these steps may sound, it is imperative to mention that around 70% of change initiatives end up in failure. After nearly 15 years of change management consulting, we believe that neglecting the human factor is the main reason these initiatives failed. If people are not empowered and encouraged to go through change, digital transformation will be a waste of time and money. Therefore, change leaders should establish a meaningful purpose for employees and be empathetic towards the resistance to change. It's only human to be fearful of the unknown, and that's when good leadership interferes to empower employees and lead them into the new phase.

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Conclusion:

Digital transformation is the buzzword that every business is talking about, but it's critical to remember that it's a journey, not a destination. Once you focus and look after your people, the change will occur and further developments will be more welcomed.