Transforming the Transformation....

Ever felt a sense of senseless rage in your heart? Like when your class teacher changed your place, separating you from your best friend because you would do too much masti? Or like when you came home from the hostel eagerly awaiting your favourite puran-poli “just the way Aai makes it”, but you discover someone decided to try a new recipe instead? No…..!!! Any change in our familiar space is unpleasant and the most accepting amongst us have our own quirks about what should and what should not change around us. Familiarity is so comfortable; it feels like home. Like when I come back from a trip somewhere (yeah……back when this used to happen!??), I would wait to have my hot rasam and rice so desperately – ah! so familiar, so heavenly, such comfort!

It happens quite similarly when organisations undertake a digital transformation exercise. Picture this: Ravi from Sales skipped the town-hall announcement meet thinking it’s just another one of the team-building shenanigans and he was lost in the game from the word go. None of his colleagues who even attended it seem to know what the heck it meant! They wondered, why did they term it ‘journey’? Is it not just another software installation? Worst part: Ravi was expected to lead!

Imagine, if the organization left the burden of ‘transformation’ in the hands of such reluctants! What they will have is an expensive, untransformed, and a chaotically different atmosphere. Nobody knows what to do with this new situation – whether it’s good or bad and without being offered any reasoning, it is normal to think its perhaps most definitely not needed.?

It’s a no-brainer that every organisation wants the digital transformation journey to be successful. Given this fact, it is important to acknowledge that at the fulcrum of this is managing the ‘rage’ within people that may arise due to not being ‘in’ on the change that is to come. It is people who can make or break the path. It is important to acknowledge that ‘Transformation’ is definitely an acquired taste. First of all, it is such a heavy word. It feels as if you need to overturn whatever you had and get ‘new’ things. Sometimes there’s not even good opportunity to ease into the unfamiliar – it just happens with a bang.?Most definitely – the whole journey needs to be broken down into bite sized pieces. The need for and the importance of this ‘overhaul’ is required to be understood and percolated top-down and bottom-up too. Each mind will need a transition from the familiar along with said ‘software’ change.?

I read a quote recently by American journalist Derek Thompson, “To sell something familiar, make is surprising.?To sell something surprising, make it familiar’.?Digital Transformation is surely surprising to many people in organizations.?There was a set way to do things and now that is not to be? Well well!?We need to familiarise the change and the transformation so that when we get to the other end of each stop in that journey, the milestone flag can proudly go up. The change in people’s minds needs to be managed regularly, consciously and in a structured way. One town-hall meet doesn’t quite cut it……..many small/big interactions at various levels are needed to keep talking about the expected change. Sometimes you need to hear the same thing multiple times before it sinks in. Something like how you need to see the ‘Matrix’ series or ‘Inception’ multiple times before you begin to understand it. All in all, a human centric approach to the entire journey is the best way to go.

Let’s get our transformers up for the challenge of transformation!