Companies try hard to become digitized, and digital transformation has become a trendy topic. Sometimes a buzzword, Digital Transformation means different things to different people.
There isn’t one correct way to tackle digital transformation. However, diverse approaches can work well depending on factors like the challenges the company is facing, its sector, the company’s size, the corporate culture, and its structure among others.
Although there isn’t one formula for all, Digital Transformation starts with a different mindset, one that entails four fundamental paradigm shifts.
o Focus on people’s dynamics over processes
Focusing on people’s dynamics allows the company to observe which skills, attitudes and mindsets are missing in the group. A group approach is important because facilitates identifying and discovering where hotbeds are starting and how to nurture them. A hotbed is a rich environment, a space where talent and ideas collide. There’s a special energy in hotbeds, joy and learning, so much so that you can feel the flow when you are there. Hotbeds attract and develop talent. They are mindset generators.
o Embrace the iterative and incremental approach to projects
There are lots of uncertainties and unknowns when you start becoming digitized. Therefore, you need to adopt an experimental mindset. A mindset that allows tinkering, trying, and learning. You also need to redefine the meaning of failing within your teams. Create the space and the mindset that will allow teams to develop projects in an iterative and incremental way.
Digital Transformation is about learning continuously, faster and better, and turning this learning into value for your organization.
o Promote true collaboration in decrement of the traditional hierarchy
Things evolve fast in a digital environment, new incumbents come into play continuously, more, and better technologies appear on scene, and new possibilities emerge quickly. No single mind can catch everything or know everything. Growing collective intelligence, is a powerful asset and helps your company stay in the lead; to move faster, to identify new targets and challenges.
Relying on collective intelligence means building meaning and purpose to bring alignment and energy into the team.
o Adopt an organic approach instead of a lineal one
At the beginning, the actions you take and the initiatives you promote, might have no visible results on their own, but combined, they can have a huge impact and accelerate change.
By adopting an organic approach, you are taking into consideration that different actions and initiatives can interact with each other in visible and non-visible ways, creating virtuous loops and boosting movement. Identifying where these virtuous loops are happening, magnifying, and nourishing them is key for accelerating your digitation curve.
The difficulty most of the companies find is reversing the habitual process. This means switching from identifying the “what” and designing the “how” to implement the “how” which shows us the “what".
This is how and why corporate culture comes to play in digital transformation.
It’s starts with a mindset, followed by assumptions, behaviours, and attitudes; truly a human process…. This approach makes the journey greatly effective and exciting!