A Transformation So Much Bigger Than Digital!
Eric Martin, Vice President, Information Technology and Digitalization, Deschenes Group
Eric Martin, Vice President, Information Technology and Digitalization, Deschenes Group
This could be the most exciting time of my career! I am right smacking it the middle of a major transformation! If you like adrenaline, this is it! Honestly, I am having a ball! This is calling on every once of abilities that I have developed over the years and it keeps on pushing my limits to new levels. It literally lights up my spirit!
In a previous article, I wrote about the ingredients for success in transformation. Now, I would like to give the topic a little bit of a different angle. There are various forces involved in a digital transformation. As the name calls it, the first force is technological. Digital innovations and solutions are exploding. The evolution has always been fast and accelerating but the latest increase curve with AI has given a renewed exponential injection to the graph that will soon get even steeper with the thrust of Quantum computing. You have to admit these generative AI engines are redefining the landscape of productivity tools!
Once you really embark on a major digital transformation, you face a continuum of technical equations that need to be resolved with rational, in-depth knowledge and competencies. New concepts and solutions keep racing towards you. Knowing and understanding how it all fits together, what can help your business differentiate itself from its competitors and aligning it all to your business strategy is the puzzle you have to figure out. Although increasingly complex, this is likely the simplest aspect of transformation. With the right expertise and the right capacity, you can figure this out and execute.
The other major pieces involved relate to people and culture. People, individually, live the impacts of changes. The bigger the changes, the larger amount of people are impacted, the bigger the impacts. When I was a younger professional, I thought that logically understanding what was changing for people, keeping them aware and retraining them was the recipe. Back then, I tended to see change management as a collective of tools to apply rationally. As I grow older and wiser (hopefully), I realize the complexity of human dynamics and treat change management with the highest attention.
In reality, the change impacts vary greatly by individual and context. Let me illustrate with a simplistic example. Imagine a company decides to change the tools and ways they analyse demand trends.
For years, they have used a spreadsheet, populated with manually imported data files to derive various forecasts. The individual that built the spreadsheet is a proud company veteran that created it a number of years ago. He even received formal recognition for putting this tool together. That key employee is the go to person, the expert and the only one who knows how to fix the issues and adapt the file for new products. New employees coming in the function rely on the veteran for insights and coaching. Now imagine that same company implementing a new forecasting tool directly integrated with the ERP system and leveraging AI models to analyse and produce comprehensive outputs. No human interventions except to leverage the new solution. All of a sudden, the new recruits pick up rapidly on the tool and become the new references as they are natively used to such modern tools. The veteran is no longer required for the excel solution. He is struggling with using the new tool. He now receives the coaching from the youngsters. I invite you to walk a mile in the shoes of the veteran. What happens to the pride, the self-image, the contribution? How about the new employees? How about the department dynamic? Once you understand the situation, you can absolutely support the change.
That leaves the culture side. Of the technology, people and culture triangle, this is likely the most crucial and certainly the most challenging. That very fundamental aspect needs significant considerations. Multiple aspects compose a culture and the intent of the article is not to cover that but I will focus on a couple that needs special attention: demonstrated values and leadership.
In the official company values, you might have elements like innovation, agility and continuous improvement that would best support a digital transformation. You could also have aspects of demonstrated values that might support or inhibit a transformation mindset. You might have influenced the culture through supporting certain behaviors and ways of working that are counter to the reflexes required in a transformation. You might have overly re-enforced the fire fighting behaviors and not so much the continuous improvement approach. You might have fostered a make no mistake philosophy instead of a fail fast fail safe and learning approach. I am not judging what the right values should be for your business. However, behaviors demonstrate values much more than posters. Do you have the right demonstrated values to support your transformation? This part of culture might require a good hard look in the mirror and solid support.
The last and potentially most important aspect I will touch on is collective transformational leadership. To succeed, your leaders need to understand and have integrated the vision, the ambition, and behave not only in a supportive role but also in an active and decisive posture. Passive resistance, negativity or even neutrality will derail your efforts. I do not believe it is fair to expect that every leader of your organization will be ready day one. There is a solid effort of education and discussion required to prepare your leaders for the journey. They need to be part of the reflection, of the envisioned destination. You need to guide them through the motions. This falls on your shoulder senior IT leader!
A digital transformation is not a collection of projects and programs; it is a new way of life, a new way of conducting business. It is so much bigger than digital…
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