Everybody has been talking about Digital Transformation for so long, it’s starting to feel a bit quaint.
The process now feels inevitable. As everyone and their uncle becomes more and more digital, it stands to reason that you should want your business to grab a seat on the bus.
And yet, according to our friends in Cambridge, 70% of DT initiatives fail.
70%?!?!!
The reason is simple. DT is not a technological issue, but a human one.
The problem isn’t machines, but culture.
Last year we did some work that included some of the original signers of the agile manifesto developing tools for building cultures conducive to Agile Software Development. The challenges are the same; people are people, processes are processes, they don’t work unless the people want to do the work.
It doesn’t matter if we are talking about healthcare, government, software, higher ed., retail, the problems are about connecting people deeply to why work matters and how they are making a difference.
You can’t fix, let alone transform, any organization without nailing down the cultural issues first.
The elephant in the room is that most leaders are clueless when it comes to figuring this stuff out.
Why? This is a brand new problem, no one took Culture Science©(TM) 101, and it’s okay.
