Okay, so I’ve either piqued your interest or pissed you off, and it’s good either way. So let’s begin: The competitive landscape (and peer pressure) are forcing more and more businesses headlong into ‘digital’ transformation. The result is a ‘gold-rush’ climate as consultants and digital agencies pump the idea of ‘digital transformation’ as a service offering.
The caveat being these services are often one-dimensional, focusing on technology-based interactions with little to no capacity to engage with the underlying organizational culture. Worse, and critically important is the lack of academic and experiential credentials at the agency level to provide structured inquiry and meaningful insight.
So what’s this got to do with sustainability? Simple. Transformation is meaningless unless it’s sustainable and your big digital transformation initiative is at risk based your ability to evolve the necessary relationships and resulting processes to support ongoing change. If you or your partner are unable to fully examine and comprehend the relationships, processes, and outcomes within your business and think beyond the technology end-points you’re not doing yourself any favors.
“So what do I do about it?” For starters, insist your partner provide qualified people with backgrounds in organizational development and sustainability to lead the project. Build a broad, interdisciplinary transformation team. Foster open collaboration and empower your staff and management to engage in the process, and above all Caveat Emptor.
Image & article by Byron Bignell