Look at the below picture, what does it tell you?
Most of us encountered the above situation being stressed at work at some point. We may feel we are understaffed, lack of ideas, pressure to perform etc. Typical scenario, we will be reviewing the processes and procedures to address the challenges, if we are understaffed; we will be looking at getting immediate assistance to cope with the load and if the person felt the pressure to perform, we will probably revisit the situation, resolve the issues and move on.
On the other hand, a person with a digital mindset will look at it differently by adopting new ways of doing things. A digital mindset person while acknowledging and recognizing the key issues, look at the entire ecosystems of doing things and coming up with technological solutions to overcome the challenges.
Do we have the digital mindset in us? At some point, many people will assume that having a digital mindset needs to be an IT technical savvy. In actual fact, digital relates more about people as how they understand by incorporating technology to our daily needs. That was what I have been addressing in my last article “Ready for Digitalization – your transformation stages”. To be digitized, it starts from your “Driver”, i.e. your employee being the engine of digitalization. This driver with a digital mindset person will use the power of technology to scale and speed every form or interaction.
When I first attended my design thinking workshop, I must say that it was a pretty interesting session among the other modules I attended. The team (attendees) consisted of people from other regions, different roles, level, culture and most of all we had our own mindset.
During the workshop, we were challenged to come up with a situation, define the problem and how to overcome a situation. Amazingly each one of us did it by coming up with an individual situation and ideas revolve around agriculture, medical, education and many more. Mind me; none of us in that workshop are from that field or industries.
Therefore, for a person to have a digital mindset, this person must be able to recognize issues, pain and challenges, identify the problem area and come up with technological solutions that are able to ease the situation.
Once you acknowledge you have the digital mindset, so what is next? As a business, you need to relook at your current organization’s operational structure, do you need growth, gain market share, increase your revenue, sustainability, adopt new ways of doing things and above all, improving your customer experience?
Digital transformation journey starts with you, the business owner or leader, you need to recognize that to be digitalized it is not a short term transformation; it is a journey for you to enhance your business.
Secondly, McKinsey reported 70% of organizations fail their digital transformation journey and why? Here I want to cite two of McKinsey’s report that digital transformation failed;
- Lack of shared direction and this is critical as I stated in the previous article, having the top without support of the direct leadership team on the same page will defeat the purpose of your digitalization journey. Perhaps, start by getting your leaders to lead digital, measure them with strategic deliverables with compelling business outcomes on digitization.
- Lack of talent, where do you get these talents? According to McKinsey’s report, lack of expertise to lead digital transformation will lead to unclear strategy, driving unrealistic goals, underestimate risk and lack of resources to support. I want to add on to these, while I cited that most of us have the digital mindset, that doesn’t mean that everyone is able to drive or lead digitalization. I will opt for the person who is a strategic thinker, has a business empathy mindset, ability to lead by challenging the status quo and ability to collaborate with all domains. This person must have the understanding of your holistic business ecosystem and critically understand the risk impact during the change process. We must anticipate that technological changes without understanding the mechanism of the change process will impact your business operations.
As usual, I will end my article to emphasize that you need a driver to lead digital, get everyone to think digital and then govern digital.
