Your Business Won’t Transform Until Your People Do

Companies are racing to digitally transform their businesses to better meet the quickly changing demands of their customers. While companies don’t lack enthusiasm, their ability to meet their digital ambitions often falls short. In fact, a recent survey from Couchbase showed that 9 out of 10 digital transformations didn’t meet the needs of the business.

That’s right, 90% end in failure.

While there are many problems that can lead to failure, one consistent theme is leadership’s inability to foster the cultural elements needed to support a digital strategy. I see a lot of customers, and the one thing I know is that no strategy or technological implementation is so flawless, brilliant and groundbreaking that humans can’t totally wreck it if they have the wrong attitude or approach. By the same theory, leaders can come up with brilliant, groundbreaking strategies, but if the people aren’t behind it all the way, it’ll be dead in the water.

The bottom line: Your business won’t digitally transform until your people do.

That’s easier said than done because transforming an organization is like trying to move an iceberg. The mistake leaders make over and over is focusing their efforts on what they can see, the “above the waterline” activities. Once they devise a strategic vision, they focus on building and implementing systems, processes and structures to support that strategy.

That is the problem. Many leaders believe that the issues that lie below the waterline — the company culture, the unwritten values and rules and the assumptions people make about what they need to do to get work done — won’t cause a problem if the strategy is good enough. I can promise you, no strategy is that good. If leaders don’t engage with the troops, they’ll find out the hard way.

The question then becomes how you change something like culture, as intangible and squishy as it sounds, to a culture that will support a transformation process.