The Human Side of Digital Transformation

‘Digital is 10% tech and 90% human. Organisations talk about digital as if it is 90% tech and 10% human.’ Lucia Adams

There’s lots to like in this short but apposite post from Lucia Adams on the love/hate relationship we often have with digital transformation. I particularly liked the quote above, which neatly captures a theme we talk about quite a lot in the book — how often the technology focus in digital transformation is overplayed, and the all important cultural and human aspects of change underplayed.

As Lucia goes on to say, we are experiencing a fundamental re-design of so much of what we think we know, and so digital is far more than technical expertise and channels. Far more than marketing and customer service. It is instead (to use her words), about the ‘organisational system and how we think, act and collaborate’. To respond appropriately to the challenges and opportunities that this new world creates we need to re-design . This starts with developing a common language around digital, and what digital really means for the business. So many companies fail to do this well and yet (as Lucia rightly says) since digital means different things to different people, the failure to do this leads to misalignment and misunderstandings right from the outset.

Bravo.