Is your digital transformation accelerating?
Or stalled and backtracking?
High failure rates of digital transformation (DT) are the reality.
This is a highly complex change – akin to a triathlon run by 1000 athletes.
The top predictor of success or failure in Digital Transformation?
Selecting, chartering and empowering the right core team:
Sponsorship that sets the pace, accountability and belief in this journey.
People who are committed fully – not as a side hustle but a core accountability.
Internal expertise who understands the culture (not just consultants).
An explicit charter that builds early wins, steady momentum and visible confidence.
Four Crucial Roles for Digital Transformation
Role #1: Sponsor – A respected CEO or COO. Often, the CTO is cast as the sponsor. He or she should be in a co-sponsor role, yes. But strong, clear-eyed commitment from the CEO or CCO is the #1 enabler of success. Otherwise, conflict on the top team will hinder the necessary sacrifices and course correction. The effort usually takes longer than leaders expect or want. The Sponsor needs the clout, courage and position to balance the necessary pivots with all stakeholders.
Role #2: Navigator – The Navigator is akin to a general role – ensuring strategic goals are well-defined. Coordinating the resources and complexities of major, long-cycle change. Title may be Program Management. This role requires strategic vision, cultural sensitivity, and operational oversight. Someone who can bridge technology innovation to human capability. A strong navigator infuses empathy, clear communication and courage across the team. The Navigator has history guiding large-scale, complex transformation efforts. They provide guidance to the team, as well as ensuring these responsibilities are fulfilled:
Vision Alignment: Articulate the strategic purpose for DT alignment with organizational goals and objectives.
Stakeholder Engagement: Define how trust will be built through cross-department collaboration – to align and engage leadership across functional teams.
Change Management: Engage a dedicated change management expert to lead strategies that melt resistance, including clear communication and training programs.
System Alignment: Cultivate adaptability, innovation, and continuous improvement that accelerates visible wins and aligns the program with core values. A crucial audience for this is mid-level management. Important to partner closely with internal L&D, HR, OD.
Risk Mitigation: Anticipate challenges, monitor progress, and adjust plans to proactively address roadblocks and ensure successful outcomes. A risk and issues log is crucial!
Role #3 – Community Builders. Rapid change is dizzying and disorienting. Uncertainty is certain. The long-term discomfort and shapeshifting can be tiring – especially along-side full-time job duties. Community builders equip leaders with tools for empathy and sustainability, to foster confidence. This may include specialized training (soft skills and tech), hosting workshops with experts who have led the journey, peer-to-peer-networking, outside coaches). Example job titles: Digital Transformation Engagement Lead. Change Network Manager. Digital Adoption Specialist. Requires a good listener, problem-solver and bridge-builder, who can facilitate concrete solutions and connections to the right people.
Role #4 – Coaches. Digital Transformation will (sadly) eliminate many of the jobs people are doing today. Enabling technology has an emotional and physical toll on many people. Especially for non-digital native talent – many of whom are valuable to the business. Having support to care for these transitions is often overlooked, but humane. Change management or other people-oriented roles such as culture specialist or people coaches can help ease the realities of new organizational structures and teams. By engaging these early to ensure the culture health is a priority – will also speeds adoption.
The role structure should be guided by:
(1) Readiness of the business: Assessing the condition of 4 predictors of success
(2) Current infrastructure for technology change – robust and mature versus young and untested
(3) The speed and pace of crucial milestones (eg, known priorities of sequential migrations and the decision process around those)
Facing the unknown and unimaginable IS the nature of transformation. It demands skill, empathy, and courage from leaders.
Enabling culture and change work along-side the technology element allows people to rise up with confidence and clarity, versus confusion and fear.
It’s literally the difference between steady success and massive resistance. Like a runway to take-off, requiring power and acceleration.
Prepare well!
#CultureMatters #DigitalTransformation #PeopleFirst
