To Be or Not To Be - Digital

 I had to step away from my role for a period of time and as such did more reading than I have in a while and realised that businesses are going through the hardest changes and decisions that they have seen in a long time. Most businesses have realised they need to change, in fact in a recent survey by BCG[1] it was shown that 89% of Managers globally are involved in digital transformation. The challenge we face is transformations are often compared with any other business decision we take, linear, a or b, left or right. A true transformation is just that, ceasing to be what you were before to become something new. Think about the Caterpillar who becomes a butterfly, this is what business leaders should have in mind when they are seeking to transform, at the end of the initial transformation (because once you start to evolve, your team should continue to keep looking at how that journey can continue), you should be able to see the marked differences from how you operated before to what you are doing now.

Lets stay with that Caterpillar analogy, if a business decided to glue wings on the caterpillar, change its colour, it would not be a transformation, it would still do what it did before, it might look interesting, but actually we would have just made things harder by bringing new complexity to an organism that was built to do what it does (crawl and eat). Many businesses are stuck in this pattern, looking at new technologies, bringing in exciting consultants, however the way of working and the processes and roles and responsibilities all remain exactly the same. Whether there is a new app or website, without these broader changes those businesses – like it or not – will remain a caterpillar. A caterpillar who spends a significant amount of money and whose Board, Senior leaders start asking why are they not becoming a Butterfly.

This brings me to my question – “To be or not to be digital”. Many people will say that being digital is having digital channels to engage with your customers, or having an app to support your employees, these in all honesty are the cosmetics. Imagine a butterfly racing a caterpillar to get to the next branch above, now the caterpillar can eat more but how long will it take to get there and is it worth eating when it does? When we look at Digital native businesses – i.e. those who were born digital, the way they work, they way they create and continue to evolve, just think about some of the apps you use. How many of those are the same as they were a year ago, or even 3 months ago?

Being Digital requires the thinking within an organisation to change, a rewiring if you will, its really hard, but hard things done well is what will effect real change going forward for an organisation. If the organisation can go digital, then the technology can follow. Its amazing in fact there are so many technology options that if a business can transform itself it will realise that it can test ideas, and then decide what works or doesn’t as they continually evolve with low risk and high reward through a fail fast and continually learn approach.

The caterpillar puts in a lot of energy to first builds its cocoon then expends so much energy through its transformation that it loses nearly half of its weight in the process. The same is for businesses, when you are truly transforming you need to ensure it has everyone’s focus and commitment to make the change, if one part of a cocoon wasn’t ready then perhaps the transformation might not look complete or could be eaten by predators crawling in.

Ok I know enough about the caterpillar, but it is a great example for us to consider as we all seek to “Be Digital”. Use it as a measure of how much is actually changing within your organisation, are people taking on new roles, are teams working in different ways? Are outcomes being realised incrementally faster? It isn’t easy, but big changes should never be easy, choosing to be digital brings with it, risks, challenges, emotions, learnings and a commitment that many won’t have experienced before. Hence when you are thinking about embarking on your transformation, think about what it will look like on the other side for your people, your customers and yourself. How bold will your transformation be, because at the end of your journey only you can decide whether you will choose to be or not to be digital – as likewise for any transformation that remains the ultimate question.

[1] BCG Global Survey on Digital Transformation  engagement - https://www.bcg.com/press/3july2020-digital-transformation-survey

Confessions of a Neophiliac

 First of all yes that is actually a real word, but don’t be frightened just yet. I didn’t know what this was until I started to try and understand what some of the traits of a Digital leader are and the first trait listed was that Digital leaders are Neophiliacs. I was like what in the world is a neophiliac? ... well, apparently it is someone who has a “love of or enthusiasm for what is new or novel”. This immediately resonated with me, I have a good friend who always referred to me as the “Blue sky boy” his take I guess on always coming up with something new, whether a new way to solve a challenge, a new product idea, new partnerships or simply a new idea to be discussed and assessed for consideration to execute. I love the fact that this has a definition, I can see myself introducing, “Hi I am Nathan Bell and yes I am a neophiliac”. On second thoughts that might simply scare the hell out of people as they take two steps back. 

Over the years I have learned that the “guy” with the new idea can quickly be side-lined if they haven’t thought through the implications, the value and investment required to see it through, simply identifying something as being “cool” is not enough when you are dealing with the continual constraints of time, budget and resources to execute with. Sometimes I reflect that this lesson for me took a while to sink in as I was fortunate to work with teams who were willing to see my ideas through, whether related to a product, customer segments, customer experience or even designing organisations.

As leaders it's important that we are always open to new ideas, these ideas can come from anyone, those with a fresh perspective, voice of the user / customer, or those facing the challenge they have a solution to on the frontline. As I shared though the idea alone is not enough, in fact, having a great idea is like showing someone a picture of a car I have drawn when I was five and the response being, “well yes that’s nice but how is it actually going to work?”.

When we are supporting our teams with the ideas they bring to us as leaders it is a joint responsibility. Challenging the individual or team to come up with the answers to how the idea would be executed and the value that would be realised, equally important is your commitment as a leader to see through the execution of that idea either with funding, resources or time. Many businesses today talk about ideation, and how any idea can be brought forward, however without the commitment to see it through or sharing a framework that team members can understand, collaborate around and ultimately realise the personal satisfaction of driving change within their own business, will only lead to frustration, disillusionment, and negativity. 

Therefore it is important that while we want to encourage our neophiliacs to engage with the business, leverage them to help solve problems, drive real change, without the right framework to support such thinking, we can end up with neophiliacs becoming pessimistic. Hence let’s think through the framework for ideation, how will we encourage people, teams to thrive but in a way that is transparent and drives accountability and ultimately hope in how change within a business will be driven from within rather than top down or externally.

Hopefully this has given you some ideas, and if not at least given you pause to consider how you could help guide your idea people to their full potential.

Your truly,

A Neophiliac