20 Nov Overwhelmed in the Face of Digital Transformation

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital means automated or programmed while transformation means conversion or metamorphosis. Simply put, digital transformation is the use of automated programs that help in devising new or bringing about changes to the existing business process, model, and interaction between processes as well as with customers and accurately scoping market trends and requirements.

What are its implications?

The impact of this revolution is evident in all aspects of the business. Widely put, it promotes cost-saving, gauges market requirements that would otherwise take days together, helps stay updated with respect to market reaction to newly released products, and accordingly helps restructure strategies in the wake of cut-throat competition with similar products, saves time, energy and cost. Since the technology is programmed around customer experience and satisfaction, it promotes customer interaction and accurate measurement of customer reaction subsequently bettering their experience. These are but a few of its implications on business in this age of digital technology.

All the above implications mean huge changes in organizational structure, employee roles, and skillsets. And this is the foremost challenge in the success of the digital transformation. I have chanced upon many professionals who are unhappy with the whole process and have come to understand their struggles on a personal and professional level.

Adaptability

With your organization integrating the digital transformation process, you may feel compelled to adapt to the ongoing changes.  Where there is a force there is resistance. This unwillingness to modify comes from a deep sense of resistance to change and uncertainty regarding your role and future.

You must remember your survival on the job depends on your role alignment with organizational changes. So adopt a pragmatic approach, explore your potential, and focus on upskilling to better fit in. Avail the tools and training initiatives pertaining to the new technology provided by your employer. Your survival instincts should come into play. After all, the science of evolution is based entirely on the ability to adapt and re-adapt to the ever-changing environment.

Cultural changes

Every family has its own set of rules and regulations, values, and beliefs based on which the members interact with one another. It’s the upbringing and family interactions that lay the foundation for an individual’s personality. Similarly, culture is the values and beliefs which define the environment of an organization. Leaders decide a basic set of values and beliefs that should be practiced in their organization while its workforce adds value to that system.

Shared principles and ideologies bind together an organization across its hierarchy. And when these shared beliefs are subjected to transformation by the very leaders who established them, cultural changes are bound to happen. With the advent of the digital age, hierarchies in the organizational structure of many companies seem to have flattened considerably. Under the circumstance, you may find yourself completely disengaged from the new culture. You need to start over and re-orient in order to grasp new methods of practice.

Threat

One of the most common reactions to digital transformation is feeling threatened by this shift. You feel overwhelmed by all the modifications happening around and the worse thing to do at the time is going into a shell. Broaden your outlook and look at the larger picture. Stay positive, be confident, and look at it as an opportunity rather than a challenge.

I am sure you many of you are gadget geeks. And even if you are not, you have bought new gadgets and home appliances to enhance your home experience or even shifted to a brand new home. Have you really felt threatened by the introduction of these appliances or shift to an upgraded home in your personal life? Haven’t they just raised your standard of living? Aren’t you happy about the same?

Simply put, this is the same process of evolution and survival that an organization employs to stay at par if not above its competitors to enhance profit.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made decision making within a few parameters very quick, easy, and accurate. Robots may replace humans in certain roles by following those guidelines. But who establishes those guidelines? Who devises genius strategies?  And can they ever replace a humane experience? The success of the digital transformation is not just process and technology-driven but also employee-driven. Else who will lead transformation based initiatives? Without employee buy-in, digital transformation will be fruitless. So be comforted by the reality – The human race cannot be completely eliminated on the work front. At least not yet!

Indispensable

As always the case – Communication resolves the majority of the problems and eases your mind. In this age of digitalization, you may contemplate the relevance of soft skills but do not make the mistake of underrating its power. You will be informed about the changes and related matters by top management.  All the same, I would advise you to personally discuss your role and future with your manager and how you can add value to this transformation. It always pays to walk upfront in order to offer or even ask for help. Try to stand out in your endeavors to adjust, stay connected, and show interest in your leader’s decisions.

Work smarter by focusing on activities with a higher impact on company growth. Analyze your strengths and areas of improvement, see how you can correlate them with the ongoing transformations, and determine where you need to invest your time and efforts. In order to evolve, you must develop expertise around future-oriented domains like for example data science and analytics. New changes inevitably call for experimentation. Reinvent yourself and do not shy away from developing and presenting new ideas ripe for implementation that can push digital transformation in the right direction. Through your smart work, persistence, flexibility, skillsets, and experiments make yourself and your role indispensable to the organization. Remember – After all, there is a human brain behind all technological evolutions. Be that brain!

Closing Thoughts

Have you ever seen the evolution of a butterfly or moth? There are 4 stages to this process of transformation – egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Each stage contributes to growth in different ways. The eggs transform into larva often known as caterpillars whose primary job is to eat. This food is reserved for the sustenance of its next stage called pupa also known as a chrysalis. It forms a cocoon which is its transitional stage. This is the stage where a lot of developments happen to eventually metamorphose into its adult stage as we know it – a beautiful butterfly.

To metamorphose into its most beautiful stage, the butterfly had to go through different phases of transition. Though each phase plays a crucial role in the inception of the next phase, every preceding stage has to give way to the next. Only then is the metamorphosis into a stage filled with the potential of beauty and wings to sky out possible. There is so much to understand and learn from this science of metamorphosis. Always look forward, do not hesitate to spread your wings, learn and adapt, shed your inhibitions, and evolve. Be a butterfly!