Skip to main content

How To Make Digital Transformation A Priority

Mid-February brought the visually-engaging, coffee-table-styled book, Fast Times: How Digital Winners Set Direction, Learn, and Adapt, written for senior executives who are frustrated by the slow pace and limited return on investment (ROI) of their digital transformation, and are unsure what’s holding them back. 

Fast Times is written by four authors, reflecting on their personal experiences leading dozens of top global digital companies across all sectors. They share their expertise in a conversational style, delivering practical, actionable business guidance.

“This book is for leaders at companies where digital transformation is a top-three priority,” explain authors Arun AroraPeter DahlstromKlemens Hjartar, and Florian Wunderlich. 

These authors share that digital winners focus on:

  • Balancing fast execution with deliberate direction-setting
  • Developing systems so that knowledge is shared not siloed.
  • Building a culture of continuous and practical learning.
  • Anticipating the most common speed bumps and addressing them early.
  • Making it safe for people to experiment.
  • Understanding how people actually behave when faced with change and helping them succeed.
  • Pulling out all the stops to get the digital stars they need and making sure their recruiting promises match up to reality. 


Recently, the authors answered these questions:

Question: What does it mean to be fast in the digital age? 

The Authors: We know that change will be never be this slow again. To win in this world, you have to be first. To be first, you have to be fast. But to be fast, you have to be smart. That last part is critical. Lots of transformations fail because incumbent companies mistake activity for speed. Unless that activity is advancing a carefully crafted strategy, the company is apt to sprint off in the wrong direction. 

To achieve what we call digital velocity—the ability to set direction, learn, and adapt—companies have to know when to take it slow and chart a deliberate path and when to go flat out. 

We know of one European energy company that saw a lucrative opportunity for a new line of business. They knew the opportunity wouldn’t last and were ready to hire an outside vendor to get the capabilities they needed fast. Luckily, they hit the pause button before diving in. After really studying the challenge, they decided to take the time to develop their own systems. Today, they’re a leader in their new field, but the CEO says they would never have gotten there if they had followed their first instincts.  

Question: How can companies go from saying it’s safe to fail to actually instilling this belief in their employees so that risk aversion doesn’t rule their actions? 

The Authors: The best performing digital companies actually reward the right kind of failure. They understand that even expensive efforts that fail are actually investments in future successes. 

A good leader takes responsibility for the things that don’t work and shares the credit generously for the things that do. A really good leader makes sure the entire team learns as much as possible from the failures, extracting maximum value from the experience. 

Consider the case of a large tech company that suffered a very big and embarrassing failure of a new product. The CEO got out front and immediately apologized for the offense. But he also recognized another risk: that the team responsible would pull back and become too risk averse. He emailed them right away, urging them to avoid regret and to make sure they learned as much as possible from what went wrong. 

Another CEO we know makes failure part of the review process, asking executives to describe recent failures. If they aren’t big enough, the executive isn’t taking big enough risks—and may fail to get a bonus. Our research shows that the fastest growing companies are more apt than lower performing companies to approach failure as a learning opportunity rather than an occasion for blame.  

Question: What else do companies need to do to build a learning culture?  

The Authors: What many leaders often miss is that culture doesn’t just happen; it’s the product of actions and initiatives that can be deliberately implemented, tracked, and adjusted. But it’s very hard to make that work if leaders themselves aren’t willing to change and embrace a learning culture. That includes rewarding failure, as we’ve discussed, so that people develop the confidence to experiment and learn. But it also includes a real humility on the part of leaders and an openness to learning from others – whether that’s walking through agile working labs and asking people what they’re doing to visiting companies to understand how they operate to simply reading interesting books. Learning isn’t just about self-improvement; it’s about survival, and the best learners are going to be in the best position to win.  

All four authors are partners or senior partners at McKinsey & CompanyArora has held various operational and leadership positions with Apple, Sun Microsystems, 3M Groupon, and Staples. He is based in Paris. Dahlstrom, based in London, is the global leader for McKinsey Digital’s B2C team. Hjartar is global leader of McKinsey Digital in the telecommunications, media and technology sectors and in Western Europe. He is based in Copenhagen. Wunderlich, based in Germany, is a cofounder of Leap by McKinsey, which helps large enterprises build new businesses. 

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Three Essential Parts Of A Mission Statement

A lot of companies struggle when creating their mission statement. Author  Peter F. Drucker  provides the following good advice in one of my favorite book's of his,  The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization : Every mission statement has to reflect three things : Opportunities Competence Commitment In other words, he explains: What is our purpose? Why do we do what we do? What, in the end, do we want to be remembered for? How well does your mission statement meet Drucker's recommended three requirements?

Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability .  They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences

6 Ways To Seek Feedback To Improve Your Performance In The Workplace

Getting feedback is an important way to improve performance at work. But sometimes, it can be hard to seek out, and even harder to hear.  “Feedback is all around you. Your job is to find it, both through asking directly and observing it,” says David L. Van Rooy, author of the new book,  Trajectory: 7 Career Strategies to Take You From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be . As today's guest post, Van Rooy offers these  six tips for how to get the feedback you need to improve performance at work . Guest Post By David L. Van Rooy 1.       Don’t forget to as k :  One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming things are going perfectly (until they make a catastrophic mistake). By not asking, you’re missing out on opportunities for deep feedback: the difficult, critical feedback that gives you constructive ways to improve. 2.       Make sure you listen :  Remember, getting feedback is about improving your performance, not turning it into a “you versus the

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership .  In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself.  It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust.  The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes.  In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter.  In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catalyst for

5 Tips For Generating Ideas From Employees

Your employees have lots of ideas.  So, be sure you provide the forums and mechanisms for your employees to share their ideas with you.  Hold at least a few brainstorming sessions each year, as well. And, when you are brainstorming with your employees, try these five tips: Encourage ALL ideas.  Don't evaluate or criticize ideas when they are first suggested. Ask for wild ideas.  Often, the craziest ideas end up being the most useful. Shoot for quantity not quality during brainstorming. Encourage everyone to offer new combinations and improvements of old ideas.

3 Things Your Mission Statement Must Have

A lot of companies struggle when creating their mission statement. Author Peter F. Drucker provides the following good advice in one of my favorite book's of his, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization :" Every mission statement has to reflect three things : Opportunities Competence Commitment In other words, he explains: What is our purpose? Why do we do what we do? What, in the end, do we want to be remembered for? How well does your mission statement meet Drucker's recommended three requirements?

How To Survive And Then Reset To Ultimately Thrive

“Uncertainty is here to stay. Rather than seeing it as an obstacle to overcome, integrate it into your strategic approach to invigorate your high-growth potential and outperform competition under any market condition,” explains Rebecca Homkes , author of the new book, Survive, Reset, Thrive .   “Most books aren’t honest enough about how hard it is to reset ,” adds Homkes. Yet, resetting and leaning into change is essential. “If you are ready to embrace change as a central element of your growth strategy, this book is for you.” Homkes’ book is a timely, comprehensive, and essential read for business leaders looking to take the next step toward ensuring high growth for their companies. The book brings together more than 15 years of Homkes working directly with high-growth companies of all sizes and across a wide variety of industries.   Survive, Reset, Thrive (SRT) is a practical and innovative interconnected three-mode approach :   Survive : Stabilizing your business when

3 Coaching And Mentoring Tips

Here are three great tips from the book, The Everything Coaching and Mentoring Book : Coaches do not motivate their employees; they inspire them to motivate themselves.  This is best accomplished by allowing employees to see clearly where they stand in the organization versus where they want to be in their careers.  That is, what are their self-interests versus what the company can offer them. A mentor always exercises the power of suggestion. That is, wise mentors offer up plenty of suggestions to their mentees. They pose alternatives.  But they refrain, as much as possible, from telling their mentees what to do. Mentoring is all about sharing experiences.  It is about mentors imparting the multiple lessons that they've learned to their mentees and helping them better navigate through their own careers.  By absorbing these lessons--of mentors' mistakes and successes--mentees are better prepared to move forward with knowledge and confidence.

Use A Board Of Advisors

David Burkus often provides valuable comments to my various Blog postings, and he's a person who effectively uses a board of advisors, instead of mentors, to help him achieve success. "I've found that in my life, it was easier and more effective to set up a board of advisors," said Burkus, the editor of LeaderLab . "This is a group of people, three to five, that have rotated into my life at various times and that speak into it and help me grow. I benefit from the variety of experience these people have." LeaderLab is an online community of resources dedicated to promoting the practice of leadership theory. Its contributors include consultants and professors who present leadership theory in a practitioner-friendly format that provides easy-to-follow explanations on how to apply the best of leadership theory. Community users can download a variety of research reports and presentations about leadership and leadership versus management. For example, a pr

How To Avoid 8 Common Performance Evaluation Pitfalls

As the year comes to a close it's likely time for many business leaders to tackle the annual performance appraisal process. So, here is a good reminder from author Sharon Armstrong about how to avoid eight performance evaluation pitfalls .  These are in what I consider is the best chapter of the book The Essential HR Handbook , that she co-authored with Barbara Mitchell. 1.  Clustering everyone in the middle performance-rating categories 2.  Overlooking flaws or exaggerating the achievements of favored employees 3.  Excusing substandard performance or behavior because it is widespread 4.  Letting one characteristic - positive or negative - affect your overall assessment 5.  Rating someone based on the company he or she keeps 6.  Rating someone based on a grudge you are holding 7.  Rating someone based on a short time period instead of the entire evaluation period 8.  Rating everyone high, to make you look good There's other great information in this 250-page book th