Fifty years ago, as a seven-year-old, my father dragged me out of bed in the U.K. to watch something that would change my life. It still sits with me as three of the most amazing things I have ever seen. There was a clear moment of success, simple but remarkable words and a feeling of being part of something, even a s a very distant observer. I can still feel the hard, mid-century modern armrest I put my head on and the tiny black and white TV screen we watched from ten feet away. Very different from today when we would watch it on a cell phone, maybe be able to interact with NASA socially and even choose the TV angle from the moon.
376713 04: (FILE PHOTO) Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., lunar module pilot, descends the steps of ... [+]
My recent podcasts with the author of Loonshots, Safi Bahcall on Forbes Futures in Focus is an excellent lens into the type of shots companies can take with digital and other ideas that could equal or break the 1969 moment.
We are all technology-driven now because of this event – but few get it.
We face a world that is digitally and environmentally transforming at such a rate that it is tough for a CEO or a President to set a simple forward-looking goal for the next decade. In 1969 some 30% of Americans believed the moon landings had been faked. Imagine the social skepticism today, just think about climate change. Even with digital transformation, some 50% of organizations know it matters, but they’re not putting all their energies forward to thrive. Yet nearly half of those who get it are failing.
Just 28% of major corporations are succeeding in their digital transformation moonshots. They are sucking up 72% of all the possible returns while the remaining 72% of corporations are only getting .38 cents for every dollar these digital transformation thrivers are getting. That is like saying these companies get to the moon and the other companies barely get into space.
We know that technology can help; we know that it needs to be a crux of how we run our companies but making companies digital platforms is a brutal and casualty-stricken pathway. As much as the moon landing ultimately established the U.S. as the leader in technology development and frankly the technologically driven economy, digitally transforming a corporation is the moon shoot needed to thrive into the next decade and way beyond.
Unlike the moonshots, where vast resources were needed, digitally transforming a corporation has far less to do with how much you spend or invest but how your mindset has to change.
Centers of gravity are changing. Are you magnetizing towards them?
Pay as you go, models, level playing fields of information, instant digital start-ups with scale, total compression of supply and demand, innovation and cost compression in one step and radically shifting demographics mean the very basis of how we should be thinking about the world has to change. If as a leader, you are not actively looking for information on each of these drivers or centers of gravity, then you cannot succeed. All the analysis showed us that no matter what industry you are in if you are not developing strategies to leverage each of these new centers of gravity (all of them) then there is a less than 5% chance you are thriving.
Data matters but not in a traditional way – It is about freeing up dynamic allocation.
The value of data in successful digitally transforming organizations is very different than the perceived value for data in organizations wrapping themselves differently in three distinct but vital ways.
Moments matter so all data could be vital: All of the 28% who are thriving, have very high scores around the idea that moments matter to their constituents. This means we need to look at all information or data as having intrinsic value at some point in the decision making for a whole range of functions.
All responsible to each other all the time: Data is only valuable if it is transparently available to near everybody to use. That sense of all being responsible to each other, especially around data is one of the ten most reliable indicators of digital transformation success. Organizations have to build the right principles.
New themes and Streams of information are critical: It would be fair to suggest that 80%+ of the data that will define the latest opportunities on digital transformation have yet to be used or discovered. If you are not thinking this way and primarily looking at old types of data, then you are missing this concept of themes and streams of information in how you are managing opportunities for your corporation.
You might need to step down to make it happen.
It is questionable about how easy it is to train old dogs to do new tricks. Think of four facts:
• 80% of the corporations thriving with digital transformation were less than 50 years old. Age is not a positive thing here, so you have to be acting and thinking younger than your companies age.
• 87% of those organizations thriving with digital transformation were growing gangbusters last year (10% more growth). You have got to be a growth-orientated CEO or leader to have a chance of transforming so if you have a “hold the ground,’ strategy you are not giving yourself the chance of thriving.
• Organizations that did not believe their executive leaders were leaning into their organization’s digital transformation efforts with at least 17 hours a week of personal time commitment to the ideas and practices of digital transformation had a 97% chance of not being one of the elusive 28%. Ask yourself if you or your organization have managed to shift at least two days a week of effort to this imperative?
• Organizations that just had one chief digital something (chief digital officer or chief digital transformation officer) were failing more than 65% of the time. Digital transformation is not about one or two relevant digital job titles but the right collaborative mix to get it right. This formula needs a much younger view of the organizational structure and processes than older leaders are often comfortable transforming too.
Every single leader of an organization should be able to lead some form of successful digital transformation. But this is not a transition in how you think, design, or act for success. It is a fundamental transformation in all three areas.
Whether it is data security, compliance or understanding new moments that matter to your customers, success will not be dictated by the technologies or partners you use but by your openness to new ways of thinking, designing and acting for success. Blockchain, AI, Cryptocurrencies are noise without a digital transformation mindset that shifts the very nature of your organization’s mindset for success. The 72% who are failing have nobody to look at but themselves.
This is not easy to digest:
Organizations that did not believe their executive leaders were leaning into their organization’s digital transformation efforts with at least 17 hours a week of commitment had a 97% chance of not being one of the elusive 28%.
Ask yourself if you or your organization have managed to shift at least two days a week of effort to this imperative?
