To Go Digital, Leaders Have to Change Some Core Beliefs
Harvard Business Review | June 1, 2016
By Barry Libert, Megan Beck and Yoram (Jerry) Wind
Despite a great deal of lip service to digital transformation, the effect of all these great words on most companies is this: not much.
Digital transformation halts, or fails, for many reasons—but most often it’s because minor changes at the surface level do nothing to affect the fundamental operations of a company. Appointing a Chief Digital Officer, with no budget and no clear mandate, is not digital transformation. Increasing the social media marketing budget is not digital transformation. Even building an app is not digital transformation. Many established organizations hope that they can stay competitive making only minor tweaks—when these new disruptors have a different approach to everything.
Real digital transformation requires transformation at a deeper level—transformation of the leadership team’s core beliefs. Changes at the surface create small, local differences. Changes of belief percolate throughout an organization. This is why most digital transformations are a lot of talk, a little action, and very little real effect.
