William C. Davis
Owner, William C. DavisWilliam C. Davis is an international keynote speaker, author, and Human-Centered Leadership Advisor with four decades of experience rising from a blue-collar background to Fortune 500 executive roles. He champions a people-first, "Golden Rule" approach, drawing on his career-long 90%+ team retention to prove that treating employees with respect is the foundation of effective leadership. More details are available at williamcdavis.com.
Why Most Digital Transformations Fail Before They Ever Really Begin
Most transformations fail, not because the technology was poor, but because the organization was never really ready to change. While that sounds simple enough, that is where companies derail before the race even begins.
Leaders declare a new platform, system or digital strategy without first answering the most basic questions in the room. Why are we doing this? What problem are we solving? How will this change the way people work? What support will they have? What could go wrong?
Research from McKinsey has shown that roughly 70% of large-scale transformations fail to achieve their objectives. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has echoed those findings, reporting that only about 30% of companies successfully manage digital transformation. Those statistics aren’t just technology data points. They are leadership failure rates. (Garcia, 2022) (DTBCG)
In my experience, leaders make the mistake of treating digital transformation like an IT project instead of a business and people project. Technology can help us work faster, access data, provide better service, and make quicker decisions. But technology alone can’t fix ambiguous priorities, poor communication, lack of trust, or leaders who are wildly out of alignment.
The second mistake leaders make is trying to move too quickly without bringing their people along. Employees don’t resist change because they are stubborn. Many employees resist because they are confused, left out of the process, overwhelmed, or simply unconvinced. In the absence of understanding the “Why” employees replace uncertainty with fear. People need to understand the “Why!”
Thirdly, leaders tend to confuse installation with transformation. Purchasing software is not transformative. Installing a dashboard is not transformative. Real transformation occurs when people change how they think, make decisions, collaborate, and serve their customers.
Digital transformation starts long before the first widget is installed. Digital transformation starts with leaders having the courage to ask if the organization is truly ready to change.
Disclosure: This article contains no company endorsements.
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