Why? It requires time to figure out how to best to integrate the new tools into a workflow. Such top-down initiatives run the risk of creating significant resistance downstream. New ways of working require providing employees with the adequate time and cognitive resources to explore, experiment and learn. Moreover, a top-down process often misconstrues the intrinsic nature of digital strategy. Traditionally formal business strategy has been formulated at the top and subsequently imple- mented throughout the organization in a multi-year time frame. In contrast, the development of a digital strategy is by nature iterative and requires substantial bottom-up feedback. Digital strategy is a continual process of identifying the overall goals, developing short-term initiatives which move the organization closer to the goal and then rethinking the nature of those goals based on what the organization has learned from those short-term initiatives. As such digital strategy requires not only top-down commitment but bottom-up feedback as well. The degree of digital maturity is measured by the extent that technology is adopted through pull (i.e. employees
COMPANIES CAN EFFECTIVELY NAVIGATE THE CHALLENGES OF DIGITAL DISRUPTION BY LAUNCHING INITIATIVES
WHICH ARE FAR MORE ORGANIZATIONAL THAN TECHNICAL
M I S CONC E P T I ON # 4 :
D I G I T A L I ZA T I ON I S L ED AND OWNED B Y T HE CH I E F D I G I T A L O F F I C E R ( CDO ) .
This flawed thinking leads to digital transformation proceeding in the following manner: the leadership of an organization announces the nature of the next digital initiative and employees are expected to fall in line with this proposition. The problem with this approach is that the adoption of any kind of new digital technology actually hinders employee performance for the first few months.
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