Digital transformation — getting your business engaged

Over 70% of Digital Transformation projects fail because of people! Our research team discusses techniques to get your employees engaged and how increase chances of success in Digital Transformation programmes.

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The decision to undergo a digital transformation or make a cultural change is not easy! According to McKinsey, 70% of transformation projects fail. 72% of these fail because of people, not through lack of skill or ability, but because 33% of management don’t support the change and 39% because of employee resistance. A quick comparison… a greater percentage of transformation projects fail than students pass GCSE English with a C grade. From the Mckinsey research, we can see that people are the key factor for the failure of Digital Transformation projects. It is clear that when taking on this challenge a business requires the engagement of your entire company. Yes, this means every employee! But involving everyone is one thing, motivating your employees to actively engage with the challenge is another. This challenge is the difference between success and failure. This is where the Feynman technique can help, but first, what is it? The Feynman technique can be used to learn practically anything through reviewing your knowledge either through writing or teaching someone else. Broken into four steps:

1. To start with you write down the concept,
2. Then in your own words explain it, in as much detail as you can, imagine you are trying to teach it to someone that has no knowledge of the subject, as a result, you need as much detail as possible but in simple accessible language; your language.
3. Then you review your explanation, looking for areas that are lacking, where it doesn’t make sense or that raise more questions; for any of these points, revert to the source material and seek to further your understanding.
4. Finally look to any area that you have made overly complex, look to simplify it to make it accessible for anyone else.

It is proven, it works, but how is it relevant? At its core, cultural changes and digital transformations are about people, changing how people interact, changing how people work and approach activities. This is where a variation on the Feynman technique can help:

1. The board/change committee etc decide on a new approach be it a change in culture, make the decision to undergo a digital transformation. They outline the required steps and changes along with the aims, for them personally and for the company as a whole.
2. From there they inform their teams, be it the directors or managers they supervise, outlining the need for change, the end goal and the required changes along the way. Making note of areas of confusion, questions and areas they can’t fully explain the need for.
3. The board/change committee come back together to share and discuss these gaps, building their vision for the company’s future. Simplifying areas that are overengineered,
4. Then re-present to their teams, answering their earlier reservations and questions, building on their initial understanding, giving them the tools to onboard their teams.
5. Those who have been onboarded then go to their teams, letting the message grow through the company. Repeated the process, managers returning to those who onboarded them with any questions or reservations from their team, filling in gaps of understanding and sharing previously unconsidered options.

Regardless of who is talking about the new direction, the marketing manager or the CFO, with each teaching and reteaching, they will realise the strengths and limitations of the process and their understanding. So, when they return to the source material or their manager/director, with questions and reservations they can talk about it further, gain a greater understanding and know how this new direction will affect them moving forwards and how they can best adapt to it.

Of course, you could just make large announcements or run seminars to discuss the changes but by taking the Feynman approach you encourage an element of organic change, gradually building everyone together and encouraging collaboration between teams. This teaching, learning, revising and reteaching is all increasing cross-team engagement with managers and directors coming together to discuss and reaffirm their understanding, which in itself brings certain benefits considering:

• 97% of executives, employee and educators believe a lack of alignment within a team directly impacts the outcome of a project (Fierce 2012)
• 86% cite the lack of collaboration as a cause of workplace failures (Fierce 2012)

So surely increasing cross-team engagement is worth the added time of adoption, truly ingraining it into each team rather giving the change an attention-grabbing title but with little change from employees day to day.

Beyond this by trusting the different levels of management with the responsibility and ability to onboard their teams, they can present it in a way that is directly relevant to their team, meaning people will have it tailored to them, leaving them feeling valued and involved rather than dismissing a presentation as irrelevant to them.

Of course, having each level of the company on board by different people there is the risk for variation. I’d argue this is a good thing. With a strong core message and a direction that has been learned at every stage, then personal variation (to some extent) can actually be beneficial. The reason for this is each team knows the new direction and what they are striving towards but the directors, managers and team leaders are given that level of freedom needed to implement it in a way that best suits their role in the company and the strengths of their own team. Rather than dictating employees to do something they could be underskilled or do not truly understand, you maximise their contribution by letting managers who know them provide guidance to their goal via the most appropriate route.

Specifically for a digital transformation, this would mean each level of the company and each member of each team understanding the new access to digital technologies and resources and what it means for them. As for each team, it will be different, someone in marketing may find it easier to go digital, engaging with customers through digital mediums than perhaps someone in field research. However, encouraging them to make use of the new resources increases their ability to communicate and collaborate. Allowing them to align their daily operations to leverage the new opportunity, benefiting all.

Then long term this method can continue to be used for successful onboarding of new staff and for continued commitment to an ongoing movement, with each teaching the idea grows and progresses. As teaching is the rehearsal that leads to an understanding that can evolve into new insights. Creating a full change in your culture.