What is Driving Digital Transformation Change?

After I posted my last 5 Minutes with @NYIke video on the #1 Reason Why Digital Transformation fail, a small discussion ensued on LinkedIn about transformation and change management. Is digital transformation a new name for business transformation? And regardless of what we call it, how can leaders help the resulting change management easier for employees and less difficult for leaders?

Driving Digital Transformation Change

I'm not one to overly debate semantics, but I believe that digital transformation and business transformation have some fundamental differences. Also, if you follow my methodologies on digital transformation, then change management evolves into what I call transformational change.


Business Transformation versus Digital Transformation


Let's peruse one of the definitions of business transformation. In Wikipedia, business transformation is about, "Making fundamental changes in how business is conducted to help cope with shifts in the market environment," and, "top management and other senior stakeholders use the opportunity to address these causes in ways that fundamentally alter the paradigm of the organization."

In that respect, digital transformation is a form of business transformation. But using my definition of digital transformation, "Digital transformation about looking at the business strategy through the lens of technical capabilities and how that changes how you are operating and generating revenues," you can see that digital has additional factors. It signifies a shift in strategy, not only because markets are changing, but because there are fundamental industry changes driven by technology, data, and experiences.

If leaders only consider markets and new operating models without looking at their business through a digital lens (discussed in my book, Driving Digital), then they may steer the ship in the direction of how markets operate today. A digital transformation must anticipate where markets will be today and in years to come - driven by explosive changes in technology, data / AI/ analytics capabilities, and evolving user experience expectations. Organizations can have a better chance of avoiding disruption by putting these factors front and center to there strategy, and that's why digital transformation is different than business transformation.

Driving Digital's Transformational Change


This week's episode on transformational change stemmed from two questions and comments. Phil Darby asked, "How do you engage your employees?" and Matthew Christensen commented, "The old style of change was mandated from the top down and, like you said, this is not enough. The newer style is more multi-level, being both top-down and bottom-up, but there are still flaws there."

So in five minutes, I share my answer and thoughts. 


Specific differences between change managed and Driving Digital's Transformational Change:

  • The ideas, experiments, and successes come from the agile team. 
  • Leadership must change and evolve their visions based on these learnings. 
  • Middle management has to shift from managing to coaching and mentoring.

There's more to it of course, so if you want to chat further, please reach out to me!

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About Isaac Sacolick

Isaac Sacolick is President of StarCIO, a technology leadership company that guides organizations on building digital transformation core competencies. He is the author of Digital Trailblazer and the Amazon bestseller Driving Digital and speaks about agile planning, devops, data science, product management, and other digital transformation best practices. Sacolick is a recognized top social CIO, a digital transformation influencer, and has over 900 articles published at InfoWorld, CIO.com, his blog Social, Agile, and Transformation, and other sites. You can find him sharing new insights @NYIke on Twitter, his Driving Digital Standup YouTube channel, or during the Coffee with Digital Trailblazers.