9 Culture Hacks That Drive Successful Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation (DX/DT), today’s most common buzzword in every industry!

The transition to the digital environment has become imperative for every industry owing to the changing consumer demands and technology advancements. Transforming digitally doesn’t happen easily and is not just about adding digital systems and capabilities to your organization.

That literally means a change in culture and style of functioning.

Culture can be a major barrier to change and innovation in any organization. However, adopting the right cultural practices can easily accelerate your business growth, reflecting in every single activity that takes place within.

“By culture hacking, we don’t mean finding a weak point to break into a system illegally. It’s about finding vulnerable points in your culture and turning them into real change that sticks,” says Mary Mesaglio, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner.

Here are ‘9 Culture Hacks’ that Gartner recommends to drive your Digital Transformation journey’:

1) Learn from Failures

Learning from past experiences is the most common lesson we ought to observe in every instance/organization/team. If you are accepting a failure, that means you are letting in something good that can change you. Doing so increases team’s capabilities in risk tolerance and collaboration. This is also one type of culture change. CIOs, who adopted this culture practice, report rise in their risk tolerance factor.

2) Accountability in Decision-Making

Every work needs a timeline for perfect implementation, and experts suggest a 48-hour decision rule. Doing so, brings in accountability among the stakeholders involved in decision-making and also provides you better options to finalize upon, at the end.

3) Appreciate Noble Thoughts

Rewarding right decisions or appreciating noble thoughts creates a favorable environment to focus on addressing internal issues rather than just looking/hearing at them. Resultant, CIO-level executives can see their teams working joyfully and being more productive.

4) Time to Think & Discuss

Getaway with the traditional methods of sitting on the team with continuous back-to-back status meetings. Such traditional practices have been proven to be stressful for employees. Instead, give time for thinking and discussing. Schedule a meeting by dedicating first and last 15 minutes to catch up on emails, follow up on key takeaways or proceed onto the further project.

5) Structure Meetings on Agendas

Traditional methods go with discussions in the first and voting or decisions at the last. This might not work all the time. What if the voting/decision on the agenda item comes negative at the end? So, a successful cultural practice recommends taking opinions on the agenda first, saving discussion time.

6) Get Away with Status Meets

Most CIOs spend 70 percent of their time on meetings and emails. Go with short written updates instead of long status meetings. This way, the accountability shifts more on to project owners creating scope for their proactiveness.

7) Invite Questions

Ensure every meeting ends with a brief questionnaire from the team members. Let them ask openly the questions that they usually discuss among outside, post the meeting. That could sometimes be hard questions, and the leaders need to be capable of taking them.

 8) Let Everyone Answer

One need not answer all the questions every time. This facilitates the growth mindset and learning environment within the organization, making everyone equally accountable.

9) Wait for Full Implementation

If a new digital strategy is announced on a specific day, you might not expect your team responses on the same the very next day. In such cases, better not bring it for discussion/meetings until its seen in implementation.

There could be many such cultural practices that could bring in some positive change within your organization, immediately. Focus on identifying such practices that won’t take much time and start implementing. Change begins small! Get on to the success track of your successful Digital Transformation journey, which is possible only through a well-defined strategy.

A perfect Digital Transformation strategy can reshape your business model, modernize and enhance end-user experience with high-end digital experiences that match industry standards.