Steve Job's trap
Digital transformation projects are successful not because they are well planned from the beginning, but because their participants are sensitive to the first signals from the markets and respond with actions in the shortest possible time.
The new generation of executives (to end 2020) have advanced computer skills on their résumé. When they were teenagers, they built PCs, had fun with programming, or even hacked. They have been part of the evolution and revolution in the IT world for the last 30 years and recall MS DOS, the first Macs, Windows 3.0, the Netscape browser, the mobile WAP protocol, etc.
They went through numerous and often successful IT implementations in an enterprise environment - ERP, CRM, SRM, the list can go on. For decades, they dreamed of turning the companies where they worked into something dynamic, vibrant and popular. Now that they have taken the top corporate positions, they have the power to do this and write their names in gold letters in the history of business. An opportunity not to be missed.
The problem is not the ideas. The problem is how they are implemented in "classic" environments.
The leaders of the new generation are clear that the transition to digital is the main strategic direction and are making bets in those areas that, in their opinion, are crucial.
However, all too often the bets turn out to be wrong. The catch is trying to create a product for the digital age without restructuring the entire organization. The danger is not making the wrong product or making a technical mistake.
At first glance, it is quite simple: the manager simply must not allow himself to believe that he is bright enough to have an idea that will make the company enter the digital leaders with a single jump. This is easier said than done. Every new and energetic leader has strong ideas. Some may have great potential. The problem is not the ideas. The problem is how they are implemented in "classic" environments.
Accept the mistake and move on
It is necessary to carry out the transformation before placing a bet on a super project, and not through this bet. The company must be able to take very risky actions without being destroyed in case of error. The ability to give up ideas, learn from mistakes, and reward the people who made them is crucial.
This requires the emergence of a culture throughout the organization that rewards accepting risk, recognizing wrongdoing, and giving talented managers not only a second chance, but a third and fourth chance as well.
In business today, the culture of making mistakes and providing rewards for reporting them seems to be strongly tied to the environment associated with frequent acceptance of big risks , such as trading stocks. Surprisingly, the same culture thrives in one of the areas of activity that seeks to reduce risk to zero: controlling the movement of aircraft.
Air traffic controllers work under tremendous pressure, hundreds of human lives depend on their decisions, which are sometimes made in milliseconds. Your employers admit that mistakes are inevitable, either because of human psychology or because of very rare circumstances that could not be foreseen and included in the instructions. A global continuing education system has been created that analyzes each incident to prevent recurrence.
This type of culture is reproduced by some digital leaders like Google. They often reward teams that have failed with projects, as this allows them to conduct real market experiments with the boldest ideas and concepts.
Jobs trap
A National Geographic report, going back to the 2000s, revealed an interesting fact about the original event of the iPhone launch: the Apple team performed a “fake” live demonstration.
The live presentation of "the first Iphone" was made with a battery of experimental iPhones that could only perform - each one - some functions. Apple collaborators later confessed that if they had used a single iPhone, it would have failed.
It is very possible that with this failure, live, the mobile industry would not be as we know it today.