Management Perspectives

As much as we talk about a technology-driven economy, technology does not solve problems. People do. Technological investments depend on people. The history of our global economy demonstrates a two-phase approach to technology adoption. There is a first phase where we gradually find a balance between people and technology to create greater value and a second phase where technology becomes truly disruptive and delivers the work.

While technology does intermittently have a displacement impact on certain roles in the economy, it is never as imminent nor as widespread as it may seem. In each successive wave of economic evolution, we find that new technological solutions emerge, people slowly adopt them, and successful organisations adapt through their people.

For organisations trying to make a digital transformation—as we saw throughout the pandemic—it can feel like people are stuck; as much as workforces needed to shift to the digital environment to function, there was reluctance, hesitation, and in some cases, difficulty adapting to new kinds of communications and behaviours.

But there are plenty of instances of the need to adapt to new technologies. Consider the agrarian society, where new techniques and large farming equipment slowly came to replace the manual, arduous practices of the farmer. Consider the manufacturing supply chain, where machines were introduced and gradually replaced many elements of production— emerging technology still looks to disrupt last mile delivery and the stocking of products. And while many service jobs (like call centers) may be digitised over time, those higher order service jobs (like doctors and advisors) cannot be disrupted, and knowledge economy roles are the natural next step for those workers in the service economy.

Change does not happen overnight. There is never a clean break between the old and the new, and we are in a transitional phase. While humans and new forms of technology will need to collaborate, the key to success is the human ability to leverage these technologies. So, all that remains to be tackled is the technology fallacy—the belief that technology alone will solve all problems. In a digital transformation, people matter. Here are three simple strategies to overcome the technology fallacy and getting your organisation and your people on board:

• Transformation is a holistic redesign
Digital transformation is the use of technology to strategically redesign the work of an organisation. But when organisations believe that digital transformation simply entails the purchase of a new software or platform to manage a portion or all their business, they are missing the point. Digital transformation is a holistic re-design of the business around a solution. This means that processes and roles will also shift, but it is better to design a solution around these realistic ideas than to pay for a system and expect it to solve the problems without people.

• Factor in the workforce
Even the most robust platforms, including Salesforce, Workday, and SAP, require significant process changes from the workforce to have a successful implementation. This simple difference in perspective immediately reveals the importance of people in digital transformation. There is simply no way to realize the value of a digital transformation without bringing people along for the journey.

• People are the bottom line

Gerald Kane describes overlooking the importance of people in digital transformation as the technology fallacy. As he pointed out, “It is your people who will fuel—or thwart— your digital transformation.” In a survey of some 16,000 respondents, he found that far less than half (44 per cent) were ready. When organisations deploy new solutions, they expect a return. The return is never realised when people fail to adopt. So, in this sense, the solution is never the technology. The solution is how people will leverage technology to work differently.

In order to have a fully digital world, we need people to adopt and embrace technology. Given the fact that we are not ready for this kind of change, most digital transformations will be slow—and many organisations saw that as operations, communications, and functions were shifted to digital platforms. But this is not a comment on the value of the solution or even the sales of the platforms. The platforms will sell, and leaders will buy them and try to implement them. The full value and true digital transformation will only succeed with a complete understanding of the human side of the equation. This is better for all organisations because, as the great resignation is teaching many leaders, people are our greatest asset. We just need to make sure they help define our digital future.