Leading Digital Transformation

There's never been a need for organisational change management and a focus on the people side of change more than today, but a lot of organisations still struggle with it. Karen Ferris is the author of several books about Organisational Change Management and she helps organisations thrive in the face of volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous change, providing new tools and approaches for a new age in organisational change management. Effectively, breaking the mould!

Most organisations today don't need to be convinced of the need to transform, but they do struggle with how to do it. The harsh reality is that despite the best of intentions, and billions spent in pursuit of successful transformation outcomes, the vast majority of programmes fizzle out, falling well short of what was hoped for. In this episode, Professor Michael Wade – author of the books 'Orchestrating Transformation' and 'Digital Vortex' unpacks the transformation challenge with a particular focus on responding to digital opportunities and threats.

A lot of organisations embark on transformation without understanding why, along with the market dynamics they need to address which their current structures and processes can't contend with. Haydn Shaughnessy, author of the book Shift - A Leader's Guide to the Platform Economy - explains how new market dynamics - ecosystems - force us to find new ways to work.

Changing business outcomes requires people processes to change. The problem for many organisations is that they think new technology will do that, which is one reason why change and transformation initiatives have been failing for decades. Max Blumberg - a visiting Professor at Leeds University Business School - explains why you'd better get input from people on what changes would be acceptable and what changes would be best. Otherwise no one will use the changed process, for which you might have paid a consulting firm a small fortune to conjure up!

Digital transformation in large and complex organisations continues to challenge even the best traditional managers and leaders – often because they still rely on old ways of thinking and working. Roland Deiser is a Drucker Senior Fellow and, in this episode, he touches on three distinct arenas in which digital transformation happens, along with the ambidexterity challenge and agile architectures. Roland also explains why boundaries and boundary management are so important for leaders who have aspirations to orchestrate successful transformation.

Most organisations fail at innovation because they fail at change. They aspire to innovate but often struggle and continue to lose pace along the fast-moving business landscape. Two-time author Braden Kelley is a Director of Innovation and Human-Centered Problem-Solving at Oracle and he shares some ways organisations can get better at innovation, change, and transformation.

Throughout history, great leaders have worked hard to create change, but not all have succeeded. In recent years–often labelled as digital transformation–that aspiration has spread like wildfire across the corporate landscape. Greg Satell has explored the parallels between revolutionaries, corporate turnaround artists, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and social visionaries, to discover that by harnessing the principles of successful social and political movements, business leaders can be more successful at driving digital transformation forward.

Demand for skills and talent looks different now to how it did five years ago, particularly in relation to digital transformation. This means that the challenges and opportunities HR professionals are faced with have shifted. Talent acquisition strategist Matt Alder shares his insights on the fascinating topic of recruiting innovation and the new talent acquisition strategies organisations need to consider.

Agility has become an aspiration for many organisations, but it's not always easy to achieve. Peter Abraham and Neil Perkin wrote a book 'Building the Agile Business through Digital Transformation' in which they describe how the components of Velocity, Focus and Flexibility combine to form the basis of a formula that can help leaders achieve business agility - and move quickly to a position of advantage.

At the intersection of innovation and digital strategy, Doyle Buehler talks about connecting business leaders and their prime business to their entire digital ecosystem, to help them build a remarkable, profitable digital business, and future-proof and leverage their digital assets with their unique audience.