Transformation Is a Messy Business: 2040's Ideas and Innovations Newsletter, Issue 58
When it comes to digital transformation, some thought leaders correlate it to chaos theory. We’ve all heard about chaos theory, even if we don’t understand it. Dumbed down, it’s the mathematical theory that explains what seems random and chaotic but that in actuality has underlying patterns, an interconnectedness and self-organization that can give order and logic to what seems chaotic on the surface. As we have continued to share in our newsletters, what we perceive is our version of reality and how we see the world around us — and we often fail to see true reality. Patterns exist everywhere in everything and every action or non-action influences other parts of the pattern, which ultimately find a higher level of order and organization. The concept of chaos theory can certainly be applied to the market disruptions we have experienced lately.
And then there’s what other experts cite as messy theory. The business of change is perceived as chaotic and complicated when our own perceptions struggle to see the entirety of the pattern. We are more comfortable when we are focused on one part of the organizational system and seek to fix that first instead of understanding the macro view. We further struggle to see how the inter-dependencies of action or non-action affect all the parts. We also don’t recognize the influences that impact other aspects of the system.
Therefore, we fundamentally perceive change as messy, which of course it is in many regards. Messy and chaos theories are especially relevant to digital transformation. In the mess and chaos, the most often overlooked aspects of change and transformation are the interactions workers have, and the need for their buy-in, understanding and commitment to internalize change and transformation to be successful. Traditionally, tons of effort go downstream like tech and even creating lakes of data from the upstream. Organizations focus on building infrastructure, implementing some technological platform, customizing that platform, and believing the problems and issues will be solved and voila, the transformation will occur. Better data will result…processes will improve…and the organization will become more efficient and knowledgeable.
In this silver-bullet-focused technology mindset, technology is viewed through the lens of a solution, exercise and experiment; but if workers don’t buy-in, everything crashes. The workers who interact with technology are the source of data input into a system. They manage the data and must commit to maintaining quality. If the source of input and commitment — aka the workers — is overlooked, any change or transformation can become a major mess and an utter failure.