Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

This Advisor explores one approach that has been particularly effective in making enterprise architects understand the realities of organizational change in their own context.

Artificial intelligence (AI) in all its various forms — machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), speech recognition, cognitive systems, intelligent agents, chatbots, and robotics — is generating intense interest across every industry — from consumer electronics, banking, and finance to automotive, insurance, healthcare, government, aerospace, big pharma, retail, and manufacturing.

In this Advisor, we consider what leaders are expected to do within Agile organizations, then see how these duties translate to a set of desired skills and personality traits.

The existence of a digital backbone in an organization means that anyone aspiring and planning to transform different parts of the enterprise will be able to leverage the digital backbone in a consistent and sustainable way, ensuring that each effort connects to and leverages a common platform. 

If electric cars and trucks are the vehicles of the future, then that already suggests a massive change in the industrial infrastructure — new modes of manufacturing, new modes of refueling and repair, and, perhaps, new roads. Given the key role of autos in society, such a transition will be a major story. However, it is really only a small part of the changes facing the automobile industry. As we explore in this Executive Update, other technological changes in the auto industry include: self-driving cars, intelligent auto production processes, and cars as entertainment centers.

As a second-order effect of the Internet, digital transformation can be broken down across the three major areas that it will transform: customer experience, operational processes, and business models. Although transforming the customer experience is the most visible manifestation of digital transformation, as I discuss in this Advisor, transforming internal processes through digitization, worker enablement, and performance management can also show great benefits.

Both the explosive growth of Agile adoption and the return to collaborative and experiential learning are part of a larger global transformation whereby people are seeking to cast off authority in exchange for autonomy and peer collaboration.

In many market sectors, the journey to become more Agile is a strategic imperative. This Advisor looks at some of the reasons some organizations find this transition difficult. These challenges point to the practices, processes, and cultures of the past as potential hurdles.