What the Pandemic Taught Us About the Future of Digital Transformation: A Leadership Lesson
According to the WHO, the world is shifting from a pandemic to an endemic, which means we’re learning to live with COVID similar to how we live with the flu. In light of this, many companies have started return-to-office initiates, mandated in-person attendance, and are generally shifting back to pre-pandemic norms. But is that the right play? And does it encourage employees and teams to do their best work? As a Digital Transformation expert who specializes in the way people work together, I would argue that this push to “go back to the way things were” is a hindrance to any digitally transforming company.
Today’s article explores this misstep with specific regard to Digital Transformation and sheds light on the significant opportunity leaders have to reimagine the way teams work and to build resilient structures that will take them into the future.
What’s Wrong With Going Back to The Way Things Were?
Ahh, the question on everyone’s minds: “Why can’t we just go back to doing things like we did before the pandemic?”
With regard to Digital Transformation, “going back” isn’t an option. It’s actually kind of a major infraction against the basic tenets of transformation. Sure, transforming organizations are trying to leverage technology to drive the business. Still, the other significant aspect of this is using technology to serve customers better – as well as the workforce – in order to drive a competitive edge.
Now, as people try to define what we mean when we say we’re living in a “post-pandemic world,” a lot of organizations are ignoring the things they learned during the pandemic, specifically from their employees, about how, where, and when they do their best work.
In other words, we now know that people want flexibility and autonomy – largely granted to corporate workforces during the pandemic – and now organizations are actively pulling back on those allowances.
We also learned that most people are more productive and even happier when they have this autonomy and flexibility (we all saw the Amazon stock price skyrocket in 2020 and know the remote teams were working as hard as ever from home).
What Does This Have To Do With Digital Transformation?
When companies integrate digital technologies into various aspects of a business, it requires fundamental changes to how the business operates and delivers value to its customers. So, as much as we talk about technology when we refer to Digital Transformation, the reality is that the work is as much about people and business processes as it is about the platforms and capabilities.
That means old and outdated policies about where, when, and how work gets done are an absolute hindrance to taking a company into the future.
Even before the pandemic, traditional methods of collaboration were proving to be ineffective and inefficient. The reliance on in-person meetings often meant significant expenses and logistical challenges. However, the shift to remote work forced organizations to rethink their approach, leading to the widespread adoption of digital tools and virtual collaboration platforms.
What We Learned During the Pandemic
Remember how clunky and expensive it was to gather a whole team in the same room pre-pandemic? You needed a big budget to fly everyone in from their respective parts of the world. You had to find lodging and a big enough space to huddle everyone together. Then, after your collaborative session, you had to digitize all the information from whiteboards, photos, scattered Post It notes, and scribbled handwritten notes, then hope you captured everything.
During the pandemic, we learned that cross-functional collaboration could be a lot more accessible when everyone could simply dial into a virtual meeting. The host or facilitator could use a digital tool like Miro to capture all the juicy information in one place and easily share it with the broader org. And guess what: a lot of those learnings made collaboration even better and more productive than the in-person methods teams had relied on previously.
Today, I’m still using Miro to lead workshops whether remote or in person because it’s just better. And being able to gather as a full team virtually is more effective than gathering as a partial team (or more infrequently) because we're hung up on the idea that we need to default to in-person everything.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I still fully believe that some in-person collaboration is critical, necessary, and worth it. It’s not an either / or – it's a both / and.
The important thing to note is that the pandemic forced us to check some of our assumptions about the way work gets done. We had to try new things and build new muscle memory. Just because we can gather in person again doesn’t mean we should give up those new muscles we honed. They’re still useful!
This is why it breaks my operations-driven heart when I read articles about employees who ask to continue to work remotely and are denied or terminated because of it (even when the logic is so sound, like eliminating a commute to have more time to work).
Conversely, there are also some great examples of companies navigating this transition effectively. Even a legacy organization I have close ties with surprised me by instating a more fluid, flexible approach that respects their employees’ time and autonomy.
When you do this, your talent is motivated to contribute their best work, both remotely and when they show up in person.
The Major Opportunity Leaders Have to Build More Resilient Teams
It is not about choosing between in-person or virtual interactions but rather leveraging the strengths of both to create a model that maximizes productivity, effectiveness, and collaboration.
What we’re really talking about here is your Operating Model. When you define new ways of working that are in the highest support of the team, the business goals and transformation endeavors are far more successful.
In a knowledge economy where we’re asking people to collaborate and innovate, we need to consider the best environment for that work to happen. Even if we take the Pandemic out of it and just look at new ways of working, a modern Operating Model requires space for teams who have never worked together before or are only vaguely aware of each other to come together to solve a problem. Why wouldn't we use the tools and technology we learned to embrace during the pandemic to make this happen?
What To Consider As You Redefine Your Operating Model
The key to Digital Transformation lies in building resilient and adaptable operating models for the future, and technology plays a crucial role in augmenting our capabilities in a distributed workforce environment.
So, the real question here is how can you enhance the digital experience and allow teams to collaborate seamlessly regardless of their physical location? Which tools can you use to make it even better, faster, and more effective?
For example, transcription software and meeting summarization tools are an excellent way to streamline meeting recaps and directives. And virtual facilitation tools like Miro, which I mentioned earlier, are an awesome tool to improve cross-functional, remote collaboration. Maybe you can even design what a hybrid work environment could look like with your teams (my pal Jackie has a simple workshop guide for this, here).
Whatever you design, just make sure that you require in-person collaboration in moments where it makes sense rather than knee-jerking back to forced in-person time simply because it’s how you did things before. Ask yourself when the tech best supports the work and your people, then use it to your advantage.
In Conclusion
Redefining how work gets done is essential to cultivating a workforce capable of undergoing a Digital Transformation that lasts. By embracing digital technology and rethinking the way teams work, organizations and leaders can build resilient structures that enable them to thrive in this new reality. It's not about returning to the past, but designing an Operating Model that fosters innovation, adaptability, and a launching pad for the future.
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