How to Build a Digital Culture in Traditional Companies

Is your leadership's management philosophy stuck in the 1960s? Let's redefine it: Leadership by Being Engaged. The concept of "management by walking around" came from Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard (HP founders) in the 1960s, popularized by Tom Peters in 1982, and gets used today to describe what's missing in #remote work. "The expected benefit: by random sampling of events or employee discussions, managers are more likely to facilitate improvements to the morale, sense of purpose, productivity and and quality... compared to remaining in a specific office area, or the delivery of status reports." The literal concept doesn't work if your managers have people who are working in multiple locations, now the majority case. 60 to 80% of all "enterprise" company managers now have #distributed teams. 100% of Fortune 500 Execs have teams that are #distributed today, according to Atlassian (kudos Molly Sands, PhD). #RTO mandates rooted in this philosophy are trying to return to a world that no longer exists. Leaders need a both/and approach. Get employees together to jump-start #belonging, and build better #culture and #performance by being involved in the digital #collaboration tools that your teams use every day. Let's redefine a philosophy rooted in co-location into one for the #digital age. Four starting points for leaders looking to get digitally engaged: 🔸 Increase transparency. Internal transparency around clear goals and realistic progress against them drives focus on outcomes, and builds trust. 🔸 Get engaged in the work. Execs need to stop saying "Teams/Slack etc are for the kids; you'll find me in email" and get into the tools people use every day to work through account issues, project updates, and problem solving. 🔸 Participate in digital communities. Social forums at work build belonging. That cuts across everything from an Abilities ERG to Sneakerheads. Finding community at work boosts retention; even leaders need to find that. 🔸 Get a reverse mentor. Being available and engaged digitally can feel foreign as a leader, and initially scary to a team. Find a digital native in your organization who can coach you! What's your take? Retire the phrase, or revive an important concept?

I spent years navigating the complexities of digital transformation. Here’s the shortcut to save you countless hours! Digital transformation isn’t just about adopting new technology. It’s about changing how we think and operate as an organization. I remember back when I was at Microsoft, leading a team to drive significant change in our sales approach. We faced numerous challenges:   Resistance from teams stuck in their old ways. Difficulty aligning technology with business goals. The ever‑looming pressure of competition driving innovation faster than we could keep up!  But here’s what I learned through trial and error—and a few sleepless nights:   Start with culture: Technology won’t solve your problems if your teams aren’t on board. Embrace a culture that values learning and adaptability. Get everyone involved early in the process!   Set clear objectives: Identify what success looks like for your organization. Are you looking for efficiency? Increased revenue? Improved customer satisfaction? Define it clearly, so everyone is aligned!   Leverage data: Don’t just collect data—use it! Analyze where you stand, identify gaps, and make informed decisions based on real insights rather than gut feelings alone!   Pilot small initiatives: Before rolling out changes company‑wide, test them out on a smaller scale first! This allows you to gather feedback and make adjustments without disrupting everything at once!   Engage stakeholders continuously: Keep communication lines open with all stakeholders throughout the journey—this builds trust and mitigates resistance down the line!   Iterate constantly: Digital transformation is not a one‑time project; it’s an ongoing journey that requires continual assessment and iteration of processes to stay relevant in today’s fast‑paced market environment! By following these steps, I managed to turn initial skepticism into excitement around our digital initiatives. The result? A much more agile team ready to tackle future challenges head‑on! If you're serious about transforming your organization, embrace these principles—you'll thank yourself later!

Part 4: What Good Change Really Looks Like — Adoption, Activation, and the Hard Part of Digital Transformation! We’ve all been there. The platform is live. The AI engine is in place. The dashboards are beautiful. But no one’s using it. Or worse—people are using it wrong. Here’s the truth I’ve learned over and over again: Transformation doesn’t fail in the design. It fails in the adoption. And adoption isn’t about a big announcement or a training deck—it’s about trust, behavior change, and making sure what we build actually fits how people work. Here are a few principles that can help: 🔹 Change champions aren’t a buzzword—they’re the glue. Identify trusted employees across regions or functions to act as embedded advocates. These individuals can test early, share success stories in team forums, and coach others hands-on—making adoption feel more peer-driven than top-down. 🔹 Leadership can’t just approve—it has to participate. Encourage execs and managers to model the new tools during business reviews or day-to-day decisions. A single team lead running a planning session using the new dashboard sends a clearer message than any email blast. 🔹 Train the process, not just the tech. Design enablement around “how this helps me do my job better”—not just “what buttons to click.” Walkthroughs like “how to prep for a forecast review in 10 minutes” or “how to handle exceptions faster” resonate far more than feature overviews. 🔹 Personalized onboarding > one-size-fits-all. Tailor your rollout by role. A finance analyst cares about variance, a sales manager about trending, and an ops lead about exceptions. Deliver just enough context to help them act quickly and confidently. 🔹 Build feedback loops into the rollout. Set up simple ways to gather input and adapt—like Slack channels, feedback buttons, or short check-in surveys. Monitor usage, flag common drop-offs, and adjust fast. Showing that feedback turns into action builds trust quickly. I’ve said it before: launching the tech is the easy part. The hard part—and the real work—is getting people to trust it, use it, and embed it into how they work. That’s where the value lives. And that’s where transformation actually happens. #DigitalTransformation #ChangeManagement #Adoption #Leadership #TechEnablement #AI #ProductDelivery #DigitalStrategy P.S. Nothing beats a good team lunch to bring people together. At the end of the day, transformation is about people—sharing ideas, building trust, and yes… passing the biryani (Google it, it’s worth it). 😊

Digital Transformation is not about technology. I see too many C-suite leaders pouring millions into new tech, hoping it will "transform" their companies. Facts. - If your culture, processes, and leadership mindset are stuck in the past, no amount of AI or automation will save you from your more agile competitors. Big Facts. - Digital transformation initiatives fail because execs treat it like an IT project, not a business-wide initiative. - New tools are pointless if the people and operating models behind them are broken. Bigger Facts. - Fragmented teams still operate in silos despite "collaboration" tools. - Leaders cling to outdated KPIs that don't measure real-time success. - Employees burnout from forcing legacy processes into modern platforms. - Resistance to change from all levels kills innovation. You're wasting resources and budget by repeating these mistakes. Digital transformation should start with transforming mindsets -- not tech stacks. Do not. - Treat digital transformation as a one-time project. This never stops. - Think new software alone will fix broken processes or disjointed teams. - Ignore the need to elevate leadership and employees to embrace new ways of working. Fixes. - Create a Center of Excellence that embodies digital-dexterity and empowers teams to innovate, collaborate, and adapt. - Align transformation goals with business outcomes, not just tech implementation. - Empower your leadership team to drive change, not fear it. At the end of the day, technology is only as powerful as your readiness to harness it as an organization.