Learning the cultural language of digital transformation

Find a burning platform. Set a rhythm. Hire rule-breakers.

These aren’t phrases you’d normally find in a digital transformation blueprint. Yet they are what an organisation needs to translate a new complex strategy into a cultural language that its people can understand. Unfortunately, this is also where many organisations stumble.

Digital transformation is driven by advancing technology and higher consumer expectations but any organisation pursing this agenda knows that the real change lives not on its digital platforms but among its people and their way of working. It is here that the biggest shift needs to happen.

“Organisations are made up of people, culture, processes and governance that serve to reinforce a way of working,” explains Cameron Gough, general manager of Australia Post’s Digital Delivery Centre.

“The moment you decide to go outside that way of working, those four things act like an auto-immune system that kicks in to kill off the unfamiliar.”

“So if you really want to change the way you work then you must also focus on changing the things that stop you from being different. This could mean everything from internal processes and governance to your rewards system and how people move within the organisation. The new reality is constant change.”

Here, Gough talks about the value of small, multi-functional teams, why digital transformation shouldn’t be an organisational goal and how to recruit based on skills and needs rather than job titles.

What does this new reality mean for internal collaborations, particularly in government?

The traditional internal structures and management models for large organisations today have evolved from an era that focused on managing for efficiency. The