The main elements of a digital culture

One of the key components to achieving digital transformation is culture, and this is where many businesses fail. Some have identified organizational culture change as the most important challenge in digital transformation.
Although it is not easy to use new ways of thinking and participation in organizations, it is necessary to implement continuous digital transformation in the organization. If the organization cannot create the belief in its employees that digital can help the organization, people and society for a better future, effective digital transformation will not come true. In fact, leaders consider digital transformation as a paradigm of fundamental change and believe that, like other transformations, digital transformation also needs a culture to support the dominant strategy of the organization while supporting the changes.
To be successful, a digital culture must have the characteristics that we will discuss briefly below.

• Promotes external rather than internal orientation
A digital culture encourages employees to look outward and interact with customers and partners to create new solutions. A prime example of an extrinsic orientation is a focus on the customer journey. Employees develop the product and improve the customer experience by putting themselves in the customer’s shoes.

• Prefers delegation to control
The digital culture spreads the culture of decision-making deep in the organization. Instead of receiving explicit instructions on how to do their job, employees follow guiding principles where their judgment can be trusted.

• Prefers boldness to caution
In a digital culture, people are encouraged to take risks, fail quickly, learn, and try not to maintain the status quo out of habit or caution.

• Emphasizes more action and less planning
In a rapidly changing digital world, planning and decision-making must shift from long-term to short-term. A digital culture supports the need for “speed” and promotes constant iteration rather than perfecting a product or idea before launch.

• Values ​​collaboration more than individual effort
Success in a digital culture is achieved through teamwork and information sharing across departments, units, and functions. The fast pace of digital work requires a greater level of transparency and engagement than is available in traditional organizations.

• There is a willingness to take risks
Creating a culture where people feel comfortable trying things that might fail starts with attitudes and role models from senior leaders. They need to break the status quo of hierarchical decision-making, champion innovation rather than optimization, and celebrate learning from failure. It helps when executives show through their actions that they trust the front line to make meaningful decisions.
However, delegation only works if employees have the skills, mindset, and access to information to use it. External hires from established startups or digital natives can help inject transformative thinking that is a source of innovative energy and empowerment. For example, Starbucks has launched a digital venture team that has hired VPs from Google, Microsoft and Razerfish to help generate outside-the-box thinking.

• Customers
Although companies have long stated their intention to get closer to their customers, the digital age is forcing them to actually do it and also providing them with better tools. Customers, accustomed to best-in-class user experiences from companies like Amazon and Apple, increasingly expect companies to respond quickly to questions, seamlessly customize products and services, and provide easy access to the information customers need when they need it. They need to provide.

• Eliminates the silhouette look
Some might consider organizational silos a structural issue rather than a cultural one. But silos are more than just lines and boxes. The narrow-mindedness and narrow-mindedness of employees who hesitate to share information or collaborate across functions and departments can be destructive to organizational culture.