Unlock success in this digital age by developing a digital mindset (#40)
People need to take a digital-first approach and develop a digital mindset no matter what role they play.
The Covid-19 pandemic caused companies to rush to adopt technology that enables remote work, facilitates collaboration and communication, and streamlines operations. To keep up with their employers’ rapid adoption of new technologies during the pandemic, people also changed quickly. But as the impact of the pandemic at work has started to subside, companies are increasingly being challenged by another important factor that is changing the way work is done: increasing use of data, algorithms and artificial intelligence at work.
Companies around the world need to go full-throttle in digital transformation if they want to embrace the numerous changes that come with artificial intelligence and other modern data driven technologies. But in digital transformation, technology alone is just a bunch of codes and machines. It is the people who make the real difference. A successful digital enterprise isn’t a technological enterprise, it’s a confederation of inspired people empowered by technology.Digital transformation in any business requires its people to learn new technological skills. But this is not enough. Business leaders and employees must be motivated to create and act on new ideas and use their skills to create new opportunities — they need a digital mindset.
It is hard to cultivate a digital mindset, but the effort is worthwhile. According to a Harvard Business Review article, employees who develop a digital mindset are more successful and satisfied at work, they are more likely to be promoted and they are more likely to develop useful skills that they can apply if they decide to change jobs. Digitally minded leaders can prepare their organizations for success and build a resilient workforce. And companies equipped with digitally minded leaders and employees will be more sensitive to market changes and better able to take advantage of new business opportunities.
What is a digital mindset?
A mindset is a way of thinking and acting in a world. It’s taking a set of approaches to see a problem in a new way. These approaches help you decide what are the possibilities, how are you going to move ahead and take actions.
Broadly speaking, digital mindset is a set of approaches about seeing the possibilities for how to act in the digital age. In their latest book, The Digital Mindset: What It Really Takes to Thrive in the Age of Data, Algorithms, and AI, Paul Leonardi, a professor in the Department of Technology Management at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Tsedal Neeley, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School define a digital mindset as a set of approaches we use to make sense of, and make use of, data and technology.
Unfortunately, many people roll their eyes when asked what it means to go through digital transformation, or have digital technologies and data to change our work or our behaviors in any meaningful way. People fear that being digitally minded means they need to become technologists who master the intricacies of coding, algorithms, AI, machine learning, robotics, and who-knows-what’s-next. But digital mindset is not just about technical skills, although you have to have some technical skills. Digital mindset is also a way of thinking about data, devices, and technologies as well as how we operate in an organization, write Leonardi and Neeley write in their book.
So what are the approaches you need to operate from in order to succeed in the digital age? Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley highlight a set of approaches in three key areas: collaboration, computation and change.
Collaboration
Most people have their own approaches to collaboration — they know how to strategically choose with whom to interact and how to interact with that chosen person. But in the digital age things are becoming increasingly different. In this remote/hybrid era, collaborating with humans means that we need to keep coordinating to avoid being out of sight and out of mind. On the other hand, artificial intelligence (AI) robots are entering workplaces and rapidly becoming our teammates and colleagues rather than just tools. In this new scenario, we need to understand that machines cannot be treated like humans, write Leonardi and Neeley write in their book. They are very different. We need to participate in the machine learning process without getting frustrated, discouraged, or disappointed. We must learn how to enhance humans with machines.
Computation
As decisions are based increasingly on data, developing an approach to computation of data is equally important, write Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley in the book. We need to understand what data we are collecting and what data we are leaving out, how data are produced, how those data are being categorized, how results are being presented and how the predictions are being made based on the analysis of those data. And since statistics is being increasingly used by data scientists to make predictions about future courses of action, we need to have basic statistical knowledge to figure out whether a business can act on the predictions or whether such predictions are useful
Change
The third and final approach is about embracing change. We generally think of change as something that happens occasionally. We have long periods of harmony when things are staying the same and then a big change happens and then again things return to being relatively calm for a certain period of time until another change event occurs. This may have been a useful way to think about the world pre-digital but today it’s an outdated approach because everything we do in our information environment such as technologies that we use and decisions we need to make are constantly changing. There isn’t any period of stasis anymore, argue Leonardi and Neeley in the book. So our approach to change needs to recognize that we’re always transitioning from one technology to another, from one business model to another, from one strategic initiative to another. A big reason for that is all the new data that is being collected, produced and analyzed by digital technologies. We are undergoing constant change so it is crucial to foster an experimental mindset and gather feedback on what is working and what is not working.
Leaders must assist their teams in acquiring the abilities necessary to adapt to change. They should seek to foster a culture that is open to change rather than hoping for a moment when things will settle down because that time will never come.
30 percent rule
Most people are concerned about whether they can develop enough competencies to succeed in this digital age if they don’t have a computer science background, if they aren’t coders or if they don’t know much about programming. Fortunately, most people can develop enough competencies without mastering the intricacies of programming or building their own algorithms or running advanced models, write Paul Leonardi and Tsedal Neeley in their book. Unless people work in areas that heavily depend on understanding ins and outs of code and developing algorithms correctly, they don’t need to be a programmer or learn how to code.
People only need to be roughly 30% competent in collaboration, computation and change in order to make smart decisions and thrive in the digital era, claim Leonardi and Neeley in their book. Developing a digital mindset is like learning a second language. A person has to know around 12,000 words in order to master a language and speak it fluently. However, only 30% of that, or roughly 4,000 words, are needed to be proficient enough to communicate with those who speak that different language.
The 30 percent rule means, to build a digital mindset, you don’t need to be a programmer, data scientist or an expert who understands all the intricacies of cyber security. But you need enough vocabulary, knowledge and intuition to see the bigger picture and ask the important questions about what computer programmers and scientists are doing, what’s happening inside a software application, what an algorithm generally is doing, how to make use of A/B tests, how to make AI chatbots do what you need it to do. Likewise, you need to understand what data is collected and what data is left out, where data is coming from, how data is categorized and how to interpret statistical results. If you don’t have that 30 percent, you don’t know enough to ask the right questions, you can’t make sense of what people are asking you and you can’t interpret data well enough to be a part of conversation.
Organizational structures, job responsibilities, human competencies and customer needs are all constantly changing due to digital technology. If we fail to prioritize and develop a digital mindset, we won’t be prepared to take advantage of the opportunities our ever changing environment offers. We will then quickly fall behind those who have digital skills required to participate in and contribute to the digital economy. Consequently, our jobs will be at risk. To avoid this situation, spend time and effort to develop a digital mindset.
This is both informational and motivational at the same time. Really cool!