five superpowers to transform

The high percentage of digital transformation failures suggests that embarking on a digital transformation of an organisation is an almost impossible quest. 
Why do organisations that can afford to hire the best talent, buy platinum platforms and who are run by high-achieving leaders, fail at moving into the digital age?
Surely with the internet now reaching its fourth decade, organisations should be more than up to the task of being digital heroes?
Everyone loves a good hero-story - and for me digitally transforming is a hero-quest of the 21st Century for many organisations.
It can seem like an impossible journey to a magical location and like legendary quests such as The Odyssey, or my favourite, Lord of the Rings.

The quest always involves a heroic group who are given superpowers along the way and only reach their magical destination when they are truly transformed.​
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There are five key reasons why companies struggle to transform:

1. The company's reason for being is poorly translated into a brand purpose that really leverages (or even works) in a digital world.
2. The organisational culture is hierarchical, top-down. Everyone looks up for an answer.
3. The operating model is designed for the product manufacturing world. It has a strong middle-management layer who manage silos. Failure is career limiting, and therefore there is not place for risk taking and change is slow.
4. The business runs on an outdated, usually highly-customised technology platform. The focus of the transformation generally comes from this problem. It is a technology-driven mindset: "Once we have the platform, we can truly transform."
5. The organisation does not have a strong (or often any) capability in building good digital products. Products are built from the inside-out - rather than being properly validated with customers from the outside-in.

 ​While there is a hierarchy among these five factors I find it more useful to look at the five digital factors for success more as non-linear chapters in a transformational story - a kind of hero-quest.

As with any great story, there's a challenge for the hero - in the transformation story it’s usually the challenge of creating amazing experiences through great digital products.
The story must always be focused on the heroic transformation, in this case the organisation truly delivering on an aspirational brand purpose that takes its  customers and business on an incredible journey to a better place. 
As with any quest, the hero is equipped with super-powers along the way. These attributes manifest as: 

• an empowered, curious, non-hierarchical culture
• a self-organising, cross-functional operating model and multi-speed
• a flexible and agile technology platform 

Transformation is not a linear journey
The reason for the high number of digital transformation failures, is that many organisations see their digital transformation story as a linear, mostly technology-driven story that delivers a grand ending. 
But, like any tragedy, if a hero tries to complete their quest with only one-or-two super-powers and ignores the others, then the story doesn't end well.
And in digital the journey is not linear. It’s all about the power of these five factors happening at the same time to deliver a transformational brand experience that will always be evolving.
And this is demonstrated through having amazing digital products that create fans, rather than customers and which deliver on a brand promise that adds more value than it takes.
It sounds magical - but it's not. Like all great storytellers know - there's a clear and measurable formula to success.
And while true digital transformation is a never-ending story every journey has a start point.
​What’s yours?