University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Don’t Let Digital Obsession Destroy Your Organization
Article

Don’t Let Digital Obsession Destroy Your Organization

Companies and leaders must take a holistic approach to get digital transformation right.

Matthew Doan
MIT Sloan Management Review, 2021
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The COVID-19 pandemic fast-tracked digital transformation for many companies. Yet as digital leadership coach Matthew Doan cautions, pushing digital transformation without consideration for its human and systemic implications can be a recipe for failure. Writing for MIT Sloan Management Review, he outlines three ways to adopt new technologies that advance – rather than disrupt – existing processes and company culture.

Summary

Leaders of digital transformation can learn from holistic medicine when addressing organizational health.

In modern medicine, new technologies, game-changing drugs and specialization enabled doctors to identify and treat many diseases and conditions in innovative ways. Yet more often than not, these highly targeted treatments failed to address the root causes and underlying conditions that caused the ailment in the first place. Holistic medicine seeks to correct this shortcoming by considering the patient in his or her entirety, and taking a multidisciplinary approach to healing.

Organizations rushing to adopt digital technologies tend to repeat the mistakes of specialized modern medicine. They focus narrowly on specific inefficiencies and make large investments to optimize them. They...

About the Author

Matthew Doan is a digital leadership coach and a leader within Boston Consulting Group’s digital practice. 

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