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Orchestrating Transformation

business transformation) by dint of good financial performance, leads many authors to focus on uncovering the “hidden DNA” of the most innovative or high-performing companies. 6 This book doesn’t do that. Orchestrating Transformation is less about what the best companies do better than anyone else. Instead, it’s largely about what everyone gets consistently wrong—and how to fix it. This book proceeds from a simple premise: most companies are not successful in digital business transformation. Our research and experience show that there are no magical structures, no transformation geniuses, no hidden DNA. But there are consistencies in what companies do poorly. There are les- sons we can glean from the common failures to design a successful and executable approach to digital business transformation. While precise levels of failure in transformation programs remain a source of debate, 7 new studies reveal distressingly low returns on transformation investments. 8 And anecdotal evidence is everywhere about how change is stymied in large organizations. If your company falls into the small subset of organizations that are great at driving change at scale, this is probably not the book for you. But if your organization is more like those we meet every day—large, mature, prosperous companies that don’t know how to successfully

drive a digital business trans- formation, and have tried re- peatedly with mixed or no results—then the frameworks and tools in Orchestrating Transformation may help.

Transformation is not an event; it’s an essential and perpetual task of leadership.

COMPANIES ARE NOT CATERPILLARS When we embarked on the research that gave rise to Digital Vortex, it quickly became apparent that while digital disruption was a buzz- word, there had been no in-depth investigation of how the disruption actually happened. Our second major research project taught us that, in the same vein, when it comes to digital business transformation, platitudes abound. Did you know, for example, that “data is the new oil”? Or that “software is eating the world”? Empty wisdoms like these

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