The Heart, The Soul & The Oxygen Of An Organisation

What defines us, what we need to live, our heart, our soul and oxygen, can be mapped by how we view business and organisations.

The same three pillars form the foundation for your business: put the customer at the heart, see digital as the oxygen and value people as the soul. These need to go hand-in-hand with the company's overarching why – your purpose, your cause, what you believe and for whom – and the what – proof, the result, what you do.

Transforming while performing is a true balancing act, challenging companies of all sizes in this digital revolution powered by new technologies crossing the physical, digital and biological world. How do you find the right balance between performing – delivering on the short-term commitments of your core products and services, such as scorecard, P&L, market share – and transforming – the long-term belief in your future and the power to adapt and lead?

You do this by looking at the three interconnected pillars for your organisation: heart, soul and oxygen.

There are three fundamental questions in making digital transformation real. How do you:

1. Engage your customers, deliver and enhance the end to end customer experience for products and services, and put the customer at the heart? How do you innovate your products to deliver a great and frictionless experience? This is your business to customer strategy.

2. Transform your business, such as your business model, operations, process, offerings and products, by embracing innovation to be more responsive, efficient, fluid, agile and predictive? How do you make digital the oxygen of your company? This is your business to business strategy.

3. Empower your employees and organise yourself in the most productive way, reward cross-group collaboration, develop the right skills and mindsets, and attract and retain the right talent by having people as the soul? This is your business to employee strategy.

But first you must determine your why and what before you craft your heart, soul and oxygen pillars.

The real question will be: how can you accelerate, scale and mainstream digital transformation in your organisation? And it has to be more than new words with old instruments. No one has really cracked it yet and there is probably no single formula, but what I will do in the next postings is share some of my views and my learnings to act as a guide for you and your business so you can thrive in this fast-paced world.

An MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology study on digital transformation has shown the companies that have digitally transformed are 26% more profitable than their average industry competitors.

And this transformation is not just about technology, innovation and science; it's about people, culture, behaviours, passion and mindsets.

So what do you think?