MM#257--Land Ho, The Digital Revolution Has Been Spotted, CEO's Beware

Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, David Kaiser.

Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. There is a war on small businesses and there has been since, before the COVID pandemic, but it certainly was exacerbated with the onset of said pandemic. But that is a Mojo Minute for another day. Today we have some great nuggets of wisdom from a fantastic book that I'm digging into. All around business leadership an interesting subject. So, in keeping with our tradition, let's go right to the book for our first poll quote. As CEO, I've worked with some very smart board members, people who don't hesitate to constructively challenge companies' decisions. But I've noticed they often go quiet when those decisions are focused on technology, even when adoption of new technology could affect the success of the company's strategy. Some board members just don't know what questions to ask. I'm not saying board members need to know every minute detail about emerging technology, but I am saying they need to know enough about these technologies to have informed discussions and to ask the right questions. And this quote comes to us from an interesting book I would say so far. The title is Thoughts from the Big Chair by Russell Haworth a Leaders Guide to Digital Transformation. Now to capture the spirit of our first poll quote we've all seen these CEOs before. We've all been around the conference room tables with them. If they don't know a certain area of business, they are afraid to ask about that certain area of business. They're afraid to get up to speed on it, as we say, why Doesn't that seem silly? Not every person can be up to speed on every emerging part of the economy or a certain trend in culture, but CEOs are paid well to be just that the guardians of their respective companies' ships, those ships of state, so to speak, those ships on the high seas of the economy. They are paid to not wreck the company's ship, so they should be willing to speak up and ask those interesting and engaging questions. So I found this book extremely interesting, especially on the business leadership side and more specifically on the digital revolution side, because we are living through a digital revolution right now. So with that, let's go back and find out the plot of this book from the author himself. That's why I wrote this book so that the board members, senior leaders and anyone else who is tasked with making or challenging extremely consequential business decisions that relate to technology in general and digital transformation in particular, have the information they need to do so. This book breaks down the key concepts that underpin various emerging technologies and defines confusing tech terminology with non-tech types in mind. It also relays digital transformation examples in some of my own real life experiences to provide some context. At the end of each chapter it provides a series of questions that board members can ask as they do their due diligence for tech-related decisions. My hope is that this book removes the veil of mystery that surrounds much of tech. The title, thoughts from the Big Chair, reflects inputs I've incorporated from senior executives and board members about their thoughts of how to navigate major technological changes in response to market needs. These and other interviews can be found on my podcast by the same name. Now I haven't checked out his podcast, but I did find that intriguing. That's a little nugget of wisdom right there, a mini nugget of wisdom, a bonus nugget of wisdom, because I just thought about that. So I will have to check out his podcast. But to talk about small businesses in general, they often feel like they are being left behind, whether it's the technology revolution that happened in the 1990s and early 2000s with computers and with email marketing, now to the digital revolution that we're all experiencing now with artificial intelligence, ai, and often those small businesses are being left behind, but do they have to be? Often, the owners of said businesses will say money is the culprit, but small businesses just don't have the money to spend on these technologies to make it worth their while. They don't see the ROI, the return on investment, immediately. Well, is that always the case? Or perhaps is the digital revolution ushering in in the same very topic we talked about in our last mojo minute? Is it ushering in a different mindset? That is required Because perhaps, with the right mix of workers, with the right mindset of workers, with the right culture of employees wanting to get better each and every day and increase their value by improving their abilities, is the digital revolution going to have access to every business To take advantage of these human abilities? Or perhaps it would be better to say to take advantage of the robotic levels of output that we're seeing, especially with AI? Is it human beings and their human abilities to be able to manage the robots? It's a good question and, more importantly, is the digital transformation something you could just neglect? Put your head in the sand and hope it goes away? Now, if you are an owner or a CEO of a small business, can you afford to sit on the sidelines and wait it out. Well, let's see it from the perspective of this CEO. Going back to the book, maybe you're not sold on digital transformation. Your company's running smoothly, as is. Why go to the time, trouble and expense of transforming it into a digital enterprise? The answer is simple Because you must. Recent corporate history is littered with companies who haven't anticipated change. Think blockbusters demise by failing to adapt to on-demand digital streaming. The pandemic was a necessary shift to digitizing. Many businesses that had long procrastinated on their journey to digital. Visionary companies will carve out new strategic options for themselves. Those that don't adapt will fail, said McKinsey and Company noting, digital can give birth to entirely new business models that shake up sectors, leaving companies that fail to adapt struggling to survive. Now you may think your company is safe from all this, but think again. It is only a matter of time until digital transformation impacts every industry. Yes, I'm afraid he's right. It's only a matter of time until digital transformation impacts every industry. I don't think cloud computing or artificial intelligence is going away. It's made too big of an impact, companies have made too many changes and it's just now going to be the way of life. If you were a horse-drawn carriage owner in the 1910s and 1920s, you might have thought I hope the automobile doesn't take off. Well, it did. So you need to adapt, perhaps change your business model, or at least look, evaluate what is happening in your industry, in your marketplace, so you can understand how to make those changes. And our author brings up two good points, or nuggets of wisdom for our small businesses out there. He brought up blockbuster. Failing to see the rapid increase of on-demand streaming and them not wanting to play in that space was an epic failure. It led to their demise. And number two, if you think that the digital transformation isn't going to affect your business, you're sadly mistaken. It's better to prepare for a hurricane than to wish it did not rain. Let's go back to the book for our final nugget of wisdom. Even if you're failing to transform, your business didn't spell doom, you'd be mad not to do it, because the benefits of digital transformation are massive. Recent research by McKinsey Global Institute suggests that digital transformation can reduce costs by four to 6% and increase production by as much as 15%. In a 2019 survey by the Harvard Business Review reveals that digital transformation yields significant gains in revenue, profitability, market position, operational efficiency, customer loyalty retention, employee satisfaction and company culture. Ultimately, depending on the size of your organization, undergoing a digital transformation can yield millions and increase profits each year. To capitalize on these benefits, you must act now, though. By delaying, you give your competitors a head start. Worse, you leave room for newcomers to disrupt your industry completely. Tesla, amazon, netflix are just three examples of digital companies that have disrupted industries and toppled incumbent players, and there are countless more that we can name off, and the longer you wait, the harder it will be to catch up. Well, it's true that digital transformation can be an expensive undertaking. In the end, it saves money, it opens up new avenues for business and it gives you a competitive edge. Put it another way not becoming a digital enterprise could cost you even more, and if your competitor goes digital and you don't, a new player disrupts your industry, or a new player disrupts your industry altogether. Your failure to adapt might even put you out of business. So, in the very end, ceos and small business owners that don't need the don't heed rather don't heed the warnings that the digital revolution is here and don't want to embark on guiding their company through a digital transformation to open up other avenues and other business models that their company could cash in on might be essentially running their company ship into the ground, like a 17th century mariner running into the shoals and beaching their ship of state. The nugget of wisdom here is digital transformation might be expensive, not to mention difficult, but it is totally necessary, especially as we look at the horizon of these emerging technologies. So in today's mojo minute, whether you're a company CEO and we have many that listen to this podcast or you own your own small business and we have many of them that listen to this podcast as well I am your ship's watchman and I have yelled out land hoe. I'm informing you that the land has been found. It is on the horizon. As the prudent captain of your company ship, you have been warned that rocky ground, shoals, reefs and barren islands are close by. It's your job to consult your maps, learn about the landscape you're sailing into and navigate the waters accordingly. In our next mojo minute, we will bring you into the map room and give you a good briefing on what the train looks like out there, but for now, please appreciate the thoughts from the big chair. A colleague of yours, a peer, is telling you the digital revolution is here and it's here to stay.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.