Transform. Transform. Transform. The steady cadence of the message to focus on digital transformation is important, but the reality is that it runs the risk of creating transformation fatigue.

“Here’s the thing about your transform journey — your people are feeling transformation fatigue,” said Mary Mesaglio , Distinguished VP Analyst, at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2018 in Barcelona, Spain. “They can’t handle any more change coming at them, or at least they think they can’t.”

Mesaglio shared that most of her calls with clients start with this sentence: “Mary, we are undergoing a digital transformation.”

Her response? Great, what are you transforming into?

“When you get lost in the complexities of all the discrete things you’re doing…it’s amazing how you can lose sight of why we are doing all of this,” she said. “People are feeling fatigued because there is too much going on that they don’t understand.”

Take the test

First, Mesaglio encouraged teams and enterprises to take the following quick transformation test to ensure the group has a solid transformation destination .

Can you tell me:

• What is your enterprise is transforming into, and why?
• In under two minutes?
• Using no “corporate speak?”
• In a way that someone at the frontline would understand and be motivated by?
• Would your peers say roughly the same thing you have?

Even for companies with a clear transformation destination, finding a way to get people moving in that direction can be challenging. The assumption is often that to move toward transformation, the solution has to be large and overarching. In reality, CIOs can opt for smaller, changes, which can be enacted immediately and also have an outsized impact.

Hacks, nudges and prods

Culture is the biggest challenge in digital transformation . CIOs want a culture that is agile, open, creative and customer-centric. Take a three-pronged approach:

• Hack: Exploit a single point where the culture is vulnerable to change
• Nudge: Make it easier for people to behave in ways that are good for them
• Prod: Use incentives and rules to change behaviours.

The question is, how do you keep this sustainable?

Hack

When South Africa was having a water shortage, the government had pop stars sing songs that were two minutes long. The intent was to turn on the song when you start showering, and turn the water off when the song ends. The end result is a quick culture hack to reduce water usage. Hack: Exploit a single point where the culture is vulnerable to change

Culture hacks are emotional, immediate, visible and low effort — but not low courage.

Cultures are vulnerable to change where associates spend most of their time, which is processes, projects and meetings. Meetings, where people spend so much of their time, are particularly ripe for hacking.

Nudge

Imagine you’re moving into new offices and have to choose between a formal office with mahogany desks, high plaster ceilings and closed doors or an open floor plan with no doors and a couch in the middle. Either way, you’re nudging people toward something. Whether it’s more or less collaboration, accidental meetings, noise or formal behaviour, nudging is a gentle form of hacking that makes it easier for people to make the right choice. These choices push people to one behaviour and away from another.

CIOs nudge in three primary ways: Design, default and data. The way your team designs websites, security parameters and predictive analytics nudges employees to act in particular ways.

Prod

The challenge is finding ways to motivate people to behave the way you want them to. Prodding uses incentives and rules to change culture.

CIOs can tap into social norms — the world of relationships, based on social benefit — and use items like recognition, travel, or access to things or people as a way to prod. You can also use the cost of inaction or peer pressure as a prodding mechanism.

The other way of prodding is to create small rules, such as “All staff meetings will now be 15-minute standups” or “You must work with someone outside your team for this type of project.” This approach enables self-sustaining and habitual change.

At the end of the day, whether they hack, nudge, prod or all three, CIOs shouldn’t overlook the smaller actions that can have a big impact on getting people moving toward transformation and away from fatigue.