Transform Tech & Talent Together

The fifth core blind spot relates to AI-boosted digitalization. Transformation is often seen as a project or a complete reboot. The first is too limited in scope. The second feels too tough to start, and doesn't recognise how far we have come. Either view hinders your successful progress. Digital Transformation (2.0) requires a human-centric, systemic approach to get to a state of digital change.
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“Digital transformation and digital evolution call for reconsidering how an organization uses technology, enables its people, and changes its processes in pursuit of new business models and revenue streams,” ​Paul J. Walsh​, Head of Digital, Technology, Engineering, IT and Operations, Sony.

Your products/services now evolve as a loop of customers' changing demands and behaviors. 'One-and-done' updates are long over. Note the dynamism of digitalised business needs to help match your mindset to the evolving status quo and absorb the system shift. Everything is already networked, in motion. However, future-proofing your business requires coordination and integration.  

“The 30% success rate hasn’t budged after many years of research. It’s time for companies to treat transformations as more than just a side project or discrete event and use them as opportunities to fundamentally change how their business runs." — ​McKinsey, 2021​

Much change has happened since the major wave of digital transformations in 2015-2017 and efforts pre-2021, including the advent of generally accessible generative AI. Expanded opportunities are here. Your company is undoubtedly reworking business model elements or developing new revenue streams or may have been generated or significantly boosted by AI-related capabilities.

You're on the journey. Shifting from a project-mindset to systems thinking enables you to integrate all these efforts to become part of a digitally-mature and viable, expanded future trajectory. Treat transformation as a living system, an evolved and evolving way of thinking, operating and working.

Make continuous improvement a habit. Firms that do, double their odds of sustaining gains [McKinsey]. Adapt the mental cadence from "finish X by Q1" to "iterate every quarter." Find interdependencies to identify sustained, company-wide practices — strategically planned with prioritised roll out sequence. However, technology and finding a digital rhythm are only part of the equation.

"The most successful organisations are more likely to involve employees and engage them in face-to-face communication using....a cascade of information throughout the business." — ​McKinsey, 2021​.

Human-centred Integration

A human-centric system aligns your business ecosystem of prospects and customers and those who are involved in supplying, providing, contacting, engaging, and serving them—your vendors, partners, distributors, and blended workforce of employees, contractors and now digital labour.

A systemic approach elevating human understanding ensures you develop and communicate a strategic, integrated digitalization plan that addresses business priorities and can help mitigate external issues and concerns. Your organization is more like a living organism now, connected by increasingly sophisticated applications and human relationships, up and down the supply chain.

For the Customer Journey:

• Econonomic uncertainty, tight budgets, AI's influence in buying and selling, negative buying experiences, and long purchase cycles caused 86% of business-to-business purchases to stall during the buying process [​Forrester Dec 2024​].
• CFO confidence dropped Q2 - the economy 53%, cybersecurity 51%, supply chain disruptions 43% cited by CFOs [​Deloitte in CFO.com​].

How can AI and human connections together achieve optimal results throughout the Customer Journey? Is AI already interpreting elongated sales cycle data to assess prospects' situations and de-risk their decision? Are your sales folks using empathy skills effectively to tap into what potential buyers are going through to build upon AI-informed analysis and offer the most comprehensive solution carefully attuned to their specific situation?

For the Employee Journey:

• 44% of employees worldwide suffer stress as the top workforce mental health challenge.
• 44% cite excessive workloads 41% say inadequate staffing are top work stressors for US workers [​Lyra, 2025 State of Workforce Mental Health​].
• 52% of US employees are more worried than hopeful about future AI use in the workplace [​Pew Research 2025​].
• Only 41% of managers are willing to change their work behaviors to support organizational change.
• 16% increase in sustainable performance if teams get time/space to identify fears/beliefs about change, find solutions, shift actions.
• 9% increase in high change adoption by empowering employees to personally master change ownership [​Gartner 2025]​.

Human-centricity, starting from leadership, is critical to increase trust, psychological safety and alignment and reduce stress during transformation to future-proof your organisation. Your people need to be on board.

A cohesive culture is crucial to anchor the entire workforce during localised transitions, decrease distracting noise, and keep overall momentum going. Increase transparency and clarity to share goals and reduce unknowns, fear and stress, and improve employee engagement and performance.

Benefit from frontline insights, younger employees' digital-savvy, and older workers' experience to inform and bolster transformation plans. Everyone is part of the plan, progress, and ongoing success.

How can you introduce a more human-centred leadership approach today?

As teams navigate the uneasy balance between technology and human connection, I hear the same tensions and issues affecting sales.

Right before the pandemic, I created a LinkedIn course on empathy for sales professionals, which more than 430,000 learners have taken and given me a 4.7-star rating from over 1,000 reviewers.

The response was extraordinary and inspired me to build a multimodal version to meet the greater challenges and complexities involved in sales today.

Selling a product or finalising a partnership has always been about connection, but right now, few are feeling grounded or comfortable. Buyers are concerned and cautious, sellers are under pressure, and technology is reshaping how we relate, build trust, and make decisions. Developing authentic relationships in this environment can feel even harder, yet it’s also more important than ever.

This course goes deep: helping you connect with potential customers as well as understand and upsell existing clients even when they’re very uncertain .

It’s the most comprehensive version of my empathy-in-sales approach yet, with 17 complete lesson packages — each including a high-quality video, takeaways, quiz, and multiple exercises and downloadable worksheets — all built to help you enhance your empathy skills to practice with confidence.

Empathy isn’t just good for relationships; it’s good for results.

• It helps you uncover what prospects really need and increase conversions.
• It strengthens trust that leads to renewals and long-term loyalty.
• It sustains success even when markets are unpredictable.
• It improves team ties, communication, collaboration, and outcomes.

To celebrate this NEW release, I’m offering a free 30-minute private coaching session (value $350) to the first five people who enroll.

LEGO​'s near-bankruptcy resulted from poorly executed digital transformation especially lack of internal information flow. Successes were achieved from integrated digital platforms and crowdsourced designs from users [​IMD study​].

​NIKE​ integrated personalised product recommendations to enhance customer engagement and sales, smart fitness apps aligning with users health-centric interests, seamless virtual stores and experiences, and advanced supply chain management, streamlined order fulfillment, increasing operational agility.

​Schneider Electric​ restructured a 130k person “connected workforce” model: with digital platforms, continuous learning, AI-driven tools to upskill workers and embedd flexibility with role redesign, real-time data dashboards, frontline empowerment in 100+ countries - productivity rose 25%, engagement 20%.

​DBS Bank​ positioned transformation as continual “live enterprise” and a daily system, retraining all employees in agile, design thinking and data literacy with emphasis on a data-driven culture enterprise-wide. Customer satisfaction rose 45% and their employee Net Promoter Score (NPS) doubled [​MIT study]​.

​Haier​ (China) dismantled hierarchies building 4,000+ micro-enterprises each as small autonomous, innovation units with empowered teams. A rolling transformation loop kept technology and talent deeply integrated. Networked autonomy improved speed-to-market 70% and market cap rose 15x [​for more​]

​Unilever​ designed “people powered transformation” reskilling 155k employees, embedding agile squads, aligning digital strategy to purpose-led workforce, rewiring supply chains, creating digital twins, and democratising information. 80% of employees continuously learn, innovation pipeline speed rose 30%.

​Adobe​'s pivot to subscription services succeeded after they rebuilt culture and processes around the customer system, invested deeply in retraining and built a transparent communication loop between engineers, sales, and users. Subscription revs exceed 90% of sales. One of Fortune's Best Cos to Work For.

"We are creating a culture and organization which is data-intelligent across our end-to-end supply chain, supported with the data, analytics and insights to make smarter, faster decisions to understand, anticipate and exceed consumer expectations,” says ​Dave Penrith,​ former Chief Engineer, Unilever.

Humanising Systemic Transformation

Big shifts build from small steps. Here are practical ways to align technology and talent and evolve to a more integrated human-centric digitalised system:

• Map current digitalisation efforts: Ask senior executives 'Are these transformation initiatives being run as discrete projects or part of a connected, evolving system? Clarify ownership overlaps, interdependencies, and where feedback loops are missing.
• Spot mismatches: Identify three areas where tech, process, and people are out of sync such as a new platform launched without role or workflow redesign or training.
• Launch an integration sprint: Pick one area for instance a segment of the Customer Journey or operations. Run a rapid iteration for a live capability build involving users, prototyping, gettng feedback, refining.
• Set up a continuous improvement rhythm: Shift from “we’ll revisit this in 12 months,” but “we’ll review this each quarter.” Continuous conversation builds confidence and agency across all levels.
• Conduct a people check-in: Ask 10 team members across levels, “Do you feel involved in how we're transforming with AI/digital integrations? Do you see us evolving as a system or each project helps us advance?”"Do you understand how AI may impact my role"
• Pair AI integration with skills support: Commit equal investment to upskilling and role adaptation when new tech is rolled out.
• Transform through micro-learning: Offer short “tech fluency” sessions, peer demos, or reflection huddles after each rollout to normalize learning as part of work, not extra work.
• Protect against burnout: Schedule “pause and process” windows after major launches to consolidate learning and reflect on what’s working.
• Host an “AI + Human Design” workshop: Gather tech, HR, and team leads to identify automatable tasks and tasks where human judgment is invaluable, framing automation as empowerment, not replacement.

What change can you make this week to systematise transformation?

How can you ensure talent and technology dynamics are balanced?

📹 ​Why Human-Centric Digital Transformation is Essential for Success.​

‍📘 ​Digital Transformation: A Human-Centric Approach​.

🗞️ ​Human-Centric Approaches Key to Successful Digital Transformation​.

‍🎶 ​We're All In This Together​, Ben Lee - many hands make light work!

Transformation doesn't have a finish line — it’s the system you are living in and are working through. A potentially daunting concept for some. However, when tech and talent evolve together, everyone is involved and part of the solution, so the change becomes sustainable, scalable and human.

With my deep strategy experience and human understanding of workplace issues, I enable leaders to identify needs, expand capacity, and scale with more clarity. I strengthen your leadership impact and assure your business can transform and succeed. ​Click here to book a 30-minute session.​

Until next time!

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Sophie