Brain Change and Digital Strategies

The renowned military strategist John Boyd taught that people and institutions collect favorite philosophies, strategies, theories and ideologies over a period of time, and then try to align the future to fit them.  The problem with this is the future is rarely like the past, and trying to fit new data into old paradigms often forces us to perform irrational mental gymnastics, which leaves us farther from the truth.

Our resistance to change and unwillingness to question our beliefs in the face of mounting evidence, leads us to analytical and execution failure. A more productive habit would be to continuously review our mental constructs to find out how to modify our interpretations to align with new evidence.  This action, however, goes against our human nature that seeks stability and resists change.  We see the consequences of these challenges weekly as we read about companies (especially retail) failing as a result of their resistance. In the future, developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning will have the potential to help us overcome many of our own mental weaknesses that cause us problems in our pursuit of truth.

In the digital era, our ability to change our thinking becomes even more critical as it must happen at a faster rate.  I remember when updates to an enterprise’s mobile apps required all users to bring their mobile devices into the office to get them loaded and tested.  This was a slow, tedious and expensive process.  Today, as we all know, this can be done worldwide instantly and for very little money through cloud based app stores.  Digital transformation equals speed and accelerated change.

In a world of integrated digital platforms and systems, new digital innovations can impact markets instantly and competitors must be able to react.

The bottom line - one of the biggest factors determining the digital transformation winners of tomorrow will be the brains of leaders – their mental constructs.  Can executives and boards look at new evidence and innovations without biases, resistance to change and prejudices, and grasp how economies, industries, markets and competition will be impacted?  Can they learn about new digital innovations, understand the breadth of the impact, and develop new business strategies based on the new realities? Can they overcome themselves?

It is quite the irony that digital winners will be not simply those with the best digital technologies, but those that can best overcome their own human brains.

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Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict, connect with me on LinkedIn or read more of my articles on digital transformation strategies here:

1. Combinatorial Nature of Digital Technologies and Legos
2. Digital Transformation from 40,000 feet
3. Winning in Chaos - Digital Leaders
4. 13 Recommended Actions for Digital Transformation in Retail
5. Mistakes in Retail Digital Transformation
6. Winning Strategies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
7. Digital Transformation - Mindset Differences
8. Analyzing Retail Through Digital Lenses
9. Digital Thinking and Beyond!
10. Measuring the Pace of Change in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
11. How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards
12. To Bot, or Not to Bot
13. Oils, Bots, AI and Clogged Arteries
14. Artificial Intelligence Out of Doors in the Kingdom of Robots
15. How Digital Leaders are Different
16. The Three Tsunamis of Digital Transformation - Be Prepared!
17. Bots, AI and the Next 40 Months
18. You Only Have 40 Months to Digitally Transform
19. Digital Technologies and the Greater Good
20. Video Report: 40 Months of Hyper-Digital Transformation
21. Report: 40 Months of Hyper-Digital Transformation
22. Virtual Moves to Real in with Sensors and Digital Transformation
23. Technology Must Disappear in 2017
24. Merging Humans with AI and Machine Learning Systems
25. In Defense of the Human Experience in a Digital World
26. Profits that Kill in the Age of Digital Transformation
27. Competing in Future Time and Digital Transformation
28. Digital Hope and Redemption in the Digital Age
29. Digital Transformation and the Role of Faster
30. Digital Transformation and the Law of Thermodynamics
31. Jettison the Heavy Baggage and Digitally Transform
32. Digital Transformation - The Dark Side
33. Business is Not as Usual in Digital Transformation
34. 15 Rules for Winning in Digital Transformation
35. The End Goal of Digital Transformation
36. Digital Transformation and the Ignorance Penalty
37. Surviving the Three Ages of Digital Transformation
38. The Advantages of an Advantage in Digital Transformation
39. From Digital to Hyper-Transformation
40. Believers, Non-Believers and Digital Transformation
41. Forces Driving the Digital Transformation Era
42. Digital Transformation Requires Agility and Energy Measurement
43. A Doctrine for Digital Transformation is Required
44. Digital Transformation and Its Role in Mobility and Competition
45. Digital Transformation - A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Analytics and Mobility
46. Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility
47. Ambiguity and Digital Transformation
48. Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing
49. Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time

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Kevin Benedict

President, Principal Analyst, Futurist, the Center for Digital Intelligence™

Website C4DIGI.com

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.