Successful execution of digital transformation is fundamental to ensuring business survival. Only fifty per cent of the Fortune 500 companies of twenty years ago still exist, and the outlook for new enterprises is less encouraging still: only 30% of small businesses survive beyond a decade.
Where big projects go wrong
We believe a key component of successful digital transformation sits in the profiles employed to lead it, at both strategic and execution levels. Our contention is that the over-reliance on experts with narrow areas of specialism is a primary source of failure.
The current approach reinforces both the structural challenge multinational enterprises face — siloed thinking — and the situational one, namely a lack of internal cohesion when executing transformation initiatives. Both cause real problems, and a change in leadership profile is needed to improve outcomes.
Why leaders rely on specialists
Digital transformation is complicated, and many leaders lack the depth of knowledge to oversee it. That is not a criticism. Technology moves fast enough that keeping up is hard, let alone mastering it while running a global organisation.
So business leaders legitimately rely on external support, advisors and subject matter experts. It seems logical: if the problem is with IT, bring in IT specialists; if the problem is customer loyalty, hire a brand expert. The issue arises when a specialist is too narrow and too focused on a single task to see the bigger picture. They make recommendations, solve the immediate issue or implement a platform in good faith, and the desired outcome fails to materialise. Millions invested, with unintended consequences and legacy problems for the business to overcome.
The challenge is therefore how to assemble teams that see the whole picture while maintaining executional excellence, in a way that is efficient with both cost and time.
I-shaped and T-shaped people
There is a useful way of describing people by the depth and breadth of their expertise.
An I-shaped individual has deep, specialised knowledge in a single field. They excel in a particular area and are considered subject matter experts, but because their expertise is narrow in scope they can find it hard to adapt or to work across other fields. They tend to see both problem and solution through the lens of their own discipline: go to a surgeon with a health problem and surgery is the likely recommendation. Where several I-shaped people are involved, each pushing their own preferred answer, the process gets slower rather than faster.
A T-shaped individual, a term first coined by McKinsey in the 1980s, combines deep expertise in one area with a broader understanding of related disciplines. They thrive in collaborative settings and bring a holistic perspective. But T-shaped people can struggle where they understand some of everything and not enough of anything to move things forward. The result is endless discussion without conclusion, or a compromise that tries to please everyone.
In an increasingly complex environment, I- and T-shaped experts may resolve a specific issue without having the scope to deliver the best solution for the whole business. There is another option.
M-shaped people
M-shaped people have a multi-disciplinary profile and work in depth across several complementary areas of expertise. Their cross-functional, holistic thinking produces practical and enduring solutions, delivered more easily and more quickly.
This is why we have M-shaped individuals across the organisation. Our consultants have broad and deep experience in business, commerce and technology. Our solution architects can define business requirements, manage projects and derive the business case while accumulating business context. Our lead developers are expert in several technologies and also in project management and client communication. Our designers undertake the UX and UI work and can equally define requirements and develop the messaging.
That depth and business-wide understanding allows an agile approach that looks beyond the immediate issue. It lets us think past the initial scope of work, solve problems at speed and deliver a creative solution. The result is work designed for the whole business rather than a single department, with implementation and impact considered over time rather than as an immediate fix.
Why hire ten single-subject experts when you can have one multi-expert?
Doug KillickWhat it looks like in practice
In one recent example, we used an anti-counterfeit technology to solve a sales problem, by recognising a use case nobody had seen. Our team bridged the gap between manufacturing execution systems and consumer experience, connecting several layers of systems in between. We took the business case to a different internal function, which transformed the return on capital employed for the original technology investment and delivered a 4% market share gain for the business overall.
M-shaped consultancy can also be simply more efficient than single-subject expertise. When we took over a DevOps support and management contract from a well-known computer consultancy, four full-time engineers replaced a team of eleven part-time people. Productivity and output rose by more than 30%.
In short
- Narrow expertise is a primary source of transformation failure, not a cure for it.
- I-shaped experts solve for their own discipline. T-shaped experts broaden the conversation without always closing it.
- M-shaped people work in depth across several disciplines, so the answer serves the whole business.
- The commercial case is straightforward: fewer people, less translation between them, faster outcomes.
Where this leaves you
Twenty-first century businesses face technological and operational challenges that need several skills at once to resolve. Single-subject experts still have a role, but increasingly the multidisciplinary individual will be the expert of choice, particularly in a crisis. Choosing one brings a more holistic view of the technology landscape and better-optimised resources, and it delivers better value for money.
Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics; Forbes, “The top 10 reasons why businesses will fail over the next 10 years”; Entrepreneur, “The true failure rate of small businesses”.