UNDERSTANDING MINDSETS AS A FOUNDATION FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
When questions about digital transformation are asked, a lot of hippy consultants abruptly at the speed of light flip open their toolboxes full of redundant and impractical methods and a whole jute bag full of abbreviations and anglicisms. But before any projects of transformation or change around digital topics are started, certain simple questions ought to be asked. And you most definitely do not need a consultant for that. Such questions include:
- Objectives: What sort of changes are we looking forward to see?
- Organisation: At which levels do we want to see this change? Processes, culture, values and attitudes, in the business model?
- Effect: How radical are these changes? Are we talking about optimisation or change (= transformation)?
- What roles are technological and human efforts playing in our project?
- Target audience: Who are we addressing and in what tone?
- Needs: Are we talking about wealth and/or will?
WHY MINDSET?
The term “mindset” has become widely used in the process of rediscovering corporate culture. Same is the case as in counselling and contemporary literature. For example Carol Dweck distinguishes between “growth” and “fixed mindset” on a personal level. Therefore, in the talks around digital change, we will briefly be talking about digital mindset.
What exactly has mindset got to do with change processes?
- Scientifically, we are at the core of our own individual cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology deals with mental processes such as attentiveness, perception, thoughts, memory, understanding and problem solving.
- These findings are linked at the organisational level with questions of management and leadership. People have ways of thinking, managers are people, managers control and influence organisations and a variety of mindsets. These mindsets in turn are exposed to an external context and influence each other. This is where organisational psychology and system theoretical approaches come together.
- In the practice of communication, this has relevance in the upcoming field of (neuro) marketing. Research suggests that external information has an influence on our decisions and that, to a large extent, we unconsciously make decisions.
- Cognition research focuses psychologically on attitudes and convictions. It does matter what we know or believe about the subject of our decision. The connection this has to the “mindset” is that the mind constructs its realities and “filters” through it every corresponding information. Whenever we hear the word “digitalization”, we automatically assign it to this indefinite collective term of a category. Researchers however assume that certain “scripts” continually go on. Depending on the “mindset”, we would be facing the topic positively or reserved. This can also be carried over into organisations, except that there are whole sums of scripts present here.
- Here also lies a problem with contemporary literature. Many authors recommend to observe one’s attitude [2] “to change” i.e., to work on one’s own future mindset. It is questionable whether the imperative can actually lead to attitudinal changes on an individual and collective (organisational) level.
An Approach to Digital Transformation: Managerial and Organisational Cognition (MOC)
Many people must have experienced in their lives that clever strategies do not always lead to the desired success and behavior. Luhmann would have made peace with it. In the paradigm of strategic management, it is therefore of paramount interest to identify the “missing element” between environmental conditions and strategic management. This is where the MOC helps. It focuses on cognitive processes, which in turn can be observed in (formal and informal) communication and in corporate culture. According to Hodgkinson and Sparrow (as early as 2002) the following principles apply:
- We are limited in our information processing ability to perceive the complexity and diversity of environmental stimuli.
- It is therefore necessary that we put to use a variety of strategies so as to reduce the information processes that would otherwise arise. In short, the organisation responds to complex issues with complexity.
- This diversity culminates into the development of a simplified representation of reality (i.e. mindset), which is encrypted or embedded in the psyche of the individual.
- Once formed, the mindsets act as “filters”, which then processes incoming information and in turn can lead to biased and flawed decisions.
- However, under certain conditions they can provide the basis for creative ideas and new insights.
The question from a management perspective is this; how do we get to point 5? How do discourses, communication and culture shape themselves as “corporate mindsets” to support constructive and creative attitudes towards change?
One thing is certain: we can observe and, to a certain degree, analyse communication and corporate culture and take stock of it for a moment (Organisational Cultural Inventory). This adds a further dimension to the transformability of organisations, beyond professional, technical and economic aspects.
In conclusion, culture and communication are transient, making it unresolved as to how they can be managed in a constructive manner.
Written by Klaus Motoki Tonn for Lumen Partners
Serving as a senior lead at the Landeskirche Hannovers and sh|ft, Motoki is laden with the desire to be a pioneer on many fronts.
He has gone ahead to found Lumen Design and Lumen Partners alongside many other agencies, organisations and initiatives that remain fully in operation till date.
Although he may seem younger in appearance, he has gained more than 20 years of experience in strategic communication, innovation design and entrepreneurship. The first half of his professional life, he worked as a corporate lawyer for large corporations in the fields of M&A, IT and Investor Relations. He is currently writing his PhD project in the field of Digitalization Strategies and is in a publishing deal with Springer Gabler on a publication on Mindset.
