The biggest problem with your digital strategy may be that you have one.

One of the first things I usually do with new partners is to challenge the existence of their digital strategy. Not the lack of existence - most organisations have one nowadays - but the need for it to exist in the first place.

In this article I'd like to explain why, as a consultant, I discourage the organisations I work with from creating the thing that they want me to help them create. Immediately this may sound bamboozling and poor consultancy 101 - as digital strategies are clean, comfortable and consultancy-repeatable right? Yes they definitely are...

But here's the problem:

The existence, the form, and the function of a standalone digital strategy may actually inhibit your digital progress.

Whilst this might seem a bold statement let's work through this together; prism by prism..

On existence 🧠

As I've frequently proposed in the past in both articles and talks, what is coming in the decade ahead for your organisation, my organisation and every other organisation, is a fundamental and existential shift to the fabric of how it operates. It's not a new website or a new shiny system, it's the whole game changing. Think of your organisation as a mill in the 19th Century. The odds are truly on that we're now well into the tipping point of the second machine age AKA the fourth industrial revolution, but I prefer the former.

If we take the above as a very scary given, I'd like you to think about this 'digital strategy' that you may have. Is it there to be the centre point of every other thing you do in the future? Is it the most important priority in how you transform your organisation?

• If your answer is yes, then it's not a separate digital strategy - it's your organisation strategy.
• If your answer is no, and let's hypothesise that your strategy largely outlines the implementation of a few systems, then are you genuinely making the right priorities for the future of your organisation?

The most successful digitally-minded organisations I know do not have a digital strategy. Their strategy is to use the power of digital in everything they can, and as a primary measure of success. Of course they will have a strategic approach to digital initiatives and projects to continuously improve. But whilst it may seem semantic there is a fundamental difference in what I'm describing and having a 'digital strategy'.

On form (baked two ways) 🍰

Next up. Is it possible that the way that we traditionally form (verb) strategy, and then the manifested form (noun) of a strategy that relates to digital is naturally leading it to get in the way of what you want to achieve? This will likely depend on how you approach and define strategy in your organisation, and there are lots of different definitions. Let's see which yours is.

Does your strategy seek to detail what will happen over a period of time, how it will go, what will be needed and how much it will cost? Or does it outline a set a view of what success would look like based on a range of principles, with some cost and time parameters attached?

If your organisational approach is the first one, and this is still the approach in 2020: the year of global uncertainty then I have some bad news. Based on the high perception of failure rate of digital transformation, you are likely to be setting yourself up to join that club.

All around us there's evidence that we're moving into a world of greater complexity, rapid change and uncertainty. This increasingly causes best laid plans and strategies to come apart, and this is much more the case for digital strategies.

For digital to succeed is has to be done iteratively, responsively and defined by the user, and therefore can't really be centrally defined and planned in detail. Therefore it's more of an expedition than a plannable road-trip, strategically speaking.

Check out a more detailed article I wrote on this, outlining a series of 7 decisions that led to digital transformation chaos. Rapid summary - often no single thing happens but a series of explainable decisions based on 'how we've always worked' can lead to chaos with digital.

"this isn't a strategy - we want more certainty, more detail and more assurance - tell us what is GOING to happen"

However, the death knell of a digital strategy isn't necessarily in how it's formed, it's the iterations that take place when it is sent back for revision: "this isn't a strategy - we want more certainty, more detail and more assurance - tell us what is going to happen". This is where the writing of your digital strategy may find itself on the wall of doom.

On function ⛽

A strategy can be a powerful force in your organisation. Often one or multiple people are tasked to write it, then it's approved (subject to liberal helpings of certainty) at a senior level, and then communicated to the masses. Sometimes the extra helpings of certainty around a bright future can raise the levels of interest, and expectation, but will largely do little to empower employees or create sustainable energy.

This can be doubly so with digital plans where many staff will have the scars of 'planned IT projects', often creating swathes of copy and paste slaves to fill the gaps in the unsuccessful implementation. In my line of work my first barrier around digital is normally dealing with the understandable cynicism and outright hostility from staff expecting me to bring new flavours of pain to their day-to-day life.

This is where the function of the digital strategy vs reality comes in. Set false expectations, then keep pushing and driving it, once a different reality emerges quickly blame everyone - especially those who had no part in actually forming the strategy. Everyone loses.

NB - I'd love to credit whoever did this great illustration - DM me if you know!

An alternative and more meaningful path 🚞

This is the stage where I give you my precise four step method to winning at digital progress. The problem is that it doesn't exist, because the age of precision is over and with digital the age of complexity has emerged. Don't take my word for it, read a recent Harvard Business Review that may be showcasing the work of Gary Hamel ("We need to abolish bureaucracy") or the unparalleled results of a largely strategy-less Buurtzorg. To paraphrase Aaron Dignan in my bible Brave New Work - in the next phase we need to become complexity conscious in everything we do, and in everything we form at work.

As an organisation there of course need to be fixed points in what you can spend, in having environmental deadlines you need to meet, or performance standards or targets to adhere to. But beyond that, the new range of strategic tools for leaders are those of complexity: which relies on principles, facilitation, engagement, constant iteration and letting go of solid plans.

So instead of creating an organisation could you cultivate something that:

• Outlines the principles, the ambitions, and the direction of travel (or North Star) that places you as a digital entity in a rapidly shifting digital world. Not places digital as a side-car.
• Describes the reality and parameters that you face, or expect to face, and what the limitations would be on team, time, budget etc.
• Defines enabling actions and projects that could help place you in a better position, and where possible outline any certainty, without going into crystal ball territory.
• Considers how the above could be embedded in what people do in their day-to-day work.

By doing the above we can start to empower people to make strategy a real time thing, and grant wider ownership to the progress that happens, and the energy that fuels it. It's not easy, but I've seen with my own eyes that when it's done properly it is game changing. 💡

Liam Cahill is the founder of Sector Three Digital. For more articles, ideas and insight please follow or connect Liam here. Related articles:

• Digital transformation catastrophe: a series of 7 unfortunate decisions, and how to make better ones.
• Don’t get caught out by digital transformation that’s destined to fail. Read this first.