Last week, I sat across from Sarah, the CEO of a $200 million manufacturing company, as she described their recent digital transformation management challenge. Her company had successfully implemented a state-of-the-art ERP system just eighteen months ago, transforming their operations from manual spreadsheets to automated workflows. The initial implementation had been a success story – productivity was up 40%, errors were down, and her team had finally mastered the system.
Then came the announcement: their ERP provider was rolling out a mandatory AI-powered upgrade. Sarah’s voice carried both exhaustion and frustration as she shared, “This isn’t just an update – it’s a complete overhaul. My best warehouse manager, who’s been with us for 15 years and led our initial digital transition, came to me yesterday saying he feels obsolete. Our top performers are struggling with the new interface, and the AI features that are supposed to make decisions faster are making my team question their role. We’re not just learning new buttons and screens – we’re redefining how we work.”
Her story crystallized something I’ve observed throughout my career in digital change management: technology doesn’t just evolve – it revolutionizes. While the promise of AI-driven solutions and automated workflows is compelling, we often overlook the profound human impact. Every day, I work with business leaders navigating digital transformation management, and while the technology is impressive, the real challenge isn’t technical proficiency – it’s human adaptation.
In boardrooms across industries, executives are grappling with an undeniable truth: digital transformation isn’t optional in today’s business landscape. But as we rush to embrace each new technological advance, we’re missing something fundamental: the human element that makes or breaks these initiatives.
Are we so focused on upgrading our systems that we’re forgetting to upgrade our approach to the people who use them?
Managing Change During Digital Transformation
Having helped businesses with change management for two decades now, I’ve witnessed firsthand how digital transformation management initiatives can reshape organizations. While technical implementations are crucial, the true measure of success lies in how organizations approach the human element of change. Time and again, I’ve observed that treating digital transformation purely as a technical challenge—by concentrating only on new systems, improved data, and accelerated processes—misses its most crucial aspect.
If you adjust your lens a little, you’ll see that digital transformation management represents a profound shift in how an organization and its people adapt, learn, and can be empowered to drive innovation. It requires focusing on the psychology of change, fostering a culture that embraces new ways of working, and supporting the people who will make it all happen.
So here are my two cents for all business leaders: digital transformation succeeds not through technical mastery alone, but by centering the journey on the people who will make use of it.
Here’s how you can do it.
The Four Human Elements of Digital Change Management
- People Readiness: Preparedness to Embrace Change
Change is rarely easy, especially for employees who often aren’t involved in decision-making but must adapt to new systems. As a leader, your success depends on understanding their concerns and incorporating their feedback to ease the transition. No technology, however advanced, can succeed if the people using it aren’t ready.
And this readiness goes beyond training sessions or user manuals—it’s about changing mindset. Employees need to understand why the change is happening and how it benefits them, not just the company’s bottom line. Leaders often assume a new tool’s advantages are obvious, but humans need context, clarity, and a sense of agency.
Building readiness starts early by communicating the vision before the first demo. It involves engaging people in the process, rather than simply imposing a new system. When employees feel prepared and included, they’re more likely to embrace change rather than resist it.
For example, when a global pharmaceutical company decided to implement AI-powered drug discovery platforms, they didn’t start with software demos. Instead, they began with a simple question to their scientists: “What would make you trust AI as a research partner?”
This approach built a collective readiness and led to 92% adoption within six months—far above industry averages. By involving employees from the outset and addressing their concerns, the company fostered a sense of trust and collaboration. People saw the value for both the organization and their own work, ensuring a smoother transition and greater acceptance of the new technology. It wasn’t about mandating change; it was about creating a team eager to make it succeed, for themselves and the business.
- Cultural Alignment: Align Change with Organizational Values
Every organization has a culture—a set of unwritten rules, values, and ways of working that shape how things get done. Digital transformation management must align with this culture rather than bulldoze through it. If a company values collaboration but rolls out a tool that isolates teams, the mismatch will breed resentment. If innovation is prized but the new system stifles experimentation, adoption will stall.
Successful digital change management should be able to weave digital transformation into the cultural fabric. As a leader, you must ask: Does this technology amplify what we stand for, or does it clash with who we are? When the change feels like a natural extension of your company’s identity, your employees will embrace it as “ours” rather than “theirs.”
For example, a European bank’s digital transformation initially failed not because of poor technology but because their “move fast and break things” approach clashed with their risk-averse culture. When they realigned their digital strategy with their core value of “thoughtful innovation,” adoption rates tripled. By ensuring that the transformation resonated with their established values, the bank was able to foster a sense of ownership and alignment among employees, leading to a more successful implementation.
- Behavioral Adaptation: Modifying Daily Work Habits
Technology doesn’t transform anything on its own—it’s the shifts in human behavior that make the difference. A new CRM system is useless if sales reps keep scribbling notes on paper. A collaboration platform flops if teams stick to email chains. The real work of digital transformation management happens in the mundane – how people adjust their daily routines to integrate new tools.
This isn’t easy. Habits are stubborn, and change feels like friction. As a leader, you can help by breaking the transition into small, manageable steps — celebrating quick wins to build momentum. It’s not about forcing compliance; it’s about guiding people toward new patterns that feel intuitive over time. When behaviors align with technology, transformation takes root.
When Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella took the helm in 2014, he faced a deeply entrenched culture of internal competition. The company’s infamous “stack ranking” system forced managers to rate employees against each other, creating silos and stifling collaboration. Nadella recognized that Microsoft’s future success would require a fundamental shift in how its 130,000+ employees worked together.
The transformation began with small but symbolic changes and expanded to structural changes like eliminating the stack ranking system. Nadella introduced annual “One Week” meetings where teams could practice new collaborative behaviors through innovation workshops. Performance reviews were transformed to focus on growth and learning rather than competition.
The results were transformative. Microsoft shifted from a “know-it-all” to a “learn-it-all” culture, leading to groundbreaking partnerships (like developing Microsoft apps for iPad) and significant market value growth. The company’s successful transformation demonstrates that behavioral adaptation requires both structural changes and consistent leadership modeling of new behaviors. Most importantly, it shows that successful behavioral adaptation isn’t just about changing individual actions – it’s about transforming the entire system that shapes those behaviors.
- Psychological Safety: A Space to Risk and Learn
Digital transformation management thrives on experimentation—trying fresh approaches, stumbling now and then, and refining as you go. But here’s the catch: people won’t dare to experiment if they’re worried about finger-pointing or fallout. That’s where psychological safety comes in—it’s the foundation of an organization ready for change. It’s about creating a space where employees can raise red flags, ask “silly” questions, or say “I’m stuck” without bracing for criticism.
Google’s Project Aristotle revealed that psychological safety was the number one predictor of team success. During digital transformation, this becomes even more critical. At Adobe, creating “failure forums” where teams openly discussed challenges led to a 34% increase in feature adoption rates.
As a leader, you play a pivotal role in making this happen. Are your people open about their own learning curves, showing it’s okay not to have all the answers? Do they celebrate the effort it takes to try something new, not just flawless results? When people know they’re supported, they’re far more likely to step into the unknown and grapple with new tools or processes. Without that trust, even the slickest technology ends up gathering dust—a reminder of caution instead of a springboard for progress.
Embracing Change to Create Lasting Transformation
In my years of working with businesses, one thing is clear: while technology advances rapidly, it’s the human journey that defines true transformation. It’s not just about implementing the latest tools; it’s about fostering a culture where change is seen as an opportunity, not a threat. Leaders who prioritize this mindset will not only navigate today’s complexities but also build a resilient foundation for the future.
If you can sync human readiness with technological leaps, you unlock something powerful – a team that’s not just along for the ride but fully in the driver’s seat—engaged, inspired, and all-in. That’s when change stops being a hurdle and becomes a catalyst, propelling your organization to adapt fluidly and dominate in a world that never sits still. Want to future-proof your business? Start here: digital transformation isn’t a tech story—it’s a human one, and it’s yours to own.
Sondra Leibner is a Managing Director with alliantConsulting. She is a transformational leader and strategic visionary – an executive-level consultant who fundamentally transforms leaders’ approach to strategy development, leadership alignment, change management, culture design, and talent development. When you meet Sondra, you will feel the depth of her experience and her understanding that your challenges, culture and circumstances are unique. She will bring flexible, creative and pragmatic approaches to create truly customized and workable solutions. Sondra’s ability to communicate complex messages in simple and memorable ways enhances her ability to achieve unprecedented levels of engagement and adoption. When you begin working together you will be excited about your next meeting.
