Book Review: “Beyond Digital” — a much needed guide to transformation

With their new book “Beyond Digital: How Great Leaders Transform Their Organizations and Shape the Future” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022), my PwC colleagues Paul Leinwand and Mahadeva Matt Mani are providing much needed advice to leaders from across industries and regions.

The need for companies to transform has never been greater. 21st century technology is changing every aspect of how people work. Its ubiquity makes the scale of the disruption comparable to what our ancestors went through during the agricultural and the industrial revolutions. But what we’re experiencing now is different in two important ways: First, changes come way faster than they did back then; and second, by collecting data like us, judging like us, and deciding like us, modern technology is complementing, supplementing or even changing what makes us human.

Companies need to rise to the challenge and transform if they want to succeed in this new world. The stakes, however, are much higher than the survival of individual companies. The world, indeed, faces major crises stemming from what we have described as ADAPT: Asymmetry of wealth and opportunity, Disruption wrought mainly by technology and climate, Age disparity, Polarization giving way to nationalism and populism, and the loss of Trust in the institutions that underpin and stabilize society. Institutions alone can’t solve these crises. Businesses will need to play a major role. We need businesses to transform and succeed to help create a better future for societies and our planet.

This is easier said than done. Not only do companies need to transform and position themselves for success in an uncertain, ambiguous and complex world, they need to do so at speed, and they need to do so while addressing what feels like a constant stream of urgent issues, be it adapting to shifting geopolitics, dealing with inflation or supply chain disruptions, or addressing the great resignation.

How are you as an executive supposed to get your arms around all this?

Beyond Digital is the guide that is going to help you.

• It is comprehensive — It lays out the core elements of what’s required for the kind of transformation all businesses are confronted with right now, starting with how you face the external world, how you set yourself up to create advantage, and how you as a leader need to evolve.
• It is specific — It isn’t a collection of best practices for you to pick and choose from, agnostic about any theory of value creation. It is based on the strong conviction that companies need to reimagine their place in the world and build and scale up the capabilities that allow them to create the sustained outcomes their customers and society at large need. And it then identifies what that means for the organization you need, the leadership you need, the internal and external engagement you need, the capabilities you as a leader need to build.
• It is practical — It identifies seven tangible leadership imperatives and brings them to life with tools and frameworks. It is filled with stories from established companies that have succeeded at transforming their organizations and shaping the future; filled with descriptions of what the companies did and how, what they did not do and why; filled with advice from the leaders of these companies who had to confront difficult choices, who got many things right and managed to come back after having made mistakes.

Transforming an organization is a daunting task — but there really isn’t a way around it. Equipping yourself with this guide will help you focus on what really matters.

“Beyond Digital: How Great Leaders Transform Their Organizations and Shape the Future”

By Paul Leinwand and Mahadeva Matt Mani

Harvard Business Review Press, 2022

For more information, see www.beyonddigitalleadership.com