Digital Transformation’s Portuguese Man of War Jellyfish Problem

Have you seen a Portuguese man of war jellyfish while on the beach or in the surf?

Nature has an interesting way of presenting beautiful things that are actually hazardous.

Imagine a quart-sized ziploc bag with blue and purple hues floating on the surface with ripples that look like it was melted with a lighter on one of its edges.

(Or, check out the photo in this section of the Wikipedia article, as my description falls short of describing a beautiful animal that you don’t want to touch.)

Whether through learned experience or intuitively seeing something as out of place, our brains are able to flag things that we should observe but not engage with.

Your organization is also exposed to beautiful things that are out of place, and you should rightly approach them with caution or steer clear.

As you look at how to improve your organization through digital transformation initiatives, there are

Let’s look at an example at each layer of the digital transformation hierarchy to see how this presents itself “in the wild”:

1. Strategy: “we should pivot to being a software company”
2. Processes: multi-step, overly complicated approval workflows
3. Systems: Monday.com Sales CRM

”We should pivot to being a software company”
This typically presents in the middle of a digital transformation program, often after the first phase has completed, critical processes and systems bugs are resolved, and adoption is high.

Overconfidence (with a few dollops of naïveté) might lead to the conclusion that what has been delivered could be productized or spun into its own business, even though the core business is not a software company.

While there are situations where this has worked, there are many more that did not work and you never hear about.

Cautiously keep this in mind, but don’t let the possibility of this strategy influence what you’re delivering in your program.

Multi-step, overly complicated approval workflows
This typically occurs when a group of stakeholders is unwilling to change how it operates or lacks trust in other stakeholders.

A classic example is requiring multiple approvers for expenses or proposed discounts for a sales team’s deal desk.

While these processes can mitigate specific risks, it also introduces other risks to the business, which typically come in the form of gaming the system, reducing efficiency, and impacting steady state morale.

Instead of designing such processes, realize that even a misstep or edge case will likely not destroy the organization and build in wide guardrails with a single approver at an appropriate level.

Monday.com Sales CRM
If you’ve recently watched ad-supported streaming or taken a ride in a New York City subway, this one is hard to ignore.

The platform has beautiful design and compelling marketing, especially as the company makes it sound like traditional CRM apps and platforms are overly complex.

However, it’s really a lightweight project management solution masquerading as a full-blown “work OS” (their words, not mine).

When evaluating systems, it’s worth getting hands on and inspecting what it actually is before assuming that it will meet your needs based on marketing materials and cheeky testimonials.

TLDR: Like the Portuguese man of war, attractive parts of digital transformation may hide painful stings. Watch for warning signs in strategy, processes, and systems and proceed with caution.