The Transformation Myth: Leading Your Organization into an Uncertain Future

Skillsoft issued completion badges are earned based on viewing the percentage required or receiving a passing score when assessment is required. When COVID-19 hit, businesses had to respond almost instantaneously — shifting employees to remote work, repairing broken supply chains, keeping pace with dramatically fluctuating customer demand. They were forced to adapt to a confluence of multiple disruptions inextricably linked to a longer term, ongoing digital disruption. Professor Jerry Kane’s research shows that companies that use disruption as an opportunity for innovation emerge from it stronger. Companies that merely attempt to “weather the storm” until things go back to normal (or the next normal), on the other hand, miss an opportunity to thrive. Kane argues that transformation is not a one-and-done event, but a continuous process of adapting to a volatile and uncertain environment. Drawing on five years of research into digital disruption—including a series of more than 50 interviews with business leaders conducted during the COVID-19 crisis—Kane offers a framework for understanding disruption and tools for navigating it. Technology is not an end in itself, but enables the capabilities essential for surviving an uncertain future: nimbleness, scalability, stability, and optionality. You’ll learn:•  The differences between acute and chronic disruption, and why it matters•  The characteristics of leaders that were able to help their organization navigate the severe disruption of COVID-19•  The digital technologies that did (and didn’t) help their organization navigate disruption•  Leadership lessons we should take away from the acute disruption that is COVID-19.