It’s like Piranhas | This PHIT Podcast | Simon Ellis Part 2 | digital transformation

In this episode Mark continues with the excellent Simon Ellis covering everything from why digital transformation may be slightly dangerous… why taking any organization forwards is like dealing with Piranhas… why no leader in any organization ever has enough time, or money available…but it’s their job to find it… and why it’s best to be a middleman!

If you’d like to listen to Part 1 of Simon’s podcast and/or any of the others from Series 1 and Series 2 to date, you’ll find the links where you can listen and/or see them below. Once again, the questions we asked in this episode were (except where we, of course, veer off track!):

The Questions

1. Thinking about (Digital) Transformation…do you think most organizations need to “transform” or is it more about “continual improvement”…and why?
2. Should there be a weighting factor between investment decisions? i.e. technology versus people investment?
3. What advice would you give your younger self or those starting out / changing their career?
4. Tell me a fun fact about yourself that perhaps nobody else knows about you?

The Key Takeaways

Here are some of the key takeaways

• The term digital transformation is slightly dangerous… – c2.30 min
• There’s a finite amount you can do before you’re disappearing yourselves
• The real challenge is how to re-orientate…to the way customers want to interact with you
• No CFO / CTO wants to invest blindly, but that’s almost what you have to do…
• You can’t say, right, we’re gonna go be a digital business because…
• Senior people have to make time – c 7min
• The future is not going to be on that narrow horizon
• Your job is partly to think…and imagine a different future
• The single lesson of business for me…You have to make time
• Spend time with people who are not doing what you’re doing
• You’ll never have enough time, enough money, but it’s your job to find it
• You should be paranoid
• The walk is hard 22min +
• You have to have some criteria, otherwise, there’s no bottom 30min +
• The elephant and the rider… – 15.45 min
• If everybody was thrusting and determined to make progress, it’d be chaos – 20 min
• Always be a middleman – 21.40 mi
• Care about the people you work with – 21.50 min
• Once I was taken home by the police for my own protection! – 26.30 min

The Links

Youtube – You can watch this episode on YouTube

Anchor – You can listen to this episode on Anchor

You can read the transcript here

The full transcript for those preferring to read will be posted in the comments and can also be read here.