A while ago, I read a thought-provoking book about organization culture called "Improving Maintenance Reliability Through Cultural Change". The book was off my radar; however, during my digital transformation journey helping customers transform their company, I realized how relevant this book's content still is.

Transformation is about people, process and technology, with many articles written about these three cornerstones. However, one question remains, "what glues these three cornerstones together?" Although I don't have the exact answer, I think it is organizational culture. You may ask yourself, "Nice, but what do you mean with organization culture?" And again, there are many definitions of culture; the one I like was also mentioned in the book:

"A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems."

Before companies start their digital transformation journey, a good understanding of your current organizational culture is crucial for simple reasons; it could be one of your most significant constraints for change. The culture is often a result of many years of how we work, also called rituals. A good example is energy-saving employing data collection to determine the savings. The person responsible for doing this has achieved excellent results and has been rewarded several times for the cost savings. In other words, he is a role model for the company. Although his methodologies are old fashioned, nobody in the organization doubts his competencies, skills, and recommendation. However, with digital twin (modeling the process and energy units and running real measured data into the model), results can be achieved that goes far beyond the current old fashion methodology; gathering data and making individual calculations.

You would expect that this role model responsible for energy would welcome our solution for energy-saving utilizing the digital twin. The opposite is true; the role model understands very well that his current reinforcement of reward will be profoundly disturbed by taking the digital twin on board. Namely, the model automatically calculates how energy can be saved and provides direct instructions to the operators without any role model intervention. Although great for the company because it can save millions annually, it is "bad" for the role model because he will not get the regular compliments anymore. These compliments will go indirectly to the digital twin and directly to the operators.

So, the current culture and the role model who has done a marvelous job in the past is suddenly the most significant constraint for change. Suppose the company has not identified this? In that case, it is almost mission impossible for me to have an open discussion with the role model and show the person all the benefits with a return of investment of fewer than 12 months. Of course, I could bypass the role model and speak directly to the plant manager or director; however, you may underestimate a role model's power in your organization. I will not change this through a single conversation.

So, a role model is a constraint?

Not exactly for the simple reason you need role models for the change. Role models are crucial for change because they are examples to others, and they inspire other colleagues. A role model who believes in change and, even better, has done it before, so the person knows the reward is one of the prerequisites to make change happen. You need to know what kind of role models you have in your organization, the one who genuinely wants to change and the one who doesn't but often not share this with others.

Do you know what type of role models you have in your organization?

Author

Marcel Kelder is Director of Digital Enterprise Solutions for Yokogawa Europe. His Yokogawa career spans 30 years with experience across all aspects of Plant Automation. Marcel leads the European Strategy for the development and implementation of solutions in the areas of Digital Transformation, IIoT, IT/OT convergence and Operational Technology Security. Marcel was instrumental in defining Yokogawa’s Plant Security program which is supporting organizations in the energy supply chain to meet their regulatory objectives and reduce operational technology security risks.