I don’t know anyone who is serious about going digital. The real objectives are always much more specific and, for example, companies do not talk about digitization but about reducing costs, increasing sales, improving the margin, reducing the ecological footprint or incorporating talent. In the same way, no one understands what we are talking about when we say technological humanism, because if we are talking about human issues we should be talking about health, work, ethics, justice or education. Digitization, and technology in general, are tools that can help us improve as long as we are clear about the objective. Digitizing production might not be the best fit for a company that has a sales problem. Encouraging all companies to go digital is like encouraging the entire population to take medication without knowing too much what ailment they suffer from.
The goal is not the digitization of society but that everyone is willing to do things better, and the challenge is not to explain what can be achieved by embracing technology, but to find out if everyone is willing to do things differently . When we talk about digitization, we are actually talking about updating ourselves, reviewing what we do and catching up, with or without technology. To freak out
I don’t know anyone seriously who enjoys changing, so the challenge is to convince them of the need to change. Normal people have a certain resistance to change because change causes uncertainty, discomfort and risk. Accepting that things must be done in a different way than how you do them without being sure if you will know how to do it well or if the result will be as expected, and without knowing for sure if the person proposing the changes really knows what he is doing Change is complicated, and the most normal thing is that it makes us hesitate.
Most normal people don’t change because they want to, but because they are forced to. The real driver of change is necessity. You change because the company is doing badly, you change because you see an opportunity to win, you change because the law forces you to. I ended up always wearing my seat belt because I was sick of paying fines, I changed jobs because I wanted to work in something that made more social sense, and I quit smoking because the person I was with asked me to fall in love. Normal people basically change for three big reasons: out of fear, out of excitement or out of responsibility.
Those who change out of fear do so because they have seen a risk or felt a threat. This is the case of companies with bad results, or those affected by a regulatory change, or that person who has a new boss who wants things in a different way. Fear has many faces and it doesn’t have to be negative. As has been said many times, there is a fear that makes you be cautious and careful, just as there is also a fear that slows you down too much and does not let you try what you should do. There is also the fear of looking bad, the fear of losing what you have, the fear of disappointment, the fear of error, or envy, which is the fear of not being the favorite. Fear can take very strange forms, but it is there, it lives with us, and it explains why some make more or less changes.
Desire is also the engine of many changes and can also take many forms, some good and others not so much, and as always everything can become poison if you get the wrong dose. Illusion, ambition, causes, love, passion, the desire to complete a task, the pursuit of an ideal, having a mission, wanting to help someone, wanting someone or wanting something. Desire is the other great engine of humanity. And the third is responsibility, making changes because if it is within our reach we have the duty to improve things. It is the engine that should be driving the changes needed by our administration, our justice and, in general, most public services: out of responsibility.
It’s not about everyone going digital, it’s about getting everyone excited to do things better. If we want to help, we don’t have to make digitization plans, but understand what could be their reason for switching and what they need. Changes brought about by fear are not handled in the same way as changes brought about by excitement or responsibility. They are different atmospheres, expectations and cases, and therefore the methods, roles and tempos are also different. We don’t talk so much about digitizing and talk more about why it’s worth changing.
