Transformer in chief: the newest member of the C‑suite

It may be telling that one of the smash hit books of the past year has been on sleep. Berke­ley pro­fes­sor of neu­ro­science Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep was a com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis of why humans need to sleep, which dou­bled up as a polemic against the habits that lead to insom­nia.

He mar­vels: “A hun­dred years ago, less than 2 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion in the Unit­ed States slept six hours or less a night. Now, almost 30 per cent of Amer­i­can adults do.” The health impli­ca­tions are shock­ing. Lack of sleep leads to men­tal ill­ness, dia­betes and chaos. More than 1.2 mil­lion acci­dents are caused each year by sleep­less­ness.

A key rea­son for sleep­less nights is pres­sure at work. Change has nev­er been faster. Com­pa­nies are sim­ply strug­gling to adapt to the mul­ti­tude of threats to their exis­tence. The pres­sure to trans­form is immense.

A sur­vey by Couch­base, a cus­tomer engage­ment data­base provider, of 450 dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion project lead­ers revealed 54 per cent wor­ry their busi­ness would go bust if their dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion failed. Fash­ion brand Jaeger went to the wall for pre­cise­ly that rea­son. A fur­ther 89 per cent of enter­pris­es say their indus­try is being dis­rupt­ed by dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy. Worse, 90 per cent of dig­i­tal projects fail to meet expec­ta­tions.

Could there be a solu­tion? For a ris­ing num­ber of firms the sever­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion calls for a new role: the chief trans­for­ma­tion offi­cer.

Deliv­ery com­pa­ny UPS cre­at­ed the role in Novem­ber. The new chief trans­for­ma­tion offi­cer reports direct­ly to the chair­man and chief exec­u­tive. The posi­tion is “charged with dri­ving and facil­i­tat­ing organ­i­sa­tion­al change that will help UPS to both iden­ti­fy and exe­cute oppor­tu­ni­ties for prof­itable growth with­in its exist­ing busi­ness units and in yet-untapped mar­kets and prod­uct seg­ments”.

Adver­tis­ing giant WPP’s first chief trans­for­ma­tion offi­cer is set­tling into the job. Lind­say Pattison’s remit is to unite efforts across the 160 or so agen­cies under the WPP umbrel­la. It’s a job so big she could be for­giv­en for a sleep­less night or two her­self.

But is the role nec­es­sary? The con­sult­ing world is divid­ed. Ben Pring, direc­tor of Cognizant’s Cen­ter for the Future of Work, says: “It is mag­i­cal think­ing that one per­son could do every­thing required to make a large com­pa­ny fit for pur­pose in the 21^st-cen­tu­ry dig­i­tal econ­o­my. It is just not pos­si­ble.

“Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion requires a fun­da­men­tal shift from pre­vi­ous mod­els and impacts the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, a company’s oper­a­tions and back office, the way it mar­kets and sells, how its employ­ees work, and the prod­ucts and ser­vices it deliv­ers.

“A sin­gle dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion offi­cer can­not be respon­si­ble for all of this on their own. True dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion requires top-down lead­er­ship in every depart­ment and busi­ness func­tion, with co-ordi­na­tion at the CEO, C‑suite and board lev­el.”

Nick Tay­lor, man­ag­ing direc­tor at Accen­ture Strat­e­gy, is in full agree­ment. “Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion offi­cers will not be the sil­ver bul­let com­pa­nies are look­ing for to dri­ve new growth,” he says. “There is no trans­for­ma­tion on-off switch, and it’s rarely ever ini­ti­at­ed and dri­ven by a sin­gle per­son, par­tic­u­lar­ly in large, com­plex organ­i­sa­tions.

“Dis­rup­tive growth needs to be the pri­or­i­ty of the entire C‑suite, where every­one is account­able, and it requires a new mind­set, cul­ture and phi­los­o­phy that’s infused through­out the entire organ­i­sa­tion.”

The rise of the chief trans­for­ma­tion offi­cer implies the con­verse view is gain­ing ground. Mar­tin Lentle, coun­try man­ag­er for the UK and Ire­land at open source soft­ware com­pa­ny Red Hat, says the role brings togeth­er dis­parate par­ties. “It can be likened to a good orches­tra; you need some­one at the front with a sin­gle plan that is vis­i­ble to all, help­ing the play­ers through rehearsals to build a per­fect per­for­mance,” he says.

Mr Lentle points out that the role may have exist­ed under anoth­er guise for some while. “From meet­ing many C‑level peo­ple on a reg­u­lar basis, I have seen heads of inno­va­tion with­in an organ­i­sa­tion change their title to dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion offi­cer,” he says. “You could argue they are the same role, with updat­ed ter­mi­nol­o­gy.”

Some com­pa­nies are in flux and need a vision­ary to find a way through the chaos

Maybe it comes down to the nature of the com­pa­ny and its lead­er­ship. Some com­pa­nies are in flux and need a vision­ary to find a way through the chaos. Oth­ers can do that with the exist­ing C‑suite tal­ent.

Nigel Vaz, chief exec­u­tive, Europe, Mid­dle East and Africa, of con­sul­tan­cy Publicis.Sapient, uses the exam­ple of Apple to illu­mi­nate the nuance. “The role of chief trans­for­ma­tion offi­cer is a great idea if the CEO doesn’t see them­selves in that role. Steve Jobs was the chief trans­for­ma­tion offi­cer of Apple, where­as Tim Cook is more a clas­sic CEO,” he says.

The key thing is to look at what the chief exec­u­tive does. “How do they spend their day?” asks Mr Vaz. “Do they obsess about the past and cur­rent? Then they are a Tim Cook-type leader. Or do they think pri­mar­i­ly of the future like Steve Jobs?”

It takes a brave boss to admit they are strug­gling to gal­vanise the com­pa­ny for the future chal­lenges ahead. But if the chief exec­u­tive is over­whelmed, a chief trans­for­ma­tion offi­cer could be the way to kick-start change. The new board mem­ber can unite efforts across dis­parate depart­ments and agen­cies. And get the organ­i­sa­tion back on track.

Work­ing for a strug­gling com­pa­ny leads to sleep­less nights. If the cure for insom­nia is a chief trans­for­ma­tion offi­cer, more and more boards will be mak­ing room for one.

Read more: C‑suite: who they are, what they do and why they mat­ter