Digital superpowers: how to deal with the era of breakthroughs

Dreams of superpowers have been with me since I was a child. When I was little, I imagined that I had special abilities with which I could move between the dimensions of time and space and thus not only quickly explore the world, but also make galactic journeys. When I grew up and devoted myself to the passion of sailing, superpowers were also my companion, especially when the forces of nature painfully taught me humility.

When you decided to own your own business, the superpowers came in handy the most. During this time, I perfected the ability to clone myself between a whole range of topics to be dealt with at the same time, and moreover in a very uncomfortable professional environment, focused on constant change. As soon as I managed to control a disturbance, another appeared. And so constantly.

The faster my businesses and I learned to operate in an unstable and uncertain environment, the better we were able to cope with this dynamic. The four superpowers and their skillful management have proven extremely useful in taming volatility.

How to acquire and take care of superpowers?

The development of digital technologies protects organizations from potentially destructive phenomena. And we can’t complain about that. In addition to digital solutions, however, the company must have skills that will allow it to react skilfully and adapt quickly to changing reality. The key to winning may be the so-called. superpowers that have been diagnosed and described by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

What are the title’s superpowers? It is nothing more than: agility, scalability, stability and optionality. Supported by digital tools, they can not only shield businesses from the negative effects of disruption, but also become a driver of business development and team innovation. At least that’s what the MIT researchers point out. Even before the outbreak of war in Ukraine, they looked at companies that are victorious in uncertain times and come out stronger after revolutionary situations, of which we can undoubtedly include a pandemic.

What sets them apart? What actions did they take? And what can we learn from them in Poland? More on that in a moment, but first let’s deal with the dual nature of Breakthroughs.

The Age of Breakthroughs

Let’s face it, the Covid 19 pandemic, even with all its dire consequences, is just one of many business breakthroughs over the past three decades. The past few years have clearly shown us how changing times we live. We are not yet out of the pandemic and we are already facing another crisis which – however resolved – can certainly be called a breakthrough.

As the MIT researchers point out, the breakthroughs we’ve known for some time have generally taken two forms. The first is the rapid course, that is, a sudden event that shakes the foundations of the business world (and not only). These breakthroughs include the pandemic, terrorist attacks, the armed conflict in Ukraine, the Indian Ocean tsunami, the financial and housing crisis in 2008, and the eruptions of Icelandic volcanoes.

The second form is a chronic condition – a high impact situation whose early stages are easy to miss. And when it comes to considering the impact of the new layout on the business, it may be too late for effective adaptation actions. These breakthroughs include, for example, China’s economic growth, climate change or developments in digital technology. Sooner or later, a new phenomenon begins to affect the company directly. If we don’t realize it in time and fall asleep on the first symptoms, the force and magnitude of the impact can “pain” the company and even destroy it.

Both types of breakthroughs are clearly different from each other, but they also have something in common. They force leaders to review their current ways of doing business and take new steps. MIT researchers set out to study companies’ responses to the pandemic between March and December 2020. They found that companies that developed tools early to respond to “chronic digital breakthroughs” were more effective in coping with a breakthrough. rapid pandemic.

Indeed, during the pandemic, the economic benefits of digital technologies that enable enterprise virtualization have increased dramatically. Examples include remote work, e-commerce or telemedicine. Many of these companies have accelerated their digital transformation efforts under the influence of the pandemic, reaping even more benefits. It was easier for organizations that had the ground under their feet, meaning that they had consistently had the right technology, had infrastructure in place, and experimented with the home office for a long time.

Companies that overlooked the above issues lost ground for a while and had to catch up within days or weeks. Many of them did not avoid falling into the trap that MIT researchers called the transformation myth.