Transformative Change Management in the Digital Era
Presenters : Craig Yeatman
Overview
We are proud to present a premier learning event hosted by the Academy for Organisational Change in strategic partnership with WorldsView Academy, titled Transformative Change Management in the Digital Era. This pivotal session is being brought to you through SA Accounting Academy and the SA Legal Academy.
Digital transformation is no longer a project, it is the operating condition of modern organisations. Automation, AI, regulatory complexity, hybrid work, and customer expectation shifts are constantly reshaping how organisations function. Yet many change initiatives still fail, not because leaders lack intention, but because technical changes outpace human readiness, leadership alignment, or structural logic.
This webinar explores how transformational change can be led deliberately in the digital era - integrating leadership behaviour, structural choices, people-side change management, and adaptive learning mindsets. The session will combine clear models, practical lenses, and real cases so participants leave with tools they can immediately use in their organisations.
Learning Objectives
By attending this seminar, participants will be able to:
- Understand how digital transformation amplifies the interplay between strategy, leadership, people, and structure.
- Differentiate technical change from transformational change - and why the difference matters.
- Diagnose where change fails: strategy clarity, structural misalignment, leadership behaviour, or people-side readiness.
- Apply practical frameworks (including ADKAR and Organisational Design lenses) to real scenarios.
- Identify leverage points to guide change more intentionally in their own organisations.
Content Outline
- The Nature of Transformation in the Digital Era
- Digital change vs. true transformation
- Why “installing technology” is easier than “changing organisations”
- Case vignette: A bank installs a new digital platform - but behaviours remain old (Manager Self Service)
Key takeaway: Transformation shifts how decisions are made, how value flows, and how people work together - not only the tools used.
- Strategy and Clarity in Transformative Change
- Strategy as ongoing sense-making, not a static plan
- How digital forces create ambiguity - and how leaders should respond
- The risk of “strategic announcements” without behavioural pathways
- Simple diagnostic: What exactly needs to change, for whom, and by when?
Practice moment: Participants assess a scenario for missing strategy clarity.
- Leadership Behaviour as the Accelerator (or Brake)
- Leadership as behaviour rather than position
- Visibility, credibility, and psychological safety during disruption
- Case example: A transformation that stalled due to leadership inconsistency (Digital implementation of a performance management system)
Key point: People follow what leaders repeatedly model, not what they announce.
- Structure and Design in a Digital World
- Why digital change often exposes structural weaknesses
- Decision rights, workflows, and accountability in high-change environments
- Hybrid working, cross-functional teams, and digital governance
- Quick diagnostic: Where the design quietly blocks intended behaviour
Link to practice: Participants map one structural friction from their context.
- The Human Side: Enabling People to Transform
- Difference between awareness, agreement, and ability
- ADKAR as a lens for individual change readiness
- Emotional responses to disruption — resistance as data, not defiance
- Building learning cultures that support experimentation and iteration
Mini case: Why a technically successful IT rollout still failed operationally (CRM deployment in B2B Distributor)
- Integrating It All: A Practical Change Playbook
- Combining strategy clarity + structural alignment + people enablement
- Simple roadmap: Boundary → Possibility → Choice → Development → Integration
- Common pitfalls: rushing, over-communicating but under-supporting, ignoring informal power
- Where OD/HR professionals add decisive value
Closing reflection: “If transformation is continuous, what must leadership become?”