The Art of Digital Transformation: Insights for a transformation guru
Bhavana Bartholf has led 17 transformations in 20 years, @ Microsoft and BofA
Bhavana Bartholf is an expert in digital transformation. In the last 20 years, she has led 17 transformations at large global organizations like Microsoft and Bank Of America. At Microsoft, she transformed their customer success, sales, marketing, consulting, and support businesses. And most recently, she helped transform BofA’s data and analytics organization.
She is most passionate about driving systemic change and creating a positive, transparent, and collaborative work environment. And has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Women in Tech.
In today’s interview, we talk about:
Common challenges when driving transformation
Why change management gets overlooked
Microsoft approached transformation
Key metrics to track adoption
Leading Generative AI transformation
What follows below is a condensed and lightly edited version of our interview.
Bhavana, thanks for being our guest. If it is okay with you, let's dive in. Digital transformation is everywhere. But most organizations don't get it right. Why is that?
Bhavan Bartholf: Mustafa great to be here. Thanks for having me.
In my experience, most organizations that don’t get digital transformation right are due to the following key foundational reasons:
1. Strong Culture: Culture matters. It establishes the right mindset for employees to embrace change and trust it. This is an important differentiator to accelerate transformation. Fear of failure impacts the environment to innovate and change.
2. Clear Vision and Strategy: Spend the time to define a clear, simple yet strategic vision on “Why”. Communicate with Empathy and clarity as People are at the heart of any change. Communicating with Empathy drives change through empowerment versus fear.
3. Enable Managers to Lead: Even with the best leader at the top, we can’t land change without our frontline management. Invest in them and the right change management and adoption tools and realistic timelines on roll out and adoption of the shift.
4. Let Technology enable your transformation: The right data is your biggest asset. Getting the right data in the right place is critical to keeping everyone informed, aligned, and aware of the impact, and the shift you make, creating synergy and connection. It also is critical to establish an operating model that helps you be lean and agile and helps you scale. Generative AI will help you comb through your data faster than you have been able to in the past which is important to consider.
Can I dig deeper? The reasons you shared are not new. They are all well-documented. But companies still keep botching things up. What is driving that?
BB: I think it comes down to some very practical and real reasons.
First, there is often intense pressure and unrealistic timelines from the top down and the demands from the market. Leadership teams want to drive change rapidly, so they focus intensely on high-level strategy and quick rollout plans rather than getting the foundation right. We hear this phrase a lot, “We need to build the plane while we fly it”. To do that, you need to at least have the right foundation and be aligned on what is non-negotiable.
Second, companies frequently underestimate the level of communication and engagement required to get buy-in across all levels. It takes consistent messaging reinforced through multiple channels to get people on board. But often they rely on one-off emails or townhalls. And keeping the language simple and clear helps provide clarity and connection.
Third, there is a lack of expertise and best practices when it comes to change management. Many companies wing it rather than leveraging proven frameworks. They expect people to adapt overnight without the proper training, resources, and support systems in place.
Fourth, there is often no accountability for the adoption and reinforcement of changes. Once launched, leaders move on to the next thing. Without tracking behavioral shifts and metrics around transformation, new ways of working never truly stick unless the incentives align with the direction shift that is expected.
So what is the alternative? How do you drive a successful transformation? What did you do at Microsoft?
BB: At Microsoft, I learned first-hand that transformation can't be treated as a one-off event if you want it to stick, it requires a thoughtful, people-focused (customer and employee) approach from start to finish.
For example, when Satya Nadella came in as our 3rd CEO, he took the time to reflect on our history but also balance that with looking at our future. He realized that Culture was going to be our biggest differentiator. And it took us 9 months to define our Purpose and Culture. He and every leader at the top were consistent in keeping it at the center and made sure when communicating a strategy to tie it back. Even almost 10 years later, it is still core to Microsoft’s strategy and its continuous transformation.
This transformation was a multi-year journey and it was done with strong change management and engagement of employees across the globe. Our customers and employees had a voice throughout the journey from defining our culture and purpose, to what was working and not working and in the continuous evolution of our strategy.
The following link: Culture & employee experience. Microsoft shares the lessons learned along that journey from Microsoft’s ELT.
Can I double down on that? Because I think you make an important point. What was the narrative that Satya was communicating in the first 9 months? How was it received?
BB: In the first 9 months after becoming CEO, Satya Nadella took the time to listen to our customers, the market, and our employees and sought to understand the reasons for their perceptions and experiences. This showed a high level of humility that was different for our customers as well as for our employees. In addition, he took the time to connect and communicate his approach and why it was important. Satya challenged us—the entire company—to rediscover our soul. He asked us to consider why we exist, and what the world would be like without us in it. This helped us as employees connect with the company's purpose and culture as we understood “why” it was important.
In addition, he openly talked about the constructive feedback we had received and took accountability for our mistakes and the lessons learned. On Teams, he did a monthly CEO connection meeting where every employee could hear what was going on and could ask him anything. This helped build trust and connection.
Having a growth mindset as the DNA of our culture was huge. This meant shifting the company mindset from a “Know it all” culture to a “Learn it all” culture. That isn’t an easy task when you have some of the smartest people on the planet in one place. And he truly led this shift in our company. There are several examples where he did an amazing job of modeling the behaviors.
Our customers appreciated the candid dialogue and his interest in partnering closely with them. Overall, this approach of starting slow to get the foundation right, made a big difference and set Microsoft up well to handle the impact COVID had and our ability to be agile and ready to accelerate our shift.
Bhavana, you mentioned that tracking transformation adoption is usually neglected. I am curious what are some of the metrics you have used to track change and adoption?
BB: You're right, tracking adoption is so critical yet often overlooked. When I led transformation for the US and businesses, here are a few impact levers to track
Employee & Customer Impact – Reviewed risk impact by role based on the amount of change and tracked employee satisfaction and attrition. Customer impact: Retention, growth, and satisfaction etc
Transformation OKRs around outcomes - Increased customer engagement, reduction of internal meetings, Accelerated Cloud consumption etc
Adoption of Tools & Reporting - Track usage and adoption of Sales/Marketing Tools. Helping us ensure shifts in methodology/processes are being followed
Change Indicators – What work have we stopped doing, how many things are changing by role
Training completion rates - We required immersive simulations, peer coaching, and waterflow training approaches.
Sentiment tracking - Pulse surveys, focus groups, and external benchmarks showed us how attitudes were evolving so we could address issues.
Anecdotal evidence - Leadership compiled a bank of powerful stories highlighting transformation success to motivate the broader organization.
The key here is to measure both quantitative and qualitative indicators at multiple levels - individual, team, and business unit.
If adoption for change takes 18 months. But with business changing so fast, just look at AI. How does an organization adapt? How do you manage change in such fast cycles?
BB: Good point - with the pace of change today, companies often can't wait as long as they used to for major transformations to play out. There is pressure to adapt rapidly.
However, when you have the right overall narrative, like the one Satya had, and have invested in building the right people-focused foundations, organizations can still move quickly while retaining the human element. When your operating model is lean and sustainable, it helps accelerate the ability to adapt and shift as long as we keep our finger on the pulse. We balanced nimble execution with empathy. And we course corrected based on real-time data versus plowing ahead blindly.
The next big change that is coming down the pike is Generative AI. How would you manage that transformation? Anything you would do differently?
BB: Generative AI represents an enormous opportunity to transform any business. Like any new emerging technology, it requires thoughtfulness in implementation. Based on my experience driving change, here are a few things I would focus on,
What big problem does Generative AI help solve? Every company is trying to operate with efficiency and as I mentioned earlier, Data is one of the biggest assets a company has. Generative AI has several benefits for companies in helping increase business efficiency and effectiveness, enhance decision-making, and reduce costs. It can also be used to personalize customer experience, accelerate research, and improve productivity by automating repetitive tasks and freeing up time for employees to focus on more complex tasks. While it seems logical, it is going to be received with a lot of resistance. So, take the time to be clear on your why.
Awareness of the risks and implications is important and ensuring that all users go through critical training not just on knowing the capabilities, but also limitations, ethics, privacy, and security considerations. Start with a core team of users that can show maximum impact
Carefully monitor mechanisms in place. The technology's novelty requires keeping a close pulse on usage, output, and sentiment as capabilities are rolled out. Having transparent processes to quickly flag and address concerns is critical. Based on the guidance before track and measure transformation metrics and ROI.
One last question, any lessons learned that you would like to share with the audience?
BB: I have already talked about quite a few in the questions above. But there are three things that I would like to reemphasize.
First, start from a place of empathy. Make the time to understand what employees need and what problems they face. Second, co-create the vision and plan for change. Engage a diverse cross-section of stakeholders early in shaping what transformation looks like. It creates shared ownership rather than top-down mandated change. Third, accept imperfections. Transformations are messy endeavors. Being open about challenges along the way, while maintaining enthusiasm for the vision, helps people stay the course.
Bhavana, this has been great. Thanks for being our guest.
BB: Mustafa, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks for reaching out.