Let me tell you the version I hear from small and mid-sized businesses almost every week.

“We implemented [new platform]. It’s not really being used.”

“We bought [software]. The team isn’t trained on it.”

“We’re trying to get everyone onto [tool]. There’s a lot of resistance.”

And then, almost universally: “What should we do next?”

Bottom line: your digital transformation is not failing because of the technology

I was listening to a recent episode of Leader Generation — Tessa Burg’s podcast on Mod Op — featuring Katya Lobynko, Global IT and Data Strategy Director at Danone. Katya has led digital transformation programs for 15 years at companies with operations across dozens of countries. She said something that made me stop and write it down.

“You cannot run water through the pipes without plumbing.”

She was talking about data architecture. But she might as well have been talking about every client who has ever called me after a rollout that did not land the way they expected.

The failure is almost never the technology. It is the infrastructure — human, structural, and informational — that was supposed to exist before the technology arrived.

Here is what Katya outlines as the real work of transformation. I am going to translate it directly into terms that apply to a business of five, ten, or fifteen people — because these principles scale down just as well as they scale up.

You’ve built something real; here’s how you keep it

First: ask what your people actually need.
Before you add any new tool, ask one question: what do my people actually need right now? Not what you think they need. Not what the vendor demo suggested. What would genuinely make the job easier — even if the answer is a better-organized spreadsheet? Katya puts it plainly: nothing motivates adoption more than a tool that is actually useful. Start there.

Second: the data has to be clean before anything else works.
If your team uses different definitions for the same numbers — what counts as a lead, what counts as a sale, what counts as revenue — then any reporting or AI or automation you build on top of that is going to give you contradictory answers. The fix is boring. It involves sitting down and agreeing on terms. It does not feel like progress. It absolutely is.

Third: over-communicating the why is a structural requirement, not a style.
Katya is direct on this: if you showed the vision once at an all-hands and moved on to implementation, you have not created alignment. You have created a situation where people will resist the change and not fully understand why they are being asked to. The why has to be repeated. Often. In language that makes sense to each team or role. This is especially true in small organizations where one person’s resistance can stall an entire rollout.

Fourth: prototype before you build.
One of Katya’s examples: her team used to put a visual wireframe of a new app — no real technology behind it, just screens — on a testing platform, and wake up to feedback from 20 users before their European workday began. Hours, not weeks. This is not a luxury for large companies. Free and low-cost user testing tools are available to any organization. The question is whether you are willing to slow down enough to use them before committing budget and time to a full build.

Fifth: changing leadership is a skill, and it can be learned.
This was my favorite part of the episode. Katya reframes resistance to change not as stubbornness or a personality issue, but as a survival instinct. In stable conditions, the brain says: do not change what is working. Understanding that makes it easier to lead with empathy instead of frustration. And it shifts the question from “why won’t people just adopt this?” to “what would help them feel safe enough to try?”

If you are in the middle of a transformation right now — or considering one — this episode is worth your time. Find it on Leader Generation wherever you listen to podcasts, or at modop.com/podcasts.

And if you want to think through what the foundation work looks like for your organization before the next rollout, that is exactly the kind of conversation I have with clients. You can reach me at susanfinch.com. And you can listen to more here: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep166-digital-transformation-why-people-matter-as-much-as-tech/