TRUST: The Winning Formula for Digital Leaders. A Practical Guide for Companies Engaged in Digital Transformation

Trust: The Winning Formula for Digital Leaders is intended to help you become a more successful digital leader—and maybe a better person (more about this at the end).

We know you are thinking, I am not the CEO, or even the Chief Digital Officer, I just work in the ranks of my organization, so how can this book help me? Due to a set of existential threats, like the global pandemic, all businesses are frantically trying to remake themselves into being digital businesses. Digital transformation is taking the world by storm—and everyone in the organization is, or will be, touched by it.

We first studied the phenomenon of digital transformation through an extensive survey of global organizations. Called the Patterns of Digitization, the survey examined every aspect of how digital transformation is implemented. We looked at over 500 companies' business strategies, resource allocation, design practices, and looked at their “softer” side, like how the leaders actually communicate with employees. What we learned from this is—that no matter what type and size company you are, you fall into two different camps. Organizations are either "Digitally Developing" (the far majority), or they are "Digitally Mature". Through this analysis, we learned something else very important—Digitally Mature organizations are managed differently. Their leaders "align human & financial resources with the strategy", "create a collaborative, and nimble development environment", "promote open & transparent communication", and initiate other important activities.

At the 2020 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation, we presented Digital Leadership: Character and Competency differentiates Digitally Mature Organizations Leaders. Through it we show how the character and competency of these leaders (the foundations of trust) help set them and their organizations apart. Our intention was not to laud Digitally Mature leaders, as it was to help lagging companies grasp what is truly involved in implementing a digital transformation and what they need to do to catch up. This has been our "modus operandi" from the beginning.

But just exhorting digital leaders to show more character and demonstrate their competency with digital technologies, is still not enough. To really help them (read you) we needed to go deeper. The jewel of this book is its in-depth interviews with proven, successful digital leaders. And we didn’t stop with just exploring their character and competency, we asked them "how specifically" they build trust through their intentions, integrity, capabilities and results. Of course, these are the “four core values” of Stephen M.R. Covey's Speed of Trust framework and the basis of the book’s 20-question Interview Guide.

Now, enjoy the book and see for yourselves how these leaders rely on these very humancentric actions—along with the trust and respect of their people—to lead very aggressive and very complex digital transformations.

Paul Mugge has 35 years in product development, global business strategy, and business innovation services at IBM and 15 years of researching and teaching innovation as the Executive Director of the Center for Innovation Management at NC State University.Paul Mugge has 35 years in product development, global business strategy, and business innovation services at IBM and 15 years of researching and teaching innovation as the Executive Director of the Center for Innovation Management at NC State University. It was through this experience that Mugge learned that more important than technology or product innovation is business model innovation. It, by far, is the hardest to copy-and the most important to establishing long-term growth. He captured these ideas-and the actual methods to perform business model innovation-in a book he co-authored with Dr. Stephen Markham, titled, Traversing the Valley of Death: A practical guide for corporate innovation leaders. Most importantly, Mugge spent his entire career - both at IBM and NC State University - listening and sharing what he has learned with scores of organizations that intend to separate themselves through innovation.

Dr. Haroon Abbu is the SVP of Digital Technology & Data Analytics at Bell & Howell, an accomplished leader with over 20 years of industry experience in driving technology-enabled business transformation through digital technologies and advanced data analytics. His expertise in digital transformation has led to customer-centric successes and the strategic integration of analytics into critical business operations. A seasoned executive with strong skills in analytics, business strategy, team building, and change management, Haroon is recognized for his ability to create business value by leveraging people, processes, and technology to enhance operational efficiencies.He is the recipient of multiple industry accolades, including Data Leader of the Year finalist, recognition in the 2022 Global Top 100 Innovators in Data and Analytics, and inclusion in DataIQ 100: The Most Influential People in Data. His digital transformation initiatives have driven organizational breakthroughs, empowering employees and enabling customers to derive greater value from services, earning him recognition as a thought leader in the industry. Haroon is actively engaged in various industry and academic associations and boards, including serving as a founding advisory board member of the Business Analytics & AI Initiative at NC State University. A sought-after thought leader, keynote speaker, published scholar, adjunct professor, and co-author of Trust: The Winning Formula for Digital Leaders-A Practical Guide for Digital Transformation, he continues to shape the future of digital leadership.

Gerhard Gudergan is the deputy managing director at FIR Institute for Industrial Management at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. He is a renowned researcher with over 20 years of experience in the fields of service management, business transformation and digital leadership. Besides his research, Gudergan translates his entrepreneurial mindset into numerous spinoffs. Currently his focus is on the Metropolitan Cities Initiative, as the acting head of this latest project. The vision is to use urban innovation to transform the fifth largest metropolitan region in Europe, Rhine-Ruhr, into the most livable metropolitan area possible.