Digital technology was supposed to simplify things. But in many organisations, it has actually accelerated... chaos. What if the real transformation was to slow down?

When everything keeps moving

For some years now, companies have been living in a constant din of notifications, meetings, dashboards and parallel projects. They're always moving forward, but where to? When you dig deeper, you discover that most “transformation plans” don't actually transform anything. They keep teams busy, mobilise management and reassure investors, but on the ground the reality remains the same: rigid processes, slow decisions and duplicative tools. The problem is that the agitation gives the impression of progress. It becomes a performance in itself: «We have a digital committee meeting every Tuesday. We've just installed a new monitoring tool. We're launching a POC on generative AI.” The energy expended is real, but the direction remains unclear.

When “doing” takes over from “why”...”

Digital transformation is often approached as a technical project: installation, deployment and training. We rarely ask ourselves why we're doing all this. Organisations love tools because they give an impression of control. Software is concrete, a dashboard, measurable. There's a phrase I often hear: “We haven't found the right tool yet», but the truth is that the tool has never replaced clarity of need. As long as we don't know what we want culture to evolve into, digital technology will only add layers of complexity.

Slowing down for better transformation

Transforming isn't about going faster: it's about going better, in a direction that's clear. The most mature companies are not those that launch the most projects, but those that know how to stop them. They are the ones that dare to say: this project no longer makes sense, the ones that prioritise consistency over speed. In the digital world, slowing down doesn't mean falling behind. It means rediscovering the ability to choose, to prioritise and to say no. By trying to transform everything at once, we end up transforming nothing at all. Restlessness reassures, transformation disturbs, but it is in this disturbance that real progress is born.