By nature, we like to have our bearings, our habits. In short, to be in our comfort zone. Doing something new or different creates a feeling of fear in most of us. This comes from the fear of failure but especially from the gaze of others (loss of reputation). The more visible a subject is, the larger the audience, the greater the fear of others’ judgement and therefore the greater the obstacle to expressing one’s ideas, one’s convictions, to proposing something new and unprecedented.

There is a trend to conform to the most generally accepted opinion and to limit oneself to solutions that have already been tried and tested and that are agreed upon, even if they are outdated or unsuitable. There are other signs of this lack of confidence in one’s ability to change:

• The massive use of external consultants to copy and paste so-called “good practices” (rather than involving internal consultants who know the real context of the company and can assess their real usefulness).
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• Secondly, the choice of technology or software not because it is relevant to the company’s strategy but because it is the “leader” in its field and therefore “reassuring”.

It is human to fear change, and this poses a major challenge to any company committed to the digital transformation of its organisation. To innovate is to take the risk of being the first to do something that no one has tried before. We sometimes move forward cautiously, we may fail, but we learn from our mistakes and start again in a different way. The company must value this type of approach; innovation depends on encouraging employees to adopt this mindset.