Huawei’s meteoric rise in the telecoms business was brought to a dramatic halt in April when the US government put a ban on US companies doing business with the Chinese firm. This includes Google and, crucially for Huawei’s smartphone users, access to the Android operating system updates.

Under pressure to come up with a solution, Huawei announced a new, lean operating system, Harmony OS, to the world on August 9. Similar to Android, Huawei’s new operating system can easily work across multiple device types, from TVs to smartphones.

The technology behind the OS certainly looks promising. The launch presentation included some staggering benchmarks of improved performance and security, even when compared to what we know about Google’s latest in-development Android operating system, Fuchsia OS.

To some, the announcement was much needed relief for Huawei smartphone owners who have been rightly worried that their expensive purchases would become obsolete more quickly. After all, a new and improved Huawei OS that can easily replace Android OS on Huawei phones will help remove the firm’s dependence on Google’s technology.

Huawei CEO Richard Yu even claimed that, if push comes to shove, the company can do a global rollout of Harmony OS across all its smartphone devices on a one-to-two day notice. Unfortunately, Yu was also the first to admit that going head-to-head with Android with a substitute mobile OS is not Huawei’s preferred strategy.

He is right, of course. Here are four reasons why Huawei’s latest OS is not a magic solution to the company’s problems:

1. App shortage

Most users have no idea what an operating system does. They use their phones for the apps. App developers target operating systems with large user bases since it means they will recoup their development costs much quicker. No one is interested in operating systems with small market shares.

Although Huawei can theoretically just switch all of its users to its new operating system, the associated apps would need to be altered, as Harmony OS is not compatible with Android. With over 2m apps on Google’s Play Store, it would require a lot of patience and deep pockets to convince app developers to port their apps from Android to Harmony and keep them updated.

Even with the right financial incentives for developers, just porting apps across is not a surefire recipe to get customers to adopt a new OS. A good example here comes from RIM, the company behind the ill-fated Blackberry phone. When RIM launched its Blackberry 10 in 2013 it held a big “port-a-thon” event that brought 15,000 apps onto its platform in under two days. As well as making it easy for developers, it gave them a financial reward of US$100 per app. But 15,000 apps is a drop in the ocean of then then one million Android apps and was simply not enough to bridge the gap to save RIM’s struggling smartphone business.

While Huawei claims similar ease of porting between Android and Harmony, it would take a mammoth effort to get thousands of developers across the board and then to stay there.

2. Lock in

Switching operating systems is much harder now than it was in the past. A mobile OS today generates and stores most of your personal online passwords, carries a virtual version of your credit card for easy spending, backs up all your videos and images to their respective cloud drives, and much more.Shifting all of that information across mobile operating systems has so far been a broken process. Even dedicated transfer apps by Apple and Samsung have failed to do this seamlessly for various strategic, security and technical reasons. With a third OS in play, it will not get any better.

3. The trade ban goes beyond Android

The trade ban on Huawei is in full force on all US companies and not just Google. This means that apps from the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Uber, eBay and Paypal among others cannot be simply ported over to the new operating system without a special license.

With increased trade tensions between the US and China, the chances of leeway for these companies to obtain such a license any time soon seem low. Huawei smartphone owners in the West will then have to contend with expensive devices that cannot run their favourite apps — dramatically reducing their value.

4. Impact on non-mobile business

Given the dramatic and very public nature of the US ban on Huawei, its financial impact will likely affect Huawei’s telecoms equipment business everywhere else. For consumers and governments increasingly worried about privacy and data protection, working with a technology provider in the throes of controversy isn’t exactly comforting. For Huawei, launching a new mobile operating system will not help solve that issue and will continue to put pressure on the technology giant’s exports outside of China.

The Chinese government can do more than any other country to help Huawei out of this pickle, but not nearly enough. Given China’s own ecosystem of highly popular apps, users there will not be as badly affected. But outside China it’s a different story.

Even if the Chinese government were to retaliate by banning Apple and handing its declining market share to Huawei, that still wouldn’t solve the firm’s global conundrum. Huawei was in the vanguard of China’s march towards technological dominance but Donald Trump’s trade ban has stopped it in its tracks. Relenting on Huawei would mean letting the world’s dependence on US tech slip — something the US just isn’t prepared to allow.

It is not a secret that digital transformations (and change programs by extension) are a minefield of corporate failure. In fact, McKinsey estimates that for digitally savvy industries such as media and telecoms, digital transformations fail 70% of the times. For more traditional industries like pharma and automotive, the failure rate is closer to 90%. Success rate also varies dramatically with the size of an organisation. A 100 employee or less firm is reported to have 2.7x the success rate of achieving its transformation objectives versus a 50,000+ employee one.

These are remarkably poor odds that should make any self-respecting management team think twice before embarking on a transformation journey. However, embark they must as the odds of not changing in time is certain obsolescence for the companies they lead.

Having led several large-scale digital transformations in mid cap tech companies, I can vouch that these programs are not for the faint of heart. As leaders, no matter how well planned and carefully chosen your strategies and technology choices might be, the chances are that you will run in to unknowns that will make you pivot parts of your plan mid-way. As an employee, all the rapid change puts you on an emotional roller coaster ride with limited visible rewards at the end of it.

The key to successfully designing, running and sun setting a digital transformation program is making sure that people being affected by it believe that the program is worth it. Similar to joining a gym and going on a low-calorie diet all at the same time — such a life changing move is only sustainable if you think the short-term misery you are going through is good for you in the long term. Or simply put, the why behind the change. As a consequence, the before mentioned McKinsey report highlights clear storytelling by a leadership team as the biggest factor in the success of digital transformation programs — by a whooping 3x.

A little less technology, a little more story please

Unfortunately, leaders spend a lot more time talking about the technological solutions they plan to implement versus talking about the why behind the change. Ironically the same McKinsey study points out that choice of technology is not a significant driver for transformation success. There are two reasons why it is so seductive to talk about technology. Firstly, by focusing on the technical angles of the transformation program, leaders can establish their competence in a subject area which is — in many cases — new to their organisations. ‘Digital legitimacy’ is an important signal for all stakeholders and this is an easy way to establish it. Secondly, popular media outlets provide a stream of coverage about growing digital products built by start-ups and tech giants alike — without emphasising any of the iterative failures, business model changes and serendipitous market fit behind their success. This gives a shallow view of the digital world to non-digital companies — doubling down on the notion that building a great piece of tech is a guarantee of success. Such a world view couldn’t be further from the truth.

So how does one weave and spread a great story to justify the pain, investment and the eventual rewards of going through a major digital transformation program? In my experience, there are three major parts to great story telling during a transformation program:

Make the customer the key beneficiary

The best digital transformations are the ones that are authentically focused on creating customer value at scale. By positioning the change initiative as a means of solving long standing customer pain points, whether within your industry or within your specific organisation, leaders and employees are likely to accept it as their higher calling. Using data from customer surveys, customer care tickets as well as social media, one can quickly establish the case for the change for customers. On the other hand, stating career progression, profitability or growth as a reason to kickstart a change program is a recipe for scepticism — even within leadership teams.

Use the power of Symbols

The human brain works in strange ways. People readily change their minds when they find powerful symbols they can relate and latch on to. One can simply look at how religions and other social movements have spread in the course of history and take a leaf from their playbook on how to drive sustainable change. In one of the firms I work with, a small change team nicknamed its digital transformation project as the ‘Avenger’s initiative’ — a light hearted nod to Marvel’s group of misfit superheroes who get together in the nick of time to solve a problem of global proportions. The spirit of this pop culture symbol caught on infectiously and kept things positive and forward looking during an unpredictable 12-month journey. In case you are wondering, the ‘Avengers Initiative’ was quite successful and resulted in dramatically improved customer experience and arguably one of the strongest digital product pipelines in the firm’s history.

Repeat, Repeat and Repeat

The best story tellers repeat themselves quite often — and in many cases acknowledge that the people in the audience might have heard their story before. It is important to have reasonable levels of repetition as it shows commitment and clarity of thought — it is also a great tool to break through communication clutter many organisations face. Early in my career, I worked with a tech CEO who was an average orator but a great believer in repetition. He used to repeat key points from his change agenda several times a day in front of different audiences — internal and external — for well over six months. It was an incredibly effective method as in that time period, I could see the various stakeholders around him starting to speak the same language regarding the change program, reducing internal resistance and scepticism significantly.

Digital transformations are significant undertakings and can not be simplified in to just a few dimensions (even though it might make them easier to analyse!). Precisely because of the ambiguity and uncertainty the process comes packed with, it is critical that leaders are able to use the three points given above to draw out a powerful story that justifies such a shift in gears. Once people accept this change, the rest falls in to place relatively easily.

I hope you enjoyed reading the article…do leave any questions or comments below!

The internet is full of stories about how terrible office politics can be. And it is easy to see why. Most of the what we hear around the subject tends to be about self-serving, self-promoting, powerful individuals who create a toxic, negative environment for all of those who stand in their way. LinkedIn feeds are filled with talented folks highlighting the subversive nature of the politics that run rampant in their ex-employers’ offices. Popular TV shows like the Office, Suits and House of Cards have made office politics a mainstream topic of discussion.

All of this has a knock on impact: There are over 50,000 career coaches just in the US alone, whose primary job is to help their clients successfully navigate through a maze of political hierarchies and invisible alliances in workplaces. Glassdoor is the defacto measurement standard for the workplace happiness — and with an average company rating of 3.3 out of 5.0 and an engagement rate at a low 32%, it is clear that organisation politics have taken a toll on the modern workforce.

Which puts this headline claim of office politics being good for anything useful, let alone innovation, be really hard to back. But allow me to make a case. Organisation politics is simply a game of influence. Influence is needed in situations where standard processes, procedures and power structures cannot get the job done. If a breakthrough idea, product or business model is to succeed, it has to break the rules first in its host organisation. Being politically savvy is the fastest way to get momentum and investment behind an idea. The very best leaders are adept at playing the game of influence to get the best ideas noticed. Lets pick up an example here.

Amazon Prime, the darling annual subscription program of the internet world, came to life through a series of strategic internal manoeuvres and secretive resource allocations. Classic signs of office politics as any. As recounted by recode here, getting the fast shipping program up and running resulted in a lot of tensions in the then $33 Billion market cap ecommerce company. According to Vijay Ravindran, ex director of ordering at Amazon, highly talented people within the company were not happy with the idea and Jeff Bezos’ commitment to it.

Very prominent people who are at Amazon today and in high positions told me, “You shouldn’t be allowing Jeff to do this,” and,” This is setting a bad example for the company.”

According to the article, Jeff and co. persevered against the internal resistance that had popped up and used political capital and grit to drive the idea to fruition. Prime was code named ‘futurama’ after the subliminal comedy TV show and remained in stealth mode -even for Amazonians — until it was launched on the 2nd of Feb 2005. The rest as they say is history. To this day, Amazon Prime continues to be a great example of using office politics and the game of influence positively. While the tools and techniques were similar to bad office politics (invisible negotiations, breaking procedure and norms, forming a group within a group etc.) the difference here was that idea behind Prime was geared towards creating a significant upside for Amazon’s customers, and not getting Jeff promoted over his peers.

It is ironic that a lot of companies today have formal innovation programs that do not produce products that actually move the needle or gain any significant scale at all. Being fortunate enough to have worked in innovative companies around the world, I can vouch that their leadership and company culture allow for healthy, constructive office politics, with the goal of providing breakthrough ideas enough air cover to overcome internal resistance effectively.