Traditional management styles are changing. In the past, it was enough to set a direction and implement policy to take your company in that direction. But in the Digital Age, and particularly with the high degree of technological innovation seen today, modifying management styles to take advantage of and implement that innovation is critical to its success.

Dr. Art Langer, director of the Center for Technology Management at Columbia University, sat down with Stu Miniman (@stu), host of theCUBE*, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, at the Nutanix NextConf in Vienna, Austria, to talk about how the implementation of technology is impacting corporate management structures.

It’s not always about innovation

As the age of technology marches forward, new ideas and ways of solving problems are essential to any business’ success. But according to Langer, the innovation itself is only one part of the equation; how this innovation is being managed is equally critical to their success. While you may come up with a good idea, having management that can capitalize on that good idea is essential.

“It’s one thing to implement something,” said Langer. “It’s another to implement it and manage it.”

The right people are the most critical aspect

While corporate management structures are being impacted by the digital revolution, one thing has remained the same: having key people in key positions. Technology can only take you so far, according to langer.

“I think if you were to ask many people, particularly in the project management area, ‘What is the single most important thing that they would want to ensure success of their projects?’, they wouldn’t tell you structure,” said Langer. “They would probably tell you, ‘Give me the best people. Give me the best people, and I can get anything done.'”

However, even though organizations may have the right talent in the right position, getting them to embrace new technology in terms of management may be another matter all together. Old habits die hard, and such is the case when managing new technology, Langer explained.

“We have to drive down a culture and get people to do things more automatically, empower them to do it, allow them to take some risks, or else we can’t scale and we can’t respond fast enough to the changes.” added Langer.

*Disclosure: Nutanix Inc. and other companies sponsor some Nutanix 2016 .NEXT Europe segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither Nutanix nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Nutanix 2016 .NEXT Europe.

Photo by SiliconANGLE