Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1225

Three Aspects of IT Led Digital Transformation

Digital becomes the very fabric of high performing businesses, being outside-in and customer-centric is the new mantra for forward-looking and high mature digital organizations today. To stay competitive, companies must go beyond just experimenting with some digital technologies and commit to transforming themselves into a fully digital business powerhouse. IT also plays a pivotal role in leading a digital transformation in their organizations. Because IT oversees business processes, it can help to weave all these important business elements such as underlying process and functions into the building blocks of business capabilities and manage strategy effectively. Here are three aspects of IT led digital transformation.


The digital CIO is a business conductor: Organizations today are living in the digital sea today, you have to change with the "tide." To refresh IT leadership, CIOs should be able to look ahead and the relevance of certain trends in its industry may indicate. Business has three fundamental pillars: People, process, and technology. The role of modern CIO is to identify and blend the ways that information and technology can assist and shape the business by linking all digital aspects together to enforce the business value creation. CIO must find the connection with the business in order to deliver the tailored business solution. IT is no longer just the background music as a support function only, it has to play its own music sheet and conduct the digital symphony. In order to be an effective Digital CIO, you must understand every aspect of the business. CIOs as Chief Insight Officer, you also have to follow the well-defined principles which would guide you in decisions and how you relate to others, with which speed can you swim in the uncharted water, what competency helps you survive and thrive, and how to laser focus on the destination without getting lost. IT can help to weave all important business ingredients to create products and processes which generate differentiated value for the business’s long-term growth, and the term of business values can be measurable in dollars, culture, customer satisfaction, quality, etc.
IT is impacting every business unit and is becoming the driver of business change and digital transformation: Due to the exponential growth of information and “disruptive power” of digital technologies, organizations must continue to build its ITenabled business competency to stay compatible and evolve in a compatible manner with its environment. The digital competency IT help the business build is about adapting, optimizing, innovating, and improving business maturity, to achieve the desired effect under specified performance standards and conditions through combinations of talents and resources, processes, and technologies to perform a set of activities. Organizations need both an internal as well as external focus when it comes to staying up to date with advances in technology. In order to survive and thrive amid rapid changes, companies must reclaim the right balance of standardization and innovation, process and flexibility;  stability and change, competition and collaboration, etc. And management must share the holistic view of a living digital organization that promotes deep understanding of core processes, risks, and transformational opportunities, in order to accelerate digital transformation seamlessly.
Leverage IT in building business competency: Today, the emerging digital technology is the most important element in the new breed of digital capabilities which are rigor, but not rigid, standardized, but not monolithic; it can be built dynamically to adapt to changes more seamlessly. Business today need to provide or utilize systems and technologies that will facilitate the delivery of changes. The challenge of organizations is to manage its portfolio of cross-border organizational capacities and capabilities with an appropriate mix of enabling business elements, engaging digital talents to achieve business effectiveness, high-performance, and speed. Information and technology are also the catalyzers for digital innovation. Innovation happens because of specific business needs. Innovation happens at the intersection of people and technology. Unique challenges become more appear as businesses push the limits of the available technology, which pushes talented people to find a better solution to the problem on hand. Digital businesses become more dynamic and hyperconnected, organizations have to enable the desirable emergent property, either being called synergy or differentiated competency such as innovation. Although you can’t build key business capability overnight, digital organizations need to make it a continuous effort; so IT is not just the sum of services or processes, but an integrator which can weave all necessary elements of the business into strategic capabilities to improve the overall performance of the organization.
At the high maturity level, organizations have to stretch out in every business dimension for driving the full-fledged digital transformation, in order to adapt to the new business dynamic. IT is no longer just a reactive support function only, but a change organization that keeps information flow, enable business growth, build business competency, and drive digital transformation.


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To Celebrate 3800th Blog Posting: Blog the Way to Step into the Deep Digital New Normal

Creativity is not a “thing,” it’s a process that happens as a proactive mental activity to a problem.

Leadership is an influence and a practice, there is no magic recipe otherwise. Good leaders are continually practicing, experiencing, learning, adjusting, and they understand that ultimate mastery of leadership does not exist. The future leaders should think that every minute of their time counts. There is no time to waste. The path to mastery is something that unfolds day by day. It is the time to celebrate 3800 blog posting, for brainstorming, deepening digital understanding and advocate change and innovation.

Deep in thinking: We live in an era where often the mind is lagging far behind the speed of the internet. The knowledge life cycle is significantly shortened, and the pace of information technology is so rapid that no one can rest on a static mindset, past accomplishments, or the wishful thought that everything is perfect the way it is. Deep in thinking, also be humble enough to admit known unknown and unknown unknown. Indeed, the mindset is far more important than talent. Talent can always be developed by those who keep growth in mind.

The quality of your life is a function of the quality of the thinking you have done.

The narrowness of mind is the biggest handicap for innovation.

Independent Thinking simply means making up your own mind.

Fair in judgment: One of the most influencing aspects of people’s psychology is how they perceive the world around and how they relate to it. The knowledge constraint and perception bias are paramount issues during people interactions. The truth is that each of us is a complex blend of contrasts - positive and negative; intuitive and logical with imperfect judgment. It takes practice, practice, and practice more to be open in true understanding and be fair in judgment.
A more discerning individual is better equipped to make sound judgments

Learning to think beyond a single dimension; look beyond the surface; love more than one color and enjoy the world of difference.

High EQ mind can leverage multifaceted thought processes in making sound judgments.

Effective in decision making: Decision maturity is to ensure the right decisions have been made by the right people at the right time. In reality, many poor decisions are made by very intelligent people. It is the responsibility of each individual to examine themselves and their decision-making scenario to make sure they are open to true understanding for achieving decision maturity.
Decision making is an art only until the person understands the science.

Decision-making style reflects leadership effectiveness and the level of digital professional maturity.

Decision makers with emotional excellence have the ability to dispassionately examine alternatives via fact finding, analysis, structured planning, objective evaluations, and comparison.

Creative in problem-solving: Creativity to some extent is the nature of seeing the patterns that already exist. Creative people are both problem finders and problem solvers and always challenge conventional wisdom by asking questions which often lead to discovering situations others do not see at first.
The solution to encourage creativity is to maximize use of employees’ brainpower.

The exercise of blending people’s problem-solving abilities to produce the desired outcome is a worthwhile thing to do.

Creativity is not a “thing,” it’s a process that happens as a proactive mental activity to a problem.

Adaptive in change: Change - big or small is inevitable. You can’t step into the same river twice, meaning that everything is always in a state of flow. Adaptability is to be understood as the ability of people or a system to adapt itself efficiently and fast to changed circumstances.

Awareness is the first step of Change, it starts from the mindset level.

Forward-thinking means to focus on the future, even a few steps ahead, to build a long-term prosperity.

A solution is nothing if the problem is not perceived. Bridging the 'gap of opportunity' between where you are and want to become is a welcomed challenge.

Blogging is an addiction - If you have to addict to something, addict to creativity, addict to continuous learning and improvement. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking and innovating the new ideas; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Blog the Way to Step into the Deep Digital New Normal

Creativity is not a “thing,” it’s a process that happens as a proactive mental activity to a problem.
Leadership is an influence and a practice, there is no magic recipe otherwise. Good leaders are continually practicing, experiencing, learning, adjusting, and they understand that ultimate mastery of leadership does not exist. The future leadership should think that every minute of their time counts. There is no time to waste. The path to mastery is something that unfolds day by day. It is the time to celebrate 3800 blog posting, for brainstorming, deepening digital understanding and advocate change and innovation.
Deep in thinking: We live in an era where often the mind is lagging far behind the speed of the internet. The knowledge life cycle is significantly shortened, and the pace of information technology is so rapid that no one can rest on a static mindset, past accomplishments, or the wishful thought that everything is perfect the way it is. Deep in thinking, also be humble enough to admit known unknown and unknown unknown. Indeed, mindset is far more important than talent. Talent can always be developed by those who keep growth in mind.
The quality of your life is a function of the quality of the thinking you have done.
The narrowness of mind is the biggest handicap for innovation.
Independent Thinking simply means making up your own mind.
Fair in judgment: One of the most influencing aspects of people’s psychology is how they perceive the world around and how they relate to it. The knowledge constraint and perception bias are paramount issues during interaction. The truth is that each of us is a complex blend of contrasts - positive and negative; intuitive and logical with imperfect judgment. It takes practice, practice, and practice more to be open in true understanding and be fair in judgment.
A more discerning individual is better equipped to make sound judgments.
Learning to think beyond a single dimension; look beyond the surface; love more than one color and enjoy the world of difference.
High EQ mind can leverage multifaceted thought processes in making sound judgments.
Effective in decision making: Decision maturity is to ensure the right decisions have been made by the right people at the right time. In reality, many poor decisions are made by very intelligent people. It is the responsibility of each individual to examine themselves and their decision-making scenario to make sure they are open to true understanding for achieving decision maturity.
Decision making is an art only until the person understands the science.
Decision-making style reflects leadership effectiveness and the level of digital professional maturity.
Decision makers with emotional excellence have the ability to dispassionately examine alternatives via fact finding, analysis, structured planning, objective evaluations, and comparison.
Creative in problem-solving: Creativity to some extent is the nature of seeing the patterns that already exist. Creative people are both problem finders and problem solvers and always challenge conventional wisdom by asking questions which often lead to discovering situations others do not see at first.

The solution to encourage creativity is to maximize use of employees’ brainpower.
The exercise of blending people’s problem-solving abilities to produce the desired outcome is a worthwhile thing to do.
Creativity is not a “thing,” it’s a process that happens as a proactive mental activity to a problem.
Adaptive in change: Change - big or small is inevitable. You can’t step into the same river twice, meaning that everything is always in a state of flow. Adaptability is to be understood as the ability of a system to adapt itself efficiently and fast to changed circumstances.

Awareness is the first step of Change, it starts from the mindset level.
Forward-thinking means to focus on the future, even a few steps ahead, to build a long-term prosperity.
A solution is nothing if the problem is not perceived. Bridging the 'gap of opportunity' between where you are and want to become is a welcomed challenge.

Blogging is an addiction - If you have to addict to something, addict to creativity, addict to continuous learning and improvement. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking and innovating the new ideas; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Fine-Tune Organization Structure to Get Digital Ready

Digital means change, choice, innovation, speed, and people-centricity.
Due to the “VUCA” nature of digitalization, the business complexity is unavoidable. Organizations that are skilled at managing complexity can gain advantages by pushing the boundaries of a more complicated business mix that provides opportunities to create inter-business value From an organizational structure perspective. How to fine tune the digital dimensions of your organizational development to get digital ready?


The goal of digital organizational structure tuning is to strike the delicate balance between solid and flow: Compared to the traditional organization as the mechanical system to keep spinning, digital organizations today are more like the organic living system which keeps growing. The goal of digital organizational structure tuning is to strike the delicate balance between solid and flow:  It needs to be solid enough to “keep things in order,” but also fluid enough to interact with the expanded digital ecosystem seamlessly, to keep things flow with  responsiveness, changeability, and agility of the organization. It is about developing the hybrid organizational structure which well blends structured and unstructured processes to run with adjusted speed, and to leverage the multifaceted performance measurement for assessing and improving organizational performance and maturity. Limited hierarchy works best in a creative environment where the free flow of ideas and their prompt implementation is a key element of success. There are many factors that influence and have impact on the digital ready-ness: Such as leadership, culture, organizational structure, people, technology, competition, market segmentation, roles and responsibilities, process and information systems, performance measures, etc, and these factors are interrelated. People have to be ready for moving to a more fluid structure. Any ideas on what are the core qualities or competencies determine if one is ready for fluid structure.
Organization of the future is an organization designed openly for anyone with ideas on how human organizations ought to be contrived in the face of the strategic imperatives of the 21st century: Due to the hyper-connectivity nature of digital organization, the digital workplace will be shaped by changes that take place in the way people relate to themselves and to their experience of their environment and others around them. A digital workplace inspires discovery, autonomy, and mastery. Digital management is responsible for enabling a collaborative, innovative, and productive working environment. So talented people can make bigger influence regardless of their position, their voice can be amplified via social platforms, and their contribution can be recognized via holistic digital styles of talent/performance management.  One of the key determinants of whether an organization can move to new digital structures is the development level of the people. At the organizational level, self-adaptation is faster if made with the full involvement of people in organizational change, starting from relations between people. So part of the digital journey is to prepare people for the new structures and to recognize increasing collective consciousness is a crucial step, in order to master the change and drive the seamless digital transformation.
The future of digital organizations is complex enough to act intelligently and nimble enough to adapt to the change promptly: The digital paradigm that is emerging is the digital organization that is organic, vibrant, energetic, fluid, innovative and holistic. Digital organizations are all about information savvy, adaptation, high-performance, and speed. It provides a more intensive and effective working environment enabling the organization to get all the right talented people in tackling challenges from all right angles all at once, for brainstorming and coming out the optimal solutions. Understanding the people and the organization through a common lens makes it possible to turn organizational “theories” into tangible management discipline that use “relations between people” as the loom on which to create management structures and processes that support self-adaptive problem-solving and build “recombinant” business capabilities. Innovative organizations also build institutional platforms that across digital ecosystem for evolving customers and business partners and building longer-term business relationships. Sustaining long-term collaboration allows participants to co-develop subject knowledge over time and focus more directly on business objectives to digital business strategy and digitally enabled innovation and transformation. Re-imaging the future of business is exciting, but investigating the different path for unleashing business potential needs to take a systematic approach and develop it into a more solid form.
Tuning the organizational design and structure to achieve high level of autonomy is the symbol of the digital maturity. The democratic processes will overtake hierarchical control, and that culture will become a more fundamental organizational asset. Running a self-autonomous organization is to improve business efficiency, effectiveness, and agility and ultimately become a digital-ready high performance powerhouse.


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The Popular Quotes Collection XVII of “Digital Master” Book Series

“Digital Master” is the series of guidebooks (15+ books) is to perceive the multifaceted impact digital is making to the business and our society, help forward-thinking organizations navigate through the digital journey in a systematic way, and avoid “rogue digital.” Here is the set of popular quotes for conveying the digital vision and sharing the unique insight about the digital transformation.


Digital Gaps: Bridging Multiple Gaps to Run Cohesive Digital Business
The simplicity and the complexity are just the opposite ends of the same spectrum. ― Pearl Zhu, Digital Gaps: Bridging Multiple Gaps to Run Cohesive Digital Business
Strategic managers see “blue ocean” currents; operational managers see “red ocean” currents. ― Pearl Zhu, Digital Gaps: Bridging Multiple Gaps to Run Cohesive Digital Business
The design of strategy is definitely more important, but executing a strategy is more time consuming and challenging. ― Pearl Zhu, Digital Gaps: Bridging Multiple Gaps to Run Cohesive Digital Business
One of the most influencing aspects of people’s psychology is how they perceive the world around and how they relate to it.― Pearl Zhu, Digital Gaps: Bridging Multiple Gaps to Run Cohesive Digital Business
Communication gaps are caused by cognitive difference, ambiguous process, or management bottleneck. ― Pearl Zhu, Digital Gaps: Bridging Multiple Gaps to Run Cohesive Digital Business

Digital It: 100 Q&As by Pearl Zhu
The challenge for the IT leader is to set the right priority, manage the limited budget and resource, to “Do more with innovation.”― Pearl Zhu, Digital It: 100 Q&as
It is time to “align IT to the customer” rather than “align IT with the business.”― Pearl Zhu, Digital It: 100 Q&as
IT and business must be partners, must be able to speak the same language, finish each other’s sentences, to solve the well-defined business problems.― Pearl Zhu, Digital It: 100 Q&as
Organizational success comes when IT and business act from “IT vs. business” to IT is business” - a true partnership.― Pearl Zhu, Digital It: 100 Q&as
IT is part of business, and business is becoming IT.― Pearl Zhu, Digital It: 100 Q&as

100 Creativity Ingredients: Everyone’s Playbook to Unlock Creativity by Pearl ZhuInnovation becomes simply “creating value” by solving simple or complex problems.― Pearl Zhu, 100 Creativity Ingredients: Everyone’s Playbook to Unlock Creativity by Pearl ZhuSet your own principles, practice, practice, and practice more to ignite the abundance of creativity. -100 Creativity Ingredients: Everyone’s Playbook to Unlock Creativity by Pearl Zhu
Creativity is the potential which can be unlocked and innovation is the serendipity which can be unpuzzled. -100 Creativity Ingredients: Everyone’s Playbook to Unlock Creativity by Pearl Zhu
Self-realization is a desire to experience ever deeper fulfillment by realizing and actualizing more of own potential.-100 Creativity Ingredients: Everyone’s Playbook to Unlock Creativity by Pearl Zhu
Creativity is fluid, like the fountainhead from within you, flowing out.-100 Creativity Ingredients: Everyone’s Playbook to Unlock Creativity by Pearl Zhu
There is always a right way to challenge others and it is never demeaning, always constructive. -100 Creativity Ingredients: Everyone’s Playbook to Unlock Creativity by Pearl Zhu

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Digital BoD’s Digital Inquiries

Due to the “VUCA” characteristics - complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity and velocity of the Digital Era,  today’s BoDs need to have sufficient knowledge to understand the business ecosystem, with the “outside-in,” whole-of-extended enterprise perspective. The digital directorship needs to steer their organizations toward uncharted water and blurred business territories. The goal of the digital paradigm shift should look beyond immediate symptom fixing, the focus should focus on mind shift and actions designed to solve real problems, sustain performance improvement and anchor change as a new opportunity. Therefore, today’s BODs should be insightful, influential, strategic, and highly effective. They should be able to make effective strategic decisions, as well as have the discernment to assess business competency objectively. Here are a set of digital BoD’s digital inquiries.
Do we know how to assess for the core business competency we need? Digital transformation makes a significant impact on every aspect of the business from people, process to technology both horizontally and vertically. Many organizations are at the inflection point of digital transformation journey. The dynamic digital organizations need to get away from letting things fall through and start creating “integrated wholes.”The Board has to have an in-depth understanding of the organization’s strategic direction and its implementation alternatives: They need to be engaged at the most senior levels to help influence and shape the business of the future. They should help to make an objective assessment of the business strength & competency, or the weakest link via “SWOT” or other comprehensive business analysis. It is important to identify and fill the business competency gaps because statistically, the capability-based strategy has much higher success rate than the other style of strategy management. The board should help the top executive team pinpoint the possible blind spots or potential pitfalls on the way to achieve strategy. The digital board should more focus on performance progress toward the strategic goals, objectives, schedules, resources.,etc, of the value maximization planning. And the deep boardroom discussions around the business progress should be the process to facilitate high-level management accountability. Do we know how to find the talent we need? Besides strategy oversight and performance monitoring, the board also sets the digital leadership tone and makes policy for talent management. People are the center of any business. However, people are often the weakest link in both strategy management and change management. “Hiring the right person with the right capability for the right position to solve the right problems at the right time,” is the mantra for any forward-looking organization at the digital era. Because there are so many dilemmas to manage today’s digital workforce, with the speed of change and volatility of the economy, businesses become so dynamic, and talent also flows around more frequently. Digital organizations should leverage the latest digital technologies and platforms, explore the alternative digital channels for recruiting, developing and managing their talent effectively and innovatively. The right mindset is utmost quality for being a right fit because the power of the mind is the force to change for the more prosperous business. One of the classic debates reflects the talent management paradox: “Shall you train your people?” What happens if you invest in developing the people and then they leave? What happens if you don’t invest and they stay? Should you train your people and how to do it just right? The corporate board can advise and brainstorm talent management/solutions with the business executive wisely, with the goal to strengthen the people link and accelerate digital transformation. What leadership development and training do we need? Leadership is all about future. Leadership development is about change. Training isn't going to make you, but it will certainly help you become more knowledgeable, and think about what you are currently doing. Often organizations rely too heavily on the sporadic one-day training to develop and equip managers and directors and leaders. Leadership is both nature and nurtured. Everyone is different, so the 'classroom' alone is not enough to make lasting changes and get a good RoI. Leadership training approaches need to be vertical and developmental moving forward, not horizontal and behavioral like the old days. Digital leaders today not only need to show solid conventional intelligence such as “IQ” and “EQ,” but also have to present a set of unconventional intelligence and multidimensional thinking capabilities  for dealing with over-complexity and hyper-competition of the digital new normal, and handling unprecedented uncertainty and ambiguity seamlessly. In essence, leadership training is not just for managers only, leaders also need to engage their people so that this improves company performance and everyone knows that they have an impact/stake in the business in making it grow. They all lead in the different level to unleash collective human potential and achieve high-performance business result.The digital board provides an “outside-in” view of the business and multi-dimensional lenses to oversee and advise business strategy and execution and steer business toward the right direction. Their objective assessment of business competency and strategy oversights help the top management to close blindspots, bridge gaps, and provide the new perspectives for driving changes and making a leap of digital transformation.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Five Change Insight

The speed of business change is accelerating, but more than two-thirds of change management effort fail to achieve the expected result, To keep up with today's change and market disruption requires agility, speed, and resourcefulness. That requires the right people: the change champions, the effective process, and productive tools well tuned to make it happen. Here are five change insight.
Change is simply a shift of the “Old Way - Chaos - New Way” to do things. Change is tough, there are full of pitfalls on the way, such as change fatigue, change inertia, change resistance, it is simply so hard to get out of the comfort zone., etc. Hence, it’s important to follow the scenario with logic steps to manage changes. Creating desire for change (usually through WIIFM - What's In It For Me) is part of change management. During the whole process, make sure that all staff is aware of the plan/process, timely updated, and responsible for something. Break down the change process into phases and communicate each phase to employees on time. Make each individual feel responsible for the success of the plan, engage them actively and make sure that your new proposal solves their current problems, and provide the better working environment. Change can not be just another thing that needs to be accomplished. It has to be woven into communication, process, and action of the organization. Make your plan flexible and implement changes based on staff feedback. Making changes should be a fun and innovative journey, not just a stressful one-time project. Most of the organizations would like to change their business processes, as long as individuals know how they will benefit personally from the change in the process. This is particularly important in those creative industries or organizations that have extensive innovative product development regimes. It would follow that developing creativity and building changeability would be more welcome in these areas.
To make change sustain, the important thing is “end-to-end” performance: In today's work environment, change indeed is difficult to measure unless all parties involved in the change take ownership of the change and see why and what the change is about. Change impact analysis and business readiness are two key processes that need to conduct to give a person a glimpse of what to measure. Measuring change involves first accurately identifying where you are now. Then, clearly identifying where you want to be once the change is complete. Both require the necessity to be brutally honest and to establish clear, understandable, and easily calculable metrics. Too often transformational change is acted on the basis of improving one part of an organization at the expense of other parts of the organization, the main reason is that up to this point in time, most leaders have been silo managers and don't really have the business skills or personality traits to lead transformation and change. The metrics need to be SMART, so people can see what the outcome will look like throughout their transition. Second, there should be a consideration for a balanced scorecard that measures the progress you want to achieve during the change transition, this keeps people focused. To make change sustain, it is important to manage end-to-end performance, including both a series of in-process measures and a set of final, desired outcome, measures will be the appropriate ones.
Structure and behavior are two elements co-working in every organism in nature and in every system designed by human culture: Flatter structures will help speed up organizational response to changing markets. The goal for optimized organizational design is to get the mass collaboration, innovation through less hierarchy, cross-functional insight and adopt the robust processes designed for improving responsiveness and harnessing communication. So part of the digital journey is to prepare people for the new structures and to recognize increasing collective consciousness is a crucial step, in order to master the change and drive the seamless digital transformation. As organizational design researchers well put, the key diagnostics whether the organization design is fit or not can be summed up in two simple questions: “Are you big enough for your job?” and “Is your job big enough for you?” If the answer to both is “yes” throughout the organization, then the business is in the flow state.
Look at resistances to change as a source of energy and where there is energy there is still passion and potential: Some say, change is not a problem, the primary reason for change failure is resistance to change while the secondary reason is the inability of leaders to deal with resistance. Animate the transformation and manage transformation initiatives. Change is inevitable, and the only differences are the reasons and goals behind the change and its scope and depth/breadth (Why the change, what you need to accomplish, what does it consist of and what does it impact).  Two types of resistances are expected: Personal and Structural, and both need to be addressed effectively and efficiently. Build up a positive emotional environment, foster positive relationships, communicate relentlessly, cool down stressed people before they stress others, be there at the crossroad of the transformation to make sure information and interaction flow in every direction, build up trust by bonding people around clear and benevolent intentions.Overall, good anticipation in planning is key for a smoother execution, while regular updates and plan adjustments will enhance your chances of success. If someone is "resisting" change, what's that about? At a minimum, they need to be heard and understood - which removes some of the perceived resistance. The person labeled a resistor may even share the same purpose as the sponsors: It is wise to look for a "positive intent" behind a "resistor," Better yet, engage people in the design of change solutions so that issues can be surfaced and addressed early.  
One of the good reasons for change is to keep the organization fit, and a fitting business has better changeability and higher agility as well. “organizational fit means "incluversity." “Fit” doesn't mean that everyone needs to have the same thought process, the same personalities, the same preferences, or the same experiences.  Indeed, the best-fit mind means “think differently,” the best fit team has complementary skills and capabilities, and the best-fit organization has differentiated competency to achieve a high-performing result. Fitting” doesn’t take cookie cutting approach, The right fit people are the ones who possess the right mind with knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours necessary to move your business in the direction it needs to go; to help realize the vision and values of the organization, they are fit for changes, and keep innovating and transforming the business for the long-term prosperity. People need to be developed and grown so the positive energy can flow and collective human capabilities can really be transformed. Where you want to look for 'fit' is in relation to the values you want to build or maintain within your team, and the kinds of behaviors that you would expect to see as a result of, or in alignment with, those values.
It is nevertheless true that the change itself has become unpredictable and evolutionary, as compared to treading through carefully laid down road-map. Change is the journey and ongoing capability to keep the business dynamic and organization reaching its maturity.





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The Monthly “Thinkingaire” Book Tuning: Cultivating Thinking Habits May 2017

As humans, we can not Not think!
With the increasing speed of change in the hyperconnected digital ecosystem, some industrial mindsets with “status quo” types of thinking, authoritarian attitude, and bureaucratic decision-make, are outdated, turn to be a "dragger" of the business innovation and a laggard of the digital paradigm shift. More specifically, what are the perception gaps to become the very obstacles for digital transformation and how to close them to embrace digital thinking styles? Cultivating Thinking Habits “Thinking Habit”: Do you Have One? As humans, we can not Not think! Our mind is always operating either in the foreground, or the background, at conscious, subconscious or superconscious mode. Since we don't always "feel pain," then thinking, in general, is not necessarily painful. However, we need to distinguish amongst the different types of thinking in order to evaluate the thought processes, also improve thinking qualities such as criticality, profundity, creativity, intelligence, etc. So how do you ingrain the thinking habits?
Creative Thinking Habit: Are we Capable of being Creative in an Auto Mode? The human progress is all based on our thinking, learning and changing capabilities. We tend to learn things in a series of small steps. Each step is quite simple and the link between steps is not a smooth one. Gradually this evens itself out as we learn whatever it is we are learning. Those initial steps were as they were because we use conscious thinking. When a human interactive task becomes automated, the crux of using our subconscious mind is to appreciate how different it is from our conscious mind. Even though the conscious mind (deliberate thoughts) and subconscious mind (auto mode) exist in the same body, they have vastly different characteristics. One of the interesting debates would be: Are we capable of being creative in an auto mode??  
Whole Brain Thinking? According to the theory of left-brain or right-brain dominance, each side of the brain controls different types of thinking. Additionally, people are said to prefer one type of thinking over the other. It has been shown that in many ways the two parts of the brain work separately yet without apparent conflict. Do they process information differently? Are you left-brainer or right-brainer? Shall we encourage whole brain thinking
Critical Thinking & Critical Thinker Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.
Can you Thinking Positively -How to Handle Negative Emotions Human is not perfect, there’s positive emotions and negative emotions; such as joy, anger, grief, worry, fear, sentiments, affection, and the 8th one: envy; the negative emotions such as the malicious envy may evoke the unprofessional or even destructive behaviors to build the walls in people’ hearts and cause the toxic culture in the work, business, and society. So how to handle your emotions and raise your EQ effectively.
The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.8 million page views with about 3800+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify your voice, deepen your digital footprints, and match your way for human progression.





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Is Digital CIO a Specialist or a Generalist

Contemporary CIOs are top leadership roles, leadership is about future and changes. Modern CIOs have many personas and face numerous challenges. It is not sufficient to only keep the light on. The CIO leadership maturity is based on the art of persuasion and the science of disciplines, the power of knowledge and the profundity of understanding. So, should digital CIOs be the technology specialist or the business generalist in order to lead effectively and innovatively?
A digital CIO = specialized generalist with hybrid talent: Many traditional CIOs were promoted under the IT rank as the technology specialist, often being perceived as IT geeks or technology managers who keep IT spinning to support the business only. Nowadays, many forward-thinking organizations are empowering their CIOs to lead IT as the change organization and most of the organizations today are looking for strategic or transformational CIOs in leading their digital transformation journey. Hence, digital CIOs today should be business generalists with T-shape IT knowledge, speak both 'business' and 'technology' dialects fluently, translate from one to the other seamlessly without “lost in translation.” As senior business executives, CIOs need to develop a broad skill set beyond technology - the business acumen to develop strategy and do in-depth analysis, the business architecture grounding, a solid understanding of the application of technology in general, the management ability to centralize IT resources and applications and coordinate business-unit resources and initiatives; the interdisciplinary practices of innovation/change/talent management, etc. Being transformational or being strategic goes beyond skills only. It's about the well-mixed vision, leadership substance, empathic communication and continuous improvement. Regardless of background, a great CIO is a specialized generalist with hybrid talent, technological visionary and a business strategist, understand both sides of business and bridge the gaps effectively.
A digital CIO = Catalyst in business transformation: Digital means fast growing information and increasing speed of changes. It is not sufficient for CIOs to only keep the lights on, they have to ride above the learning curve faster than the rest of the organization. They have to proactively lead change and catalyze digital transformation. When you are looking at creating digital options, about giving the organization the ability to explore new business models, then it is not just the value of the investment which matters, rather it is the breadth of vision and the depth of business understanding. They have to strike the right balance of both gaining the long-term perspective and achieving the short-term quick win. They need to measure IT performance effectively to bring qualitative and quantitative business results, not just IT results. Sometimes, there are conflicting KPIs between CxOs, that being an obstacle to achieving the corporate KPIs. For example, where IT shows all lights as green and yet the business is stalled or innovation has slowed or product costs are too high. CIOs as the senior executive of the company need to make leadership influence at the scope of the entire company or even the digital ecosystem, to ensure the business as a whole is superior to the sum of pieces.
A digital CIO = Continuous life learner: Leadership skills and capabilities are both nature and nurtured. By connecting with your true strengths and leveraging who you really are, and then, of course, doing the hard work that is required to build more strength you can create success. CIOs as senior executive roles should continue to sharpen leadership/ management skills, though some of the traits needed cannot be learned in a training course, they have to be developed via introspection, practicing and experimenting, such as entrepreneurial spirit, strong work ethic, leading by example, etc. CIOs have to be the creative business leader and forward thinker first! innovation, dealing with situations that you have not dealt with before, possessing the confidence and the experience to be entrepreneurial. CIOs have to become a continuous learner and new knowledge creator due to the shortened knowledge life cycle, this is particularly true in IT, and they have to set the example for creating the culture of learning. If CIOs similarly encourage those they guide to also seek ongoing experience and knowledge, then you will certainly grow a team that can drive your organization to the great height.
Modern CIOs are the sophisticated role. No one comes to a senior management role fully prepared for that role. Everyone needs to have some skills strengthened and some added. However, each of these types needs various types and degrees of knowledge, training, coaching, and continuous improvement. As their businesses change shape, size, expansion, and transformations, they too need conditioning and improvement. It's no wonder that truly successful CIOs are a rare breed regardless where they come from! It doesn’t so matter where the CIO comes from as long as he or she understands the vision, to drive the business growth and improve IT maturity. The path to mastery is something that unfolds day by day, it takes mental tenacity, innate leadership strength, in-depth business understanding, and solid skills to lead confidently and effectively.


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Digging into Three "P"s in Running Digital Organizations

Digital transformation represents the next stage of business maturity which will improve how the enterprise works and interacts with its ecosystem, with the customer at the center of its focus, information as the life blood, and innovation as the new muscles. Due to the “VUCA” nature of digitalization, the business complexity is unavoidable, companies that are skilled at running a high-effective digital organization can gain advantages by pushing the boundaries of a more complicated business mix, building coherent organizational capabilities, and digging into three “P”s, for running high-mature digital organizations.
Personality: Organizations have personalities in the same way that an individual does. In many ways, the organization is a reflection of the personality of its leaders or managers. Because organizations look to and talk about and mimic their organizational managers and leaders, it is these groups (particularly the first line / middle-level managers) that have a lot of power to influence the environment quickly and substantially. An “introvert” organization perhaps are more information-driven, able to “think” more, and respond to its environment intelligently. An “extrovert” organization are more action driven based on the leaders’ intuition. And each type has its own pros and cons. Every organization has a story: A set of beliefs, values, myths, history and judgments about the inner world of work, and the external environment around them. Whether at an individual or collective organizational level, what the personality assessment measures are the underlying motivational drivers that drives one's focus, mental map, decision-making style, relationship to norms, time and change, etc. Together these patterns ultimately drive behavior, actions and performance.
Performance: Performance is a result of how well the organization achieve its business goals, or how well a manager engages in developing an employee to make a certain accomplishment. A robust performance management system needs to be designed with end users in mind, more output driven, not process-driven; create synergy and optimize overall organizational maturity. Performance management is not just about winning, but in pursuit of excellence. It is important to streamline performance management scenario by simplifying systems, processes, objectives and share ownership, and follow with the amplifying individual, group and organization’s achievements. Winning and excellence are superb words for people who work very hard to achieve their goals and be competitive, and in the scope of organization, the fundamental business goal is to pursue operational excellence and achieve high performance business result.
Potential: Performance keeps the lights on, and potential leap the individual or the organization to the next level. All ambitious businesses strive to unlock its business creativity and unleash its full digital potential. It includes establishing a business climate that encourages creativity, and it also means investing the time and resources to develop domain skills in people and effective collaboration in groups, Helping people recognize when they are being creative shows them what you're expecting from them when you ask them to be "creative." Also create an interactive environment with customers. Business Creativity" must be something to do with the customers , create an interactive environment with customers, so that you can reverse engineer from customer to a creative product. Without innovative leadership, creativity is sporadic rather than integrated into the thinking and activities of the organization.  it needs to be truly spread throughout organizations to maximize the collective business potential.
Assessing organizational personality, managing company performance and maximizing business potential are important management scenario to build up a positive business climate, foster trustful relationship, enforce relentless communication and collaboration, encourage creativity, pursue excellence, to improve digital business maturity.


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