Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1246

De-Risk IT Management in Digital Transformation

IT plays a significant role in the digital transformation because it is in the unique position to oversee business processes and understand the underlying function of the organization. Therefore, IT will possess the companies widest breadth of view. At the age of digitalization, opportunities and risks are coexisting. The CIO will make an objective evaluation of the IT organization effectiveness, and periodic risk assessment, identify the barriers and chasms for achieving operational excellence, take the stepwise approach to improve overall IT maturity and catalyze digital transformation.
Silo mentality as a chasm between IT and business: Most business managers and teams still operate in silo mentality with an incomplete and relatively small view of the business ecosystem.  There is a disconnect between what business wants and what IT thinks business wants. The most important reason for project failure is "not knowing what businesses want," and waste the business resource and asset for achieving high ROI. Frequent and early feedback will mitigate directional problems and ensure the solution delivered is exactly what the customers/users want.If most managers still apply old silo management mindsets to new ways of organizing and this legacy of the old economy limits many digital organizations to unleash their full potential, and increasing the risk for organizations becoming stagnate, and even irrelevant. We live in an era of information abundance but insight scarcity. The result is about the higher risk of conflict and inertia, not something the organization wants in a global business environment that demands innovation, speed, responsiveness and flexibility to succeed. Silo perhaps still works in the considerably static industrial business environment. However, In today's volatile economy, hyperconnected and always on working environment, nothing impedes progress more than protective silos which are designed to preserve the status quo only.
Shortsightedness as the trap to digital transformation: Digital transformation is a long-term journey. Old IT thinking can not move fast enough in the age of the digitalization. Often time, IT focuses on fixing the symptom to meet the customers’ requests, but not invest in the balanced “run, grow, and transform”  IT portfolio which is crucial in calibrating IT growth with the steadfast pace. When shortsightedness rules, IT leaders could just spend all resources on gaining some short-term result. It increases the risk for IT to get stuck in the lower level of maturity, “keep the lights on” only.   Thus, CIOs need to keep collecting feedbacks from the business on how to improve IT services and satisfy customers, and how they can deliver ‘competitive capabilities” to the business as many businesses will plateau without IT. More explicitly, IT management is not just the business of IT. IT failure is caused by the management of IT rather than just IT management. The responsibility for evaluating the performance of IT investment lies squarely with the C-Level/board leadership team. It is not a function that can be handled only inside the IT department or by IT managers. Without the BoD and senior executive peers’ support, the managers in the IT department are perhaps working in the dark -Mushroom management, to increasing the risk and drag down the speed of the digital transformation.
The cognitive difference/skill/capability gaps: People (customers & employees) are the very purpose of running a business, however, it is often the weakest link and the highest risk in strategy and change management. Digital is full of uncertainty, velocity, complexity and ambiguity. Though the commodity knowledge is only a click away, the knowledge lifecycle is significantly shortened.The IT skills gap does exist, it’s not the fiction, but reality. Linear skills are no longer sufficient to deal with today’s complex business problems which typically need to be solved via multidisciplinary understanding and integral capabilities. Leadership gaps and innovation chasms are also the reality, that could only become worse if homogeneous team setting is still in common and diversity is only based on physical identities or other superficial criteria. All these talent pitfalls increase the risk for the business’s surviving as well as the long-term surviving and maximize its full potential. From top-down and bottom-up, companies must be nimble in managing talent to have the right people in the right place at the right time.
Hence, to de-risk IT management in the digital transformation, it is important to identify the chasms, dig into the root causes, and enforce communication. The long-term strategic planning and implementation need to be a cross-functional collaborative effort, not something the IT team does alone in a corner and recognize the bridge (from mindset to skillet) on the journey of digital transformation



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The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO” 3/3/ 2017

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.7 million page views with 3500+ 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. Here is the weekly insight about digital leadership, IT Management, and Talent Management.


  The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO”  3/3/2017Three Traits of Digital CIOs: The digital CIO role is multifaceted. CIOs today need to have both business acumen and technology know-how; They have to understand the business drivers, and speak in business terms; but also they need to know technology, how that technology relates to business drivers and what is and is not possible. In short, CIOs have to have a leg in both worlds, be the business strategist and technological visionary to look further, and be the IT managers to dive into technical know-how, and deliver IT-enabled business solutions. Here are three traits of digital CIOs to improve IT leadership effectiveness and achieve IT management excellence
CIOs as Chief Insight Officer: The “IN & OUTs” Viewpoint of Digital Transformation: The business and the world are experiencing the major societal TRANSFORMATION from the industrial age with the scarcity of information to the digital era with the abundance of information/ knowledge (but often insight is still scarce). These changes and transformations are reshaping our thinking and recasting the way we view the organization, the digital ecosystem of which we are the part of. In order to broaden the changing perspective and deepen the understanding of the digital business as a living thing, here are set of “IN& OUTs” viewpoint of digital transformation.?
Accelerate Digital Transformation via Reducing Unnecessary Pains? As many organizations are at an inflection point in digital transformation, that transformation represents a break from the past, with a high level of impact and complexity. The goal of the digital paradigm shift should look beyond immediate symptom fixing, the focus should include the mind shift and actions designed to solve real problems, sustain performance improvement and anchor change as a new opportunity. Some say, no pains, no gains; but to be fair, it is also important to reduce unnecessary pains and speed up to ride above the change curves. Because there are so many obstacles need to overcome, and numerous pitfalls on the way; it is so important to keep the end in mind, and laser focusing on the most critical things, continue tuning the business to get digital ready.
Bridging the Potential Gap Organizations today need both performance and potential. Performance keeps your business running, churning numbers etc, whereas potential looks at an employee that can bring your company to the next level, and the collective human potential in the organization is the greatest thing the organization should ever invest in, because it is the driving force to catalyze the business growth and build the unique organizational advantage the competitors cannot beat. So, how to understand both potential and performance at the deeper level, bridge the gap to unleash the collective potential and accelerate business performance to the next level
IT Management Quality Check in Digital Transformation? Quality is defined by a number of factors such as innovation, effectiveness, flexibility, or maturity, etc., and to effectively lead an organization into good practices to focus on quality attributes takes work and a level of credibility within the organization. IT plays a significant role in digital transformation, as more often than not, technology is a major digital disruptor today, the purpose of digital transformation is to embed digital technology into key business processes, to improve business capability and competency to compete for the future. Hence, CIOs should do the periodic IT management quality check to ensure its effectiveness, efficiency, and maturity.
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. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.
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Three Clarities about Visionary Leadership

Don’t fear of out-of-the-box thinking, but be scared if too many mindsets lag behind the digital era they live in.
Leadership is about setting directions, making positive influences and inspire innovation. At its core, leadership is the journey for problem-solving. Visionary leaders are always the rare breed, and hard to get; because leadership vision is like the light power to guide the organization to the uncharted water and blurred digital territories. However, there are myth and misunderstanding about vision and being a visionary, here are three clarities.  
Are visionaries too far ahead of their era? Many think visionaries are too far ahead of their era, but visionaries believe they are at the right timing to ride the change wave and step into the future; while many others are just lagging behind the digital era with the static mind. A visionary has the growth mind to predict and catch the digital trend. A visionary mind has the ability to think the past, perceive what is now and foresee the future. Vision is a foresight with a proactive understanding of cause and effect, not reactive seeing. It is a clear choice among future scenarios that advocates future trends and promotes certain behavior. A visionary leader changes the course of the business by seeing beyond what all other see or by charting new revenue or growth through the creation of a new product, service, business model or market. Vision should have a direction which sets in clarity. A leader with a vision, which is high enough to challenge the organization to excel, also practical enough to fulfill, can take his/her organization through the necessary steps to achieve that vision.
Do visionaries think too much “out-of-the-box”? Many think visionaries are too much out-of-box thinking, not so fit in; but visionaries think too many others get stuck to the conventional wisdom for too long; it leads to the outdated perceptions which stifle the human progress. Outlier Digital visionaries are the one who can step out of a conventional thinking box, or linear patterns. Therefore, they could see things further or deeper. Visionaries think forward, and therefore, often think positively about the future and the environment, to make the progress; but the out of dated perception is like time glue that keeps you still while the rest of the world moves on which creates another problem-resentment and more negative thinking; the most dangerous thing in the world is not hard, but soft, it is the negative emotion which leads to destructive behaviors. So visionary leaders do present authenticity -  being who you are, don’t be distracted or discouraged by others’ outdated perception; also, don’t be restricted by conventional wisdom, be open minded to perceive others as well in this ever fast changing digital dynamic.
Do visionaries have too much imagination, not realistic? Many think visionaries think too much, not practical enough to get into the reality - often the dark and frustrating real world scenario. Vision is neither fiction nor just the imagination. Visionaries do not lack knowledge, but able to connect the nonlinear dots interdisciplinarily. And their imagination is not constrained by the knowledge; they have the growth mind and creativity, with an intention to brighten the surrounding, and they refuse to be bound by constraints and limitations set by previous generations. That is the essence of leadership, for leading forward and advancing. Vision and innovation are different but complement - vision sets your sight on the horizon, and the strategy is the compass to guide you there.
Vision is indeed crucial, the leaders need to observe, perceive, and pay attention to the myriad of internal, external, national or global forces that define and influence the way we do business these days. Don’t fear of out-of-the-box thinking, but be scared if too many mindsets lag behind the digital era they live in. Great leaders should be great visionaries. They possess an innate potential to transform vision into reality and become the true source of inspiration and motivation for advancing and progression.
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The Perception, Priority, and Performance of Digital IT

IT is the spinal cord for the modern organization, integrating various functional capabilities to bring out technology-enabled business solutions and build the capacity to build business competency. IT plays even a more crucial role in the digital transformation of the organization. Besides the disruptive digital technology trends, IT effects in radical digital tuning are to be an integrator in knitting all important business factors, to improve business agility, flexibility, innovation and catalyze business growth. Here are the perception, priority, and performance of running a digital IT organization. Perception: In the traditional businesses, many IT organizations get stuck at the lower or middle level of maturity, running in a reactive mode, no wonder it is perceived as an order taker and support desk only. Same as CIOs, when IT only focuses on the operational part of the business, IT leaders are perceived as tactical IT managers without the seat at the big table. Some say, the gap between IT and the business is indeed enlarged d due to mistrust or “lost in translation” syndrome, and the different part of the business adapt to change with the different speed. IT is even perceived as the change laggard in some companies. Hence, to reinvent IT for getting digital ready, IT has to change the business’s perception of their organization, from a back office commodity service provider to keep the lights on, to an equal business partner for co-creating the strategy and contributing to the top line business growth. Due to increasing speed of change and exponential growth of information, now it actually has an opportunity for IT to unleash its potential, and demonstrate the execution of responsibility, to be recognized as a strategic business enabler and the innovation engine of the digital transformation.
Priority: Modern IT organizations are often overloaded and understaffed. Many IT organizations spend the high proportion of time and resources on transaction-related activities, and they measure IT performance from inside-out IT lens. Many IT organizations also act as the controller without doing enough to engage the business partner into collecting requirement and setting priority. Such management style would cause the desire to dominate, running IT as technology challenges, not business solutions, and the vanity of entitled gratuities. No wonder such IT organizations often get stuck at the lower level of maturity and try to make an alignment with the business. A premium digital IT needs to understand stakeholders’ expectations and propose a service/solution portfolio that corresponds to both demand and cost drivers with a focus on business priority and building unique business competency. A good place to start is by trying to get all parts of the business on the same process for proposing, justifying and prioritizing projects. CIOs don't set priorities in vacuums. Rather, they'll use the enterprise's strategy and business objectives to determine which capabilities are needed to enable it to achieve those objectives and then execute projects to build or solidify those capabilities.
Performance: The various activities are needed to manage performance both at strategic and operational level, such as: Improving speed & agility; improving revenue; improving customer acquisition/retention; lowering risk/cost, etc. IT performance metrics need to evolve to something that matters to the business audience, at the same time that "business sentiment" needs to get put into something more tangible, such as optimize processes, or improve productivity. Identify the key performance indicators of the company and detail how your initiatives will drive improvements in the current state. Always attempt to identify areas in which measurable improvements can be realized, providing demonstrable value is essential, in some instances, these areas have been low-hanging fruit.It is a very good idea to make IT metrics transparent to the varying departments, to visualize the progress and also to evaluate if the KPIs being used are the same as the ones they use to describe IT activity. Your measures should cover all areas that contribute to value creation including service quality, employee engagement, customer satisfaction, innovation benefit, and financial outcomes. "Continual improvement" is IT mantra in the digital era, CIOs with improvement mindset continually look to optimize processes and improve customer satisfaction.
IT needs to reinvent its brand via both working hard and working smart. Setting the right priority to create multidimensional business value and update the business’s perception of IT as a cost center. The faster the top leadership team understands that IT is not just technical, but rather business-driven, the high visible IT can elevate its maturity from “reactive to change” to proactively driving business transformations and improve its performance to get digital ready.
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The Monthly Spotlight on Digital CIOs: The CIO as Change Agent in Digital Transformation Feb. 2017

Modern CIOs have many personas and face great challenges.

Modern CIOs have many personas and face great challenges. It is not sufficient to only keep the light on. Regardless of which industry or the nature of organization you are in, being a digital leader will need to master the art of creating unique, differentiating value from piles of commoditized technologies, but more specifically, what are the digital-savvy CIOs doing to run IT as a growth engine and innovation Hub? Here is the monthly spotlight of the CIO.                             The CIO as Change Agent in Digital TransformationRefresh CIO Leadership to Accelerate Digital Transformation The CIO role is considerably a newer top executive role compared to other business executive positions. At the static industrial age, IT was perceived as a cost center, and CIOs were labeled as the technical geek and tactical manager, and the majority of IT organizations get stuck in the lower level of maturity.  However, due to the exponential growth of information and increasing speed of changes, technologies are often the disruptive force behind digital technologies. IT plays a more significant role in leading businesses forward at the front. So, how to refresh CIO leadership to accelerate digital transformation?From a “Surviving CIO” to a Thriving CIO Compare to other CXO titles, CIO is considerably a newer role with only around three decades history. Due to the changing nature of technology, CIOs and IT seem to be always in the hot seat to adapt to the change. What are the biggest mistakes that a CIO can make? How much technology knowledge does an effective CIO require? What’s the significant difference between a traditional CIO and a digital CIO? Or to put simply, how can CIOs shift mentality from a “surviving” mode to a “thriving” mode?The Digital-Savvy CIO Modern CIOs face many challenges, it is not sufficient to only keep the light on. Regardless of which industry or the nature of organization you are in, being a digital leader will need to master the art of creating unique and differentiative value from piles of commoditized technologies, but more specifically, what are the digital-savvy CIOs doing to run IT as a value creator and innovation engine?
Where are the CIO’s Real Challenges in Digital Transformation? Digital provides significant opportunities for business growth, also brings unprecedented risks to cause business fall. Never before has IT and business been so closely tied together. Never before has technology moved more quickly and missteps have larger trajectory impacts on every aspect of the business?

The CIO as a Digital Orchestra Conductor? Metaphorically, the CIO need to be the bridge between the strategic goals of the business and IT. At the age of cloud, the CIO also needs to lead as a conductor than a constructor, in order to speed up and improve IT agility. A forward-thinking CIO will figure out a way to leverage the cloud to explore business options much more quickly. As the cloud era is also the age of innovation and radical digitalization, while IT provides important structure and framework to streamline the process and enable the digital transformation. Learning the business is a must for the CIO to come up with an experiential knowledge coupled with data for enabling and empowering the enterprise. For larger enterprises, their IT resources and capability are often the company's secret sauce and the key to how they deliver value to the business?
The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.7 million page views with about #3500th 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 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. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

The Monthly Spotlight on Digital CIOs: The CIO’s Role in Digital Transformation Feb. 2017

Modern CIOs have many personas and face great challenges.
Modern CIOs have many personas and face great challenges. It is not sufficient to only keep the light on. Regardless of which industry or the nature of organization you are in, being a digital leader will need to master the art of creating unique, differentiating value from piles of commoditized technologies, but more specifically, what are the digital-savvy CIOs doing to run IT as a growth engine and innovation Hub? Here is the monthly spotlight of the CIO.                             The CIO’s Role in Digital TransformationRefresh CIO Leadership to Accelerate Digital Transformation The CIO role is considerably a newer top executive role compared to other business executive positions. At the static industrial age, IT was perceived as a cost center, and CIOs were labeled as the technical geek and tactical manager, and the majority of IT organizations get stuck in the lower level of maturity.  However, due to the exponential growth of information and increasing speed of changes, technologies are often the disruptive force behind digital technologies. IT plays a more significant role in leading businesses forward at the front. So, how to refresh CIO leadership to accelerate digital transformation?From a “Surviving CIO” to a Thriving CIO Compare to other CXO titles, CIO is considerably a newer role with only around three decades history. Due to the changing nature of technology, CIOs and IT seem to be always in the hot seat to adapt to the change. What are the biggest mistakes that a CIO can make? How much technology knowledge does an effective CIO require? What’s the significant difference between a traditional CIO and a digital CIO? Or to put simply, how can CIOs shift mentality from a “surviving” mode to a “thriving” mode?The Digital-Savvy CIO Modern CIOs face many challenges, it is not sufficient to only keep the light on. Regardless of which industry or the nature of organization you are in, being a digital leader will need to master the art of creating unique and differentiative value from piles of commoditized technologies, but more specifically, what are the digital-savvy CIOs doing to run IT as a value creator and innovation engine?Where are the CIO’s Real Challenges in Digital Transformation? Digital provides significant opportunities for business growth, also brings unprecedented risks to cause business fall. Never before has IT and business been so closely tied together. Never before has technology moved more quickly and missteps have larger trajectory impacts on every aspect of the business?
The CIO as a Digital Orchestra Conductor? Metaphorically, the CIO need to be the bridge between the strategic goals of the business and IT. At the age of cloud, the CIO also needs to lead as a conductor than a constructor, in order to speed up and improve IT agility. A forward-thinking CIO will figure out a way to leverage the cloud to explore business options much more quickly. As the cloud era is also the age of innovation and radical digitalization, while IT provides important structure and framework to streamline the process and enable the digital transformation. Learning the business is a must for the CIO to come up with an experiential knowledge coupled with data for enabling and empowering the enterprise. For larger enterprises, their IT resources and capability are often the company's secret sauce and the key to how they deliver value to the business?
The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.7 million page views with about #3500th 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 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. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

An Exceptional Board

Corporate Board is one of the most significant top leadership teams and governance bodies in modern businesses. Generally speaking, the corporate boards have a couple of main functions such as strategy oversight, governance practices (monitoring, risk management), advising and coaching (providing advice & support to executives), and resource provision (opening their networks etc.) But how to build an exceptional board that can provide exceptional values to the business, and unleash the full potential of the organization?
Exceptional leadership influence: An exceptional board is composed with exceptional BoDs who present strong digital leadership traits such as critical thinking, creativity, influence, inquisitiveness, ethics, global perspective, and cultural awareness. They practice directorship based on the breadth of business knowledge and in-depth expertise of their domain, to help connect the wider dots and set the tones for the business innovation and digital transformation. They are the masterminds and social influencers for advocating changes and digital transformation. The exceptional BoDs also have the synthetic thinking capabilities and strong innovation skills to deal with situations that they have not dealt with before and possess the confidence and the experience to set the entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial spirit for growth and innovating, to ride the wave of digital transformation.
Exceptional business understanding: As their businesses change shape, size, expansion, and transformations, they need conditioning and improvement. Further, businesses and organizations that find themselves setting new and radically different trajectories are facing a daunting task of navigating largely uncharted territories. Exceptional BoDs knows the business, knows the corporate direction and can even influence that direction and make gains leveraging advanced digital technologies. Hence, exceptional BoDs needs to be an independent thinker, unbiased communicator, wise advisor,  flexible facilitator and global leader these days. In the face of vast areas of unknowns; they can also help assess the organizational digital maturity, even the digital transformation tools platforms, or frameworks which are needed  that addresses both the mechanics of getting the work done and the human factors associated with the major thought paradigm shift that must take place within the organization at all levels in order to transform seamlessly.
Exceptional performance-driver: Besides compliance, boards need to make laser-focused performance driven agenda. At the majority of the time, the board agenda should be focused on the progress toward the goals, targets, schedules., etc. It is responsible for authorizing and monitoring business strategy, develop business policies offering further constraint/guidance to implementation of the strategy, monitor performance and implementation of the strategy, manage risks across all domains of interest. The Board's role, in large part, is to make good decisions that enhance the value creation for the organization. They need to focus on their own performance as well as the performance of the management team, and, that performance is not limited to financial performance, but also to the firm's performance in creating value for employees and customers. Business performance can be affected by numerous factors of which governance is one of them. Ultimately, the board takes the praise or the blame depending largely on their ability to influence the business outcomes.It's not only about now but also about the future and that means an open mindset to change.
Building an exceptional board is challenging. The real BoD’s dilemma is that driving the business forward is extremely difficult, it means looking into an unknown future and attempting to define the landscape with its risks and opportunities. It also means taking control of the softer issues, such as setting policy, executive succession, multidimensional thinking, advising setting risk appetite, etc, but it plays a significant role in running an exceptional digital organization. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

The Observations, Objectives and Obstacles of Digital Transformation

Digital Paradigm means hyper-connectivity, interdependence, and integration. Digital becomes the very fabric of the modern business, being outside-in and customer-centric is the new mantra for forward-looking digital organizations today. Digital transformation is not just a one-dimensional technology upgrading, but a multidirectional business exploration to get the organization digital ready. Here are the observations, objective, and obstacles about digital transformation.
Observation: Before taking actions, start a deep observation to understand your business, and assess the business stage in a life cycle of the business, dig through the real issues need to be addressed, the causes of changes, with the realization that where you are currently no long can deliver the business objective and vision of success for your company and your shareholders. Observe your people, are they satisfied and fully engaged with the work? Observe your culture - the collective mindset, is it positive and innovative, or the opposite is true? Observe how things get done in the organization, is the process over complicated, or bureaucracy blocks the way? Moreover, a gap analysis, skills/business capability assessment, effectiveness evaluation, efficiency study, workflow analysis, maturity rating, and knowledge of trends and models that work best to meet the business goals are needed before new schemes and designs are created and agreed upon across the business and all shared services. Take a stepwise approach, and walk through “look, listen, question, understand, plan, test and collaboration,” phases for managing change effort and observation should always be the first, and one of the most critical steps in any change and business transformation management scenario.
Objectives: Transformation requires a commitment to a goal, goals are high-level and objectives are a part of the goal. The objective is a specific result that a person or a business aims to achieve within a time frame and with available resources. Transformation takes a holistic approach. Digital transformation isn’t just an extension of continuous improvement of the current business. So thinking outside the current constraints and comfort zones requires a different vision and the courage to pursue it. The first best factor to the “transformational change” and its further “championing” has been the endless self-exploration and self-transformation in the material, emotional, intellectual dimensions that need to co-evolve together. From the business management perspective, it is the journey to expand toward all different directions, hence, setting achievable goals and measurable objectives help the business management keep focus, and ensure the business transformation is on the right track. FOCUS is essential to execution success, and if you take on too many things at once you seldom succeed with any of them. In general, objectives are more specific and easier to measure. Objectives of digital transformation are basic tools that underlie all planning and strategic activities.  They serve as the basis for creating policies and evaluating performance and changes.
Obstacles: Digital transformation is a journey full of challenges, it is no surprise that there are many visible obstacles or hidden pitfalls on the way. For example, leaders often miss the big picture, and couldn’t keep the end in mind, getting lost in the process; senior executive could also be blinded by their previous success and become complacent, blind to a need or discover the new path. The significant difference between business transformation and daily transactional operation is that often transformation has to break down the old rules, disrupt the status quo and “We always do things like that,” mentality, proactively adapt to changes, and figure out the better way to do things for making a leap of digital transformation. Digital transformation is inevitable, with proven advantages to improve organizational agility and maturity, but if something is missing, stagnation and uncertainty will surface.This means that there is a need for actual work to be happened to understand the principles, so it is possible to have the right innovative thought through a realistic approach by involving every line of people, processes, and resources. Barriers can be daunting, yet overcome them, and don’t let them cloud your vision. Consider how awesome the synergy of a highly innovative organization could create, to make people happier, customers delightful and the business as a whole accelerating growth.
Digital makes a profound impact from the specific function to the business as a whole, the purpose of such radical digitalization is to make a significant difference in the overall levels of achieving high performing business result. Hence, make deep observations, set reasonable objectives, and overcome obstacles for speeding up changes.
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The Monthly “Decision Master” Book Tuning: Digital Decision-Making Styles. Feb. 2017

Corporate Performance Management is a management control from strategy till shop floor. "If you can't measure, you can't manage," legendary management guru Peter Drucker once asserted. He was right Managing performance means understanding results, setting metrics, fixing plans, and making decisions to ensure it happens. It takes multifaceted approaches from multidimensional perspectives.
Digital Decision-Making Styles
Decision-Making in Digital Way? One significant effect of digitization is increased velocity, complexity, unpredictability, and a need for a faster response to changes in business and industry based on effective and efficient decision making. How is that possible? What’s the digital way to make the right decision? And how to avoid the pitfalls to make bad decisions?
What's Your Decision-Making Style?Decision making is both the art and science, it takes both analytics and intuition; philosophy and methodology, substance and style. In order to make the best decisions, it is better having a mix of decision-making styles in the room. Can you spot the different types? Do you aim for a balanced representation of styles?
Participative Decision-Making? Decision-making is both art and science. Having all the facts to make the best decision is a utopia we would all like. But in practice, each person has their own cognitive strength, knowledge limitation, background, or experience. So besides independent thinking and structural decision-making scenario, we should always collect feedback and involve the right people for getting complementary insight in making better decisions. Technically, it is about leveraging participative decision-making style for improving decision-making effectiveness and maturity?
The Hybrid Decision-Making Style The digital leaders and professionals spend the significant amount of time in making decisions. However, ineffective decision-making becomes one of the biggest root causes to fail businesses due to "VUCA" characteristics of the digital normality. The poor decision-making can cause the business dysfunction, employee disengagement, or customer dissatisfaction; the short time loss or the long term pain in the organization. The point is that there is no one size fits all formula for all decision making, there are all sorts of decision-making styles depend on the decision maker's cognitive ability, knowledge, insight, or personality. With the increasing pace of change and overwhelming information, can the hybrid style help to improve decision-making maturity?
Proactive Decision-Making: Digital leaders and professionals spend a significant amount of time at all levels of decision-making -strategic decisions, operational decisions or tactical decisions on the daily basis. Statistically, business decision effectiveness (especially large strategic decisions) is low, poor decision making is often caused by ineffective processes, lack of knowledge or resources, cognitive gaps, unconscious bias, or procrastination, etc. We live in the digital era with "VUCA" characteristics, decision-making is more science than art. So how to take a proactive and step-wise approach for decision-making, in order improving decision effectiveness and maturity.
The blog is a dynamic book flowing with your thought; growing through your dedication; sharing your knowledge; conveying your wisdom, and making influence through touching the hearts and connecting the minds across the globe. The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.7 million page views with about #3500 blog posting. Among 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. 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. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.

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Decision Master IntroductionDecision Master Chapter 1 Decision IntelligenceDecision Master Chapter 2 Decision PrinciplesDecision Master Chapter 3 Digital Decision StylesDecision Master Chapter 4 Decision PitfallsDecision Master Chapter 5 Decision Maturity Decision Master Conclusion Five Pillars in Achieving Decision ExcellenceDecision Master Quotes Collection 1Decision Master Quotes Collection 2
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The Cognitive Gap Cause and Effect

Cognition is the mental process of acquiring knowledge through thought, experience, and senses. The "mind" represents our consciousness and awareness. It is the software that promotes and regulates each function and each action of our body, from the reproduction and reconstruction of our cells to the food process and distribution, to our voluntary and involuntary movements, and to all our behaviors, etc. However, the brain activities function for survival instincts are still primitive, what are the further aspect of human sophistication in regards to vision, communication, and innovation for problem-solving or overcoming challenges? And what are further problems caused by cognitive gaps and how to bridge them effectively?
Cognitive gaps further enlarge problem-solving gaps: It is a simplification to call cognition thinking, which means people acquire knowledge through thinking and sensing. The mind is something more personal. It is a label that individuals create for that collective sensation or awareness that is on their own. People are different, not because we look differently, but because we think differently. The cognitive gap is one of the serious problems for both problem-solving and innovation. Because cognitive gaps will cause the blind spots for either defining the real problem or solving it. And if you don’t have a sound solution to each newly created problem, you’ll have very little chances to succeed solving the main problem, because all is connected. And if you can’t connect the dots, you also cannot switch on creativity and inspire innovation. If you only fix the symptom, not the root cause, then it perhaps causes more problems later. And that is why our world today contains, in reality, more problems creators than true problems solvers because trying to solve a problem, by nature will create others. To overcome the common challenges and advance the human race, we have to really dig beneath the superficial layer, see around the corner and transcend the interdisciplinary knowledge, to get to the heart of the matter. Thus, it is important to close cognitive gaps via building heterogeneous teams with the cognitive difference and complementary skills/capabilities/background/experience, to broaden the vision, and deepen understanding.
Cognitive gaps cause innovation gaps: When we explore the mental process of acquiring new knowledge through thought, experience, and senses, the cognition involves exploring varieties of meanings/thoughts and abandoning old and establishing new relations. The cognitive gap disconnects many things which are supposed to be interconnected, hence, it becomes the barrier for connecting the dots to stimulate creativity, or capture the insight. Hence, the heterogeneous team with cognitive differences is more innovative than the homogeneous group setting, as good ideas are multidimensional, they take root in unsuspected places and they evolve with time and by unexpected connections. From talent management perspective, to bridge cognitive gaps, as well as innovation gaps, the management needs to pay more attention to those shining spots: Who can bring unique viewpoint, who can find an alternative way to solve old or emergent problems, who can take extra miles to delight customers; who has the courage to provide bosses constructive feedback with good intentions; who is just unconventionally different and who is positive influencers for building a culture of innovation?  People also need permission to push ideas around an organization without the fear of failure and once people see things being implemented and making a difference, the confidence increases and they will become even more innovative.
The cognitive gap also causes leadership effectiveness gap: Leadership is more about future but starts at today.  As leaders, we facilitate eliciting the views if they don't think of them on their own. People also have different experience and personality, therefore, they may have the different way to do things or provide feedback, as a leader, to bridge leadership effectiveness gap, you need to not just listen to what’s being said, more importantly, what’s not being said. One of the significant tasks for leaders and managers is to make either strategic or operational decision. Decision effectiveness is often compromised by group thinking (group polarization means that a group of people can make a more extreme decision than an individual.) which is often caused by the homogeneous team setting with cognitive gaps. The digital leadership is crucial to encourage “Thinking Differently.” It is important to be able to be objective and gain a different view in order to develop and have a better understanding of certain topics or problems that may occur. Understanding cognitive intelligence also helps improve leadership and management effectiveness. One of the most influencing aspects of people's psychology is how they perceive the world around and how they relate to it. This is a function of things like cognitive intelligence, and the collective psychology shapes the culture of organization, how people think and do things in the organization, by understanding the proving psychological concept and practicing them, businesses can instill the positive psychology to their workforce, close the gaps created by outdated mentality, build culture of learning and innovation, and ultimately achieve high performance result.
In short, cognition is a perception, sensation, and insight. Cognition reorganizes parts of one’s belief system, and thoughts navigate within one’s present belief system as it is. There is no magic “thinking sauce” to make one’s mind profound, or leadership effective, it is to keep learning agile for updating knowledge and close cognitive gaps via brainstorming.  


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