Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1299

Running IT as Digital Change Agent

Digital is about changes. Digital transformation is a journey. Literally transformation is to radically change the nature of something. So digital transformation is a radical change of business via its underlying business processes, invisible business culture or emergent new business model, etc. In a business scope, there are some of the “significant bits and bytes of information” needed when evaluating a new market, new technology or any business growth opportunity. Hence, IT plays a critical role in exploring such an “art of impossible,” and should be run as a digital Change Agent.  
CIOs must set the principles, guideline and rules to run a Change Agent digital IT: IT is in the middle of a sea change, it is important to realize that there are basic principles and rules that make it work. CIOs shouldn’t get pushed for the changes, they are actually in a better position to play a role as change agent. CIOs are accountable for critical part of the business that is constantly changing and evolving. thus, contemporary CIOs should be capable of evolving leadership skills to not only match pace with the changes in technology and the pace at which organization can effectively manage these changes, but also proactively drive changes in business transformation. Change Management is a journey, not just a one-time project. A clearly defined roadmap should be available, and industry best practices need to be in place to serve as a framework upon which the solution can be implemented over time. Only if the CIO is proactive and innovative, IT can be run in a proactive mode to make continuous delivery of customer-tailored products/services/solution.
A change agent IT should get deeper understanding the issues facing both internal customers and end customers as well: Not just scratch the surface, but dig through the root causes. Change is not for its own sake, it is IT responsibility to identify opportunity for business transformation wherever analysis and assessment indicate the potential benefits of transformation efforts, to oversee key business process and influence organizational culture, to enable and catalyze business transformation. Business transformation should not be undertaken lightly because it must align diverse and divergent stakeholders' interests toward a common goal. IT is  in a unique position because they can see the whole organization and should have the program skills to implement transformation successfully.
Last but not least, people are change masters: The CIO needs to identify change champions as the lightning rod for the project. IT leaders/talent also need to possess business skills and change techniques to garner the influence needed to be effective. You need problem solvers, change agents, customer champions and innovators, and those who can think forward, dig deeper, see through the issues, look around and beneath the corner, and work smarter. The wider organization needs to provide support for assuring the skills people bring into one organization don't go to waste in the same. Riding ahead of the change curve takes strategy, technology, and methodology. People are the weakest link, also the very reason for any changes, so make people as your core focal point in Change Management.
Digital is about change. But change in and of itself is never the reason. Change is the vehicle, not the purpose of doing a project. Change is an ongoing business capability in which often IT is a key component, and Change Management needs to be a mechanism embedded in the multitude of IT management. A clear vision, a systematic thinking and effective communication, the logical processes and exemplified change leadership are all the key success factors to overcome challenges and manage changes smoothly.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

The Monthly CIO Debates Collection How to Run High-Mature IT via Self-Assessment Sep. 2016

Debating is not for stimulating conflicts, but for brainstorming better ways to do things.
Due to the changing nature of technology, IT leadership role also continues to involve & shift the focus, to move up the maturity level. More and more CIOs are requested to take more responsibility and many CIOs present the breadth of leadership competency. The proactive IT debates help IT leaders to brainstorm innovative and better ways to do things, and improve management capabilities. Here are the monthly CIO debates collections in Sep., 2016.

How to Run High-Mature IT via Self-Assessment Sep. 2016   
Why is IT so Reluctant to Look at itself?  With the rate of change is accelerated, it’s very important for contemporary organizations to continually do “self-reflection’ upon the business effectiveness, process efficiency, strength and risks, culture and brand etc. IT is a critical component of the business, commonly IT self-evaluation ability is a reflection on overall business culture within the whole organization. Some say IT is so reluctant to look at itself, is it true?
Is Business & IT Gap ‘Artificial’? The “gap” between business and IT is always a hot debate, and the conclusion is also controversial, some say, the gap is definitely shrinking, as IT is gradually becoming engrained into every aspect of business these days due to internet, technology developments etc. The clear cut divide that used to be there between IT and business in the olden days is vanishing fast; the opposite opinion is that indeed the gap is deepened  because the “shadow IT”-business bypassing IT oversight to order SAAS service on their own, causes serious governance issue and communication gaps
Is IT still Triple-Puzzling: Costly, Complex, and Confounding? Year after year, the similar debates are spurred in CIO forums: What is the TCO on IT investment? What is the value added of IT service?  Does IT lack of cost transparency into initiatives. So is IT still triple-puzzling: Costly, complex and confounding?
Is IT at Cross-Road? IT organizations are facing significant transformation, perhaps crossroad is an appropriate word to articulate IT position since CIOs seem to fall into two camps. The first is the "utility" CIO who competently manages a complex technology infrastructure, but is not on the "go to" list for implementing the strategy. The latter is "value" CIO who has delegated infrastructure management and well articulate how information and technology can accomplish the company strategic and tactical objectives. So what is next for CIOs beyond the crossroads? How can CIOs enable high performing organizations, and in return, their organizations leverage high-performing CIOs?
Why Has IT Been Perceived as the ‘Weakest Link’ ? IT plays a more important role in the digital transformation of the organization. It is the superglue to connect both the hard elements of the business such as processes, platforms, technologies and soft elements of the organization such as information, knowledge,  culture and integrate them into a set of business capabilities, which underpin the business strategy. However, there is the perception gap between IT looks at itself and the business perceives IT. IT is often seen itself as a business enabler and change agent, but business often thinks that IT is slower to change, and even be one of the “weakest links” for the business transformation. So why is IT not getting enough respect despite all good work and huge efforts were undertaken? Where does it link to improve IT brand? To deal with such a "He said, she said" dilemma: What are the different perspectives from each party, how to integrate them into a holistic IT view and reinvent the tarnished IT reputation?
The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.5 million page views with 3000+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. blog posting. 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

Digital Talent Gap Minding in Running a Digital Fit IT

Develop talent for tomorrow, rather than just hire for yesterday.

Human capital is always the most valuable asset in any business, especially now the rate of change is accelerated, and knowledge life cycle is significantly shortened. The talent gap is the reality, not a fiction, this is particularly true for IT talent management due to the exponential growth of information and change nature of technology. Organizations now have to make more tough choices to compete for the future, not just live in the past; to balance the short term talent demand and long-term strategic talent requirement. More specifically, which approach should IT take to fill the mindset/capability/skill gaps and also innovate talent management to capture the emergent digital trends, ride above the learning curve, and build an alternative digital talent pipeline?

Constructive thinking about IT talent competencies at both strategic level and operational level: IT leaders play a crucial role in identifying talent gaps, and align talent skills and collective human capabilities with strategy execution. One of the skill gaps is the lack of digital mindset and recombinant capabilities in the IT leadership. Often times people are at the leadership or management position look narrowly at specific problems and projects developed to solve daily business challenges or meet the immediate staff requirement at the operational level, partly because that is the way funding is allocated, rather than having a broad view of their enterprise and the longer term strategy for the organization and build the sustainable human capability for the business growth. With constructive thinking about talent competency at the strategy level, the problem of IT skill gaps should be seen as an opportunity, especially as more and more organizations are seeing IT as an enabler and driver of generating revenues, talent people with both business acumen and technical expertise are in strong demand to fill business-IT gaps and running IT as business. Creativity is the most wanted quality for digital professionals to help forward-looking organizations reach the next level of the business growth cycle and catalyze digital transformation.

There is a shortage of effective talent management which could be translated to a skills shortage: Some talent gaps are artificial because talent managers understand issues only basing on the symptoms, and not digging into the root causes. Often managers complain rather than solve the problem, managers complain about the cost but fail to understand the lost opportunity costs. the managers high the static knowledge but ignore learning agility. The list goes on. There is Out-of-Date talent recruiting and performance management practices and mechanism. There's misunderstanding or miscommunication (lost in translation) in between IT talent request and HR's searching mechanism, also, there's a disconnect of short-term IT staff needs and long term talent perspectives. From overall people management perspective, how to encourage IT professionals stepping out of comfort zone, continue to learn, continue to innovate, and update performance management practices by assessing both quantity and quality result objectively, to well define digital talent management in order to adapt to the fast-paced business new normal.

Update Talent Competency Model: Forward-thinking organizations are transforming and moving to reach the higher maturity level at the digital age. Filling talent gap, updating talent competency model, and taking holistic people management approach are the strategic imperative for them to compete for the future. There needs to be a better appreciation for real critical thinking and problem-solving abilities.You can give most people skills easily when compared to trying to give/develop the ability, attitude, flexibility, intelligence, practicality, pragmatism etc. From technological lens, IT talent needs to have both technical and business skills, it should take a preponderant importance in the coming years to make sustainable IT-Business relationship. The value of IT is not in the technology itself but in how to use it via the business lens, having clearly understood how your business works and what their goals and strategy. There is intense learning and continuous knowledge update for IT professionals due to the changing nature of technology. Thus, learning agility is even more important than knowledge itself because a dynamic IT professional is self-motivated to collect the necessary information and resources for solving old and new business problems creatively. There are needs to change so that the independent and critical thinking are encouraged and problem-solving minds are engaged.  

Ideologically, the highly effective and highly dynamic digital organizations, no matter large or small, have a multitude of positive characteristics: the startup's business culture-- innovative and dynamic; well-established organization’s structure and expertise, the institute's learning attitude & agility, because the speed of knowledge life cycle is accelerated. Digital fit organizations fill talent gaps via reimagining business possibilities, reinventing people management processes, and fine-tune the digital talent pipelines to discover and develop talent for tomorrow, rather than just hire for yesterday.

Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Digital Gap Minding in IT Talent Management

Develop talent for tomorrow, rather than just hire for yesterday.
Human capital is always the most valuable asset in any business today, especially now the rate of change is accelerated, and knowledge life cycle is significantly shortened. The talent gap is the reality, not a fiction, this is particularly true for IT talent management. Organizations now have to make more tough choices to  compete for the future, to balance the short term talent demand and long-term strategic requirement. More specifically, which approach should IT take to fill the gaps and also innovate talent management to capture the emergent digital trends and build a smooth digital pipeline?
Constructive Thinking about IT talent competencies at both strategic level and operational level: IT leaders play a crucial role in identifying talent gaps, and align talent skills and collective human capabilities with strategy execution. One of the skill gaps is the lack of digital mindset and recombinant capabilities in the IT leadership. Often times they look narrowly at specific problems and projects developed to solve those business problems or meet the immediate staff requirement at the operational level, partly because that is the way funding is allocated, rather than having a broad view of their enterprise and the longer term strategy for the organization and build the sustainable human capability for the business growth. With constructive thinking about talent competency at the strategy level. The problem of IT skill gaps should be seen as an opportunity, especially as more and more organizations are seeing IT as an enabler and driver of generating revenues.
There is a shortage of effective talent management which could be translated to a skills shortage: Some talent gaps are artificial because talent management understands issues only basing on the symptoms, and not digging into the root causes. Often managers complain rather than solve the problem, managers complain about the cost but fail to understand the lost opportunity costs. The list goes on. There is Out-of-Date talent recruiting and performance management. There's misunderstanding or miscommunication (lost in translation) in between IT talent request and HR's searching mechanism, also, there's a disconnect of short-term IT staff needs and long term talent perspectives. From overall people management perspective, how to encourage IT professional stepping out of comfort zone, continue to learn, continue to innovate, and update performance management practices by assessing both quantity and quality result objectively, to well define digital talent management in order to adapt to the fast-paced business new normal.
Update Talent Competency Model: Forward-thinking organizations are transforming and moving to reach higher maturity at the digital age. Filling talent gap, updating talent competency model, and taking holistic people management approach are strategic imperative. There needs to be a better appreciation for problem-solving abilities. You can give most people skills easily when compared to trying to give/develop the ability, attitude, flexibility, intelligence, practicality, pragmatism etc. From technological lens, IT talent needs to have both technical and business skills, it should take a preponderant importance in the coming years to make sustainable IT-Business relationship. The value of IT is not in the technology itself but in how to use it, having clearly understood how your business works and what their goals and strategy. There is intense learning and continuous knowledge update for IT professionals due to the changing nature of technology, thus, learning agility is even more important than knowledge itself because a dynamic IT professional can be self-motivated to collect the necessary information and resources for solving problems creatively. There are needs to change so that the independent and critical thinking are encouraged and problem-solving minds are engaged.  
Ideologically, the highly effective and highly dynamic digital organizations, no matter large or small, have a multitude of positive characteristics: the startup's business culture-- innovative and dynamic; well-established organization’s structure and expertise, the institute's learning attitude & agility, as the speed of knowledge life cycle is accelerated. They fill talent gaps via reimagining business possibilities, reinventing processes, and fine-tune the digital talent pipelines to discover and develop talent for tomorrow, rather than just hire for yesterday.

Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

The Monthly Decision Making Insight: Multidimensional Thought Processes in Decision Making Sep. 2016

Decision making is the arena across the art and science; gut feeling and data driven, confidence and humility.
Making a decision is one of the significant tasks for business leadership, however, the high ratio of strategic decisions have been made poorly and cause the catastrophic effect. What are multidimensional thought processes in making effective decisions both strategically and tactically?



What’s the Magic Formula to Make the Right Decision? Having all the facts to make the best decision is a utopia we would all like. But as the saying goes, if you don't move swiftly someone may eat your lunch. Technically, how shall you weigh in the data and gut feeling to make the effective decision at the right time??
How to Apply Critical Thinking to Ask Good Questions? Critical Thinking is the rational analysis (often with  creativity embedded in it) and evaluation of the issues in order to make a fair judgment. There is only a very small fraction of true Critical Thinkers who can always dig through the root causes of problems. How to debunk the myth of Critical Thinking, and  how to apply Critical Thinking to ask good questions for either problems-solving or making sound judgment and effective decisions timely?
Analytics-based Decision Science? Although decision making is both art and science; intuition and analysis, thinking fast and thinking slow. Due to the complexity and interdependence of digital nature, decision becomes more science than art, the whole purpose of analytics is to make better decisions based on data, big or small; wide or narrow; you can call it with any name like decision theory, science, and technology. The point is, how can it optimize decision making scenario and improve decision effectiveness??
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?
Decision Wisdom? The majority of leaders and professional spend a significant amount of time on making large or small decisions in the work and life. It takes wisdom, not just the intelligence to make effective decisions. There is fuzziness in the decisions because there is fuzziness in conflicting criteria. At the Digital Era, making data-based decisions means to leverage analytical thinking, advanced analytic tools, the human’s intuition, and add the “wisdom’ in the decision process to improve the overall effectiveness of decision making?
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 1.5 million page views with about #3000 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.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Five Aspects of Running a High-Mature Digital IT

Although information is the lifeblood, and technology is the force behind digital technology, IT plays a significant role in digital transformation. Still, more than half of IT organizations get stuck on the bottom level of maturity, functioning as an isolated support center or service provider due to ineffective communication. Both senior leadership team and CIOs need to be clear in what needs to achieve in terms of top line, bottom line and working in tandem with other departments to achieve the IT goal. Or briefly speaking, what are further aspects of running a high-mature digital IT?
Digital Customer engagements: Digital is the age of customer-centricity. IT influences customers directly. Deploy a range of technologies that focus purely on improving the customer's experience and perception of business services, showing the customer that you are making significant investment to deliver to them products, services, or solutions which more closely meet their needs, New technology tools and business models allow a company to capture customer information on a continual basis. Hence, IT plays a critical role in digitizing the touch point of customer experience. Imagine collecting valuable information about customers in real time and getting that to the right teams inside your company, for improve overall customer experience and develop the best or next products/services to meet the customer need and improve the business profitability. And you are doing so to a greater extent than your competitors. And you can enthusiastically present, directly or through marketing, the investments in such technologies to customers and prospects.
Digital workforce involvement: People are always the most invaluable asset in businesses. “Hiring the right person to the right position at the right time,” is the mantra of many forward-thinking organizations. IT is the glue and integrator which plays an important role in integrating people, process and technology into a cohesive set of business capabilities. There are some of the issues where must be aware of integration of a single talent capability into an integrated enterprise people management capability across all enterprises. Digital talent management capability needs to have the new digital dimension to handle digital new normal, IT needs to work closely with HR and other functions for improving cross-functional or cross-geographical communication, collaboration, and overall digital workforce involvement.
Digital solutions/product / service developments: Digital IT needs to be an explorer. CIOs expressing a need to free up their staff from commodity activities to spend more time on strategic or business initiatives. Although improving IT efficiency is always important,  increasingly, there is a need for increased agility and a desire for usage based cost models. These and a few other strategic needs are driving IT organizations to look at alternative hybrid delivery models with emergent SMAC digital technology trends for increased revenue and profits. IT leaders need to continue to “trim” and refine IT via consolidation, integration, modernization, and optimization. The activities of a manager are clearly supported by many functional departments. These activities are about planning, organizing, resourcing, integrating, measuring, and developing people.                    Digital capability building, including innovation: The pervasive digitization requires both business and technology professionals to rethink how things are done in organizations. Organizational capabilities that exist and the need to be developed, both for necessity and competitive advantage.  IT as a conductor helps integrate/optimize/orchestrate business processes which underpin business capabilities, and facilitate the business outcome, usually through technology or data in and of itself for paving the path to digital transformation. IT role is also to be a facilitator to business processes and capability builder to align business strategy and goals with technology-enabled solutions, their view of the company strategies and the strategies in their group,
Digital Organization structures tuning: Digital does make the organization flatter and even hyperconnected. IT will help to continue tuning the organizational structure via understanding the high-level functions of your organization, and assessing the stage in a life cycle the company is at or the type of jobs that need to be done. Re-org should be seen as a goal driven project, not for its own sake, but justify a solid business case, subjected to reality-based cost-benefit analysis, well align people, process and technology, to make change happen not only on the structural surface, but via fine tuning business capacity. The main drivers remain access to capacity, skills, and flexibility over ramping up and down according to project demands, amongst others. Moreover, a gap analysis, skills assessment, efficiency study, workflow analysis, 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.
Digital transformation is a step-wise journey. IT is an enabler and catalyzer for business to reach the era of radical digital. Running a high mature digital IT is accomplished by establishing strong interdependent relationships, the shared vision, and wisdom, the frictionless business culture, the re-framed processes to bridge silo, and the optimal sets of business capabilities to delight customers.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

The Monthly “Leadership Master” Book Tuning Sep. 2016

The substance of leadership never changes, it’s all about making the positive influence, and providing direction, both for oneself and others.
Leadership is complex yet simple: Complex in that there are so many traits and characteristics that are considered when evaluating a leader. Simplicity in that the substantial of leadership never changes, it’s all about future and change; direction and dedication; influence and innovation. The purpose of the book: Leadership Master - Five Digital Trends to Leap Leadership Maturity is to convey the vision of digital leadership, share the insight about leadership maturity, and summarize five emergent digital leadership trends Here is the monthly tuning of digital leadership.
The Multiple Confusions to Drag Down Digital Leadership Effectiveness Leadership is all about change, to navigate the direction both for oneself and others. The digital world today is much more complicated and that requires an ability to juggle multiple and competing demands and clear the vision under cloudy climate and uncertain circumstances. Businesses need to recognize the change and help leaders meet the challenge via business savvy and agility. In reality, there are many well trained transactional managers, but very few visionary transformational digital leaders; there are many skillful communicators, but very few deep and original thinkers. Under today's uncertainty and ambiguity as the digital new normal, what are possible confusions to drag down leadership effectiveness and how to improve overall digital leadership maturity?
“Independent Thinking as Differentiator of Authentic Leadership Leadership is simple because it’s all about future and change. Leadership is complex because there are so many variables you have to leverage in identifying leadership authenticity and improving leadership effectiveness. If developing leadership is like growing a tree, then the root is the mindset. The deeper you can think, the more significant the leadership influence could be. Independent thinking is extremely important in the digital era in which information only clicks away, but the true insight has inundated with out of dated knowledge, and the real signal is mixed with a lot of noises. A leader without independent thinking is a lack of authenticity; a digital worker without independent thinking is a lack of creativity. Independent thinking is a differentiator of authentic leadership, but more specifically, how to think independently and innovatively?
Three Leadership Understanding beyond Status Quo? People perceive leadership differently, also try to classify leadership or lead in a different way. However, due to the limitation of the human wisdom and silo thinking, no one can understand the depth and breadth of leadership completely. Often, people get confused about leadership substance with style, try to be the build blocks of one type of good leadership, but turn to be the roadblock when scaling up leadership influence, or making leadership from good to great. Leadership is about future and changes, how to lead profoundly beyond status quo.

How to Build a Good Reputation for Problem Solving  Fundamentally, every job is to deal with problems big or small both from long term perspective or on the daily basis. We all develop reputations - for being problem creators, problem definers or problem solvers. Sometimes, even you intend to solve problems but perhaps causes more serious problems later on. So it's important to observe the problem-solving scenarios and ask yourself the sets of questions such as, how do you discover the part you played in the problem/challenge? Which thought processes shall you leverage to diagnose problems and solve them? What is the best way to handle a problem that seems to have no solution?" How to build a good reputation on problem-solving?
Three Insight about Top Leadership  At today’s digital new normal with increasing speed of change and unprecedented uncertainty and ambiguity, the leadership bar is indeed raised higher. Because top digital leaders today must have a clear vision to navigate the uncharted water and blurred business territories, they also need to have the creativity to discover the better way of doing things with the in-depth understanding of solving problems thoroughly. So who are top leaders today? How to differentiate transformative leaders from transactional managers? How to differentiate senior leaders from junior leaders? Is wisdom always proportional with age? What are the most important differences between top digital leaders and others? And what are further insight about top leadership?
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 1.5 million page views with about #3000 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.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

How can IT get More Respect from Business

Perspective is always in the eyes of the beholder.
Most IT organizations today are still getting stuck at the lower level of maturity and being portrayed as the back-office cost center only. IT does not get much respect because business partners don’t quite understand what is IT doing besides “keep the light on,” IT does not get much respect because IT leaders can’t advocate their organizations effectively, and a lot of the people associated with the IT function (including the CIO sometimes) are not good at asking questions. Many IT specialists feel that they should tell/assert when asking/probing is often much more influential. From both IT leadership and management perspectives, IT leaders need to look harder upon their organizations through multi-dimensional lenses, how to generate business value from IT, and continue to ask the tough question on how IT can shift from a cost center to a value-added business partner and get more respect from businesses?

Focus on Problem Solving: Understand the business first and foremost. Without a C-level knowledge of the business goals and objectives, IT leaders cannot position your IT resources correctly. IT has to proactively work with the business, to ensure that the C level (and other non-IT executives) leadership is appropriately engaged, have the right resources, are paying close attention to customers and partners, and successful in relationship building to identify and co-solve business problems with priorities. Once the business problem has been defined, business and IT work collaboratively, the cross-functional, multi-disciplined, mutually respectful and sufficiently open-minded teams will be able to resolve it effortlessly. The executive leadership must laser focus on business objectives and the success should be defined by accomplishing a business goal, not just a theoretical solution or an IT challenge only.

Doing more with innovation via listening, respecting and responding to customers and adapt to changes: Sometimes, IT can become too reliant on what worked in the past and not challenging approach in the light of new situations and contexts. Due to the changing nature of technology and exponentially increasing information, the velocity of IT is more frequent than some other areas of the organization. It requires IT leaders to proactively listen to customers and do more with innovation. It requires IT leaders to constantly reappraise their skills, knowledge, and approach to organizational needs. Truly believe that the only way to produce valuable, sustainable and adaptable services and products is to have the capability to change. Such as how to differentiate your approach from the past; how to show why this new way offers value. Optimize business processes in order to be flexible and willing to adapt to change; for not being arrogant. Being customer-centric doesn’t mean you only response to the customers’ request. IT resources must be aggressively proactive in making sure they are not just being seen as order takers, but solving real problems with better solutions. One of the real problems too often is that an IT resource feels that they have to say yes. What the business really needs is an IT group that can say no with good reasons, and offer alternative solutions that meet the goals.
Measure the right things and measure them right: In order to gain respect from business partners, IT need to build a reputation as a value creator. In order to demonstrate IT value, organizations need to first know wherein lies the IT value. If you understand that upfront by doing the right strategic questioning, you can later go back and ask if you achieve the value that had been set out to attain. The value itself is a multi-dimensional concept, a seamless customer experience, an optimal business service, a commercial value proposition, a social value system which deals with and provides context for varying interest and need. IT leaders should well prepare a set of questionnaires for both self-checking and collecting feedbacks from customers or business partners: (1) How does IT become strategic? and (2) How does IT deliver maximum value? (3) What are the well-selected performance indicators to measure multidimensional IT values and measure them cohesively? The level at which services are currently provided, or the baseline from which improvements can be measured, are crucial to the way in which IT performance will be assessed. Measure IT performance through the benchmark which can reflect IT value to the business, not only for the bottom line but also for top line growth.
Perspective is always in the eyes of the beholder. Business and IT need to have mutual respect and need to focus more on being objective in approaches and allow for the ever-changing markets and environment. This requires a mind shift to allow for the element of ultimate control to be released in order for the change to take effect and allow for taking calculated risks to do more with innovation, and ultimately, build a solid reputation for IT to be a changing organization and strategic partner of the business.

Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Three Insight on How IT can get More Respect from Business

Most IT organizations today are still getting stuck at the lower level of maturity and being portrayed as the back-office cost center. IT does not get much respect because business partners don’t quite understand what is IT doing besides “keep the light on,” IT does not get much respect because IT leaders can’t advocate their organizations effectively, and a lot of the people associated with the IT function (including the CIO sometimes) are not good at asking questions. Many IT specialists feel that they should tell/assert when asking/probing is often much more influential. From both IT leadership and management perspectives, IT leaders need to look harder upon their organizations through multi-dimensional lenses, how to generate business value from IT, and continue to ask the tough question on how can IT shift from a cost center to a value-added business partner and get more respect from businesses?
Focus on Problem Solving: Understand the business first and foremost. IT has to proactively work with the business, to ensure that the C level (and other non-IT executives) leadership is appropriately engaged, have the right resources, are paying close attention to customers and partners, and successful in relationship building to identify and co-solve business problems with priorities. Once the business problem has been defined, business and IT work collaboratively, the cross-functional, multi-disciplined, mutually respectful and sufficiently open-minded teams will be able to resolve it. The executive leadership must be motivated and managed by laser focused business objectives and the success should be defined by accomplishing a business goal, not just a theoretical solution. Without a C-level knowledge of the business goals and objectives, you cannot position your IT resources correctly.
Doing more with innovation via listening, respecting and responding to customers and adapt to changes:  Sometimes, IT can become too reliant on what worked in the past and not challenging approach in the light of new situations and contexts. Due to the changing nature of technology and fast increasing information, the velocity of IT is more frequent than some other areas of the organization. It requires IT leaders to proactively listen to customers and do more with innovation. It requires IT leaders to constantly reappraise their skills, knowledge, and approach to organizational needs. Truly believe that the only way to produce valuable, sustainable and adaptable services and products is to have the capability to change. Such as how to differentiate your approach from the past; how to show why this new way offers value. Optimize business processes in order to be flexible and willing to adapt to change; for not being arrogant. Being customer-centric doesn’t mean you only response to the customers’ request.  IT resources must be aggressively proactive in making sure they are not just being seen as order takers, but solving real problems with better solutions. One of the real problems too often is that an IT resource feels that they have to say yes. What the business really needs is an IT group that can say no with good reasons, and offer alternative solutions that meet the goals.
Measure the right things and measure them right: In order to gain respect from business partners, IT need to build a reputation as a value creator. In order to demonstrate IT value, organizations need to first know wherein lies the IT value.  If you understand that upfront by doing the right strategic questioning, you can later go back and ask if you achieve the value that had been set out to attain. The value itself is a multi-dimensional concept, a seamless customer experience, an optimal business service, a commercial value proposition, a social value system which deals with and provides context for varying interest and need. IT leaders should well prepare a set of questionnaires for both self-checking and asking customers or business partners: (1) How does IT become strategic? and (2) How does IT deliver maximum value? (3) What are the well-selected performance indicators to measure multidimensional IT values and measure them cohesively? The level at which services are currently provided, or the baseline from which improvements can be measured, are crucial to the way in which IT performance will be assessed.  Measure IT performance through the benchmark which can reflect IT value to the business, not only for bottom line but also for top line growth.
Perspective is always in the eyes of the beholder. Business and IT need to have mutual respect and  need to focus more on being objective in approaches and allow for the ever-changing markets and environment. This requires a mind shift to allow for the element of ultimate control to be released in order for the change to take effect and allow for taking calculated risks to do more with innovation. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

The Monthly Insight: Connecting Dots in Change Management Sep. 2016

Change is inevitable, organizational change has become a common practice within an organization, but too often changes are made as a reaction to outer impulses, crisis, and demands. This is the bureaucracy’s way of meeting the challenges. People, process, technology, how can you connect the right dots, in order to improve the success rate of change initiatives?
    Connecting Dots in Change Management Innovation vs. Change Management? Innovation is value creation in a different way or to a different element of the business; there are both disruptive innovation and incremental innovation as well. So is innovation just another word for change; or does innovation management align with change management? Change and innovation share a common DNA, which is 'change' nature. But they are still different; each one has different motivators and must be managed differently. Innovation is a collection of thoughts, ideas, or efforts used to bring about or manage change to a desirable outcome. Not all change management is innovative however innovation only exists to bring about change. Innovations do not need to be new however they should at the very least implement an existing method, idea, or resource in a new way, thereby making it innovative to the particular challenge at hand?
Change vs. Improvement? Change is the only constant, indeed, even change itself changes, but more than two third of organizational change management effort fails, what’s the change all about, why is change so hard, is change equal to improvement?
Change vs. Transformation? Change or Transformation is at every progressive organization's agenda, are they the same or have differences? What's leading to change or on the journey of transformation?
Persuasion vs. Manipulation: Persuasion is the action or fact of persuading someone or of being persuaded to do or believe something." "Manipulation is the skillful handling, controlling or using of something or someone. " (dictionary.com) Persuasion is not manipulation, but whether the one is more negative than the other depends on who is making the assessment, and what’s the best way to solve the problem. Is persuasion more informative and manipulation more forceful?
Goals vs. Objectives: Can you Guarantee Achievement of them? The term OBJECTIVE really starts out in the publication of "The Practice of Management" by Peter Drucker. He defines the term ‘objective as the larger 'end point'.  He further defines OBJECTIVES as being achieved through a sub-collection of 'supporting goals' - the children of the parent objective; and then the story further illustrates that 'objectives' are 'owned' by the 'institution 'the team' and the corporation, the organization. Are goals owned by individuals as personal contributions to the 'collective achievement' of the Objectives?
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 the 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.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu