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“CIO Master” Book Tuning: XXXXXXVI: Running Premium IT with Three Digital Aims

Running a premium IT means to focus on top-line growth, without ignoring bottom line efficiency.

Digital is all about changes which bring both unprecedented opportunities and risks. IT plays a leading role in such a business transformation, because often technology is the disruptive force of digital, and the information is the lifeblood of the business nowadays. However, traditional IT has been treated as a cost center or a support function, not as a strategic business partner for a long time. As businesses move into the digital future, technology is the fastest growing arena, which new role should IT aim to be, and how to run a premium IT with clear digital aims to drive digital transformation?



Running IT as a digital brain yard: One of the important goals to run a value-driven digital IT is to make sure the right people to get the right information at the right time to make the right decision. IT is more like the “Digital Brain” of the organization because information allows you to build an actionable insight on how to framing the problems and making effective decisions either for achieving customer-centricity or improving operation excellence. It applies to the context and environment in which decisions are made. 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. Running IT as a digital brain with information savvy would help to build a high-intelligent, high agile and high effective organization.

Running IT as a digital innovation engine: IT should not only act as a “left brain” of the organization to focus on analysis and logic, more importantly, it needs to become the whole brain, to leverage the creativity of right brain to boost business innovation. Often IT department is so busy in mundane day to day activities, they lose the sense of creativity over the period of time. But to improve IT maturity and become a strategic business partner, IT needs to be running as an innovation engine. Innovation is to have a new perspective on things. The definition of innovation is simple - to gain benefit by doing something different. Innovation is all about doing things better, differentiate yourself from your competitions, run, grow and transform the business. Innovation follows basic rules, which are adapted depending on the company's situation and ambition. Innovation can be categorized as empowered innovation (creative disruption), sustainable innovation (better version of product/service) or efficiency innovation (process improvement), management innovation (leadership, culture, communication). IT can drive all sort of innovations, proactively pushing ideas on how to leverage technology to drive revenue growth, increase business productivity, flexibility, and agility. So doing more with innovation, minimize resource on keeping the light on, but invest more in business innovation. Educate IT team on the business and encourage them to engage with business counterparts in a value-oriented manner.

Running IT as business Catalyst and accelerator:  IT leaders can envision of future of business, empower talent with effective tools, enable cross-functional collaboration, enchant end customers via optimizing every touch point in customer experience, standardize and simplify end to end business process. IT needs to be proactive, not reactive, with another clear aim of being a digital accelerator. In most of the organizations, IT is setting back and waiting for the request. IT has to be configured in a way to understand the business and set the architecture to deliver the business and market need. IT has to be a consultant and advisor to business to maximize the revenue. IT needs to engage with the business units to find out how the department is perceived, what the pain points are and to identify opportunities for developing new services or improving/optimizing current ones. CIOs as IT leaders need to become business strategists and relentless change agents, to proactively co-create business strategy and execute it seamlessly. The CIO has a role in selling the merits of IT to the business and quantifying projects in terms of ROI, also the board within the organization must support the CIO. IT leaders needs to seek to understand the importance of the solutions IT provides and future initiatives delivered with measured ROIs to the business. IT not only enables business with the latest technology, it needs to walk the talk, exemplify to be run as a business, doing better with less; focus on delivering business value.

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. But the self-centered "our jobs are hard" line only isolates IT more. Make a list of the positives and negatives for each. Regarding negatives, challenge whether it really is a problem. Is there a way to work through it? Make sure that nothing is dismissed due to out of date beliefs or the natural human emotions. Understand your organization’s strategic goals and initiatives, and run a premium IT aiming at implementing the strategic value of the business.

CIO Master Order Link on Amazon CIO Master Ordre Link on Barner & Noble CIO Master Order Link On IBooks “CIO Master” Book Preview Quote Collection III “CIO Master” Book Preview Quote Collection II “CIO Master” Book Preview Quote Collection I, Slideshare Presentation “CIO Master” Book Preview Conclusion Running IT as Digital Transformer “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 9 IT Agility “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 8 Three "P"s in Running Digital IT “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 7 IT Innovation Management “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 6 Digital Strategy-Execution Continuum "CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 5 Thirteen Digital Flavored IT “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 4 CIO as Talent Master Introduction “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 3 “CIOs as Change Agent” Introduction “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 2 “CIOs as Digital Visionary” Introduction “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 1 “Twelve Digital CIO Personas” Introduction "CIO Master - Unleash the Digital Potential of IT" Introduction "CIO Master - Unleash the Digital Potential of IT" Book Preview


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“CIO Master” Book Tuning: Running Premium IT with Three Digital Aims

Digital is all about changes which bring both unprecedented opportunities and risks. IT plays a leading role in such a business transformation, because often technology is the disruptive force of digital, and the information is the lifeblood of the business nowadays. However, traditional IT has been treated as a cost center or a support function, not as a strategic business partner for a long time. As businesses move into the digital future, technology is the fastest growing arena, which new role should IT aim to be, and how to run premium IT to drive digital transformation?
Running IT as a digital brain yard: One of the important goals to run a value-driven digital IT is to make sure the right people to get the right information at the right time to make the right decision. IT is more like the “Digital Brain” of the organization because information allows you to build an actionable insight on how to framing the problems and making effective decisions. It applies to the context and environment in which decisions are made. 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. Running IT as a digital brain would help to build a high-intelligent, high agile and high effective organization.
Running IT as a digital innovation engine: IT should not only act as a “left brain” of the organization to focus on analysis and logic, more importantly, it needs to become the whole brain, to boost business innovation. Often IT department is so busy in mundane day to day activities, they lose the sense of creativity over the period of time. But to improve IT maturity and become a strategic business partner, IT needs to be run as an innovation engine. Innovation is to have a new perspective on things. The definition of innovation is simple - to gain benefit by doing something different. Innovation is all about doing things better, differentiate yourself from your competitions, run, grow and transform the business. Innovation follows basic rules, which are adapted depending on the company's situation and ambition. Innovation can be categorized as empowered innovation (creative disruption), sustainable innovation (better version of product/service) or efficiency innovation (process improvement). IT can drive all sort of innovations, proactively pushing ideas on how to leverage technology to drive revenue growth, increase business productivity, flexibility, and agility. So doing more with innovation, minimize resource on keeping the light on, and invest more in business innovation, and educate IT team on the business and encourage them to engage with business counterparts in a value-oriented manner.
Running IT as business Catalyst and accelerator:  IT will envision of future of business, empower talent with effective tools, enable cross-functional collaboration, enchant end customers via optimizing every touch point in customer experience, standardize and simplify end to end business process. IT needs to be proactive, not reactive. In most of the organizations, IT is setting back and waiting for the request. IT has to be configured in a way to understand the business and set the architecture to deliver the business and market need. IT has to be a consultant and advisor to business to maximize the revenue.  IT need to engage with the business units to find out how the department is perceived, what the pain points are and to identify opportunities for developing new services or improving/optimizing current ones. 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. But the self-centered "our jobs are hard" line only isolates IT more. Make a list of the positives and negatives for each. Regarding negatives, challenge whether it really is a problem. Is there a way to work through it? Make sure that nothing is dismissed due to out of date beliefs or the natural human emotions. Understand your organization’s strategic goals and initiatives, and run a premium IT aiming at implementing the strategic value of the business.
CIOs as IT leaders need to become business strategists and relentless change agents, to proactively co-create business strategy and execute it seamlessly. The CIO has a role in selling the merits of IT to the business and quantifying projects in terms of ROI, also the board within the organization must support the CIO and seek to understand the importance of the solutions IT provides and future initiatives delivered with measured ROIs to the business. IT not only enables business with the latest technology, it needs to walk the talk, exemplify to be run as a business, doing better with less; focus on delivering business value.

Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

The Multiple Confusions to Drag Down Digital Leadership Effectiveness

Often the business confusions are caused by lack of profound leadership, clarified principles, and a culture of innovation.
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?

Confuse guiding principles with rules: Principles are statements of values, to provoke big WHY inquiry -Things that define why one make a decision one way or another. Principles are more abstract based on wisdom to guide mindset, and thus, more universal; while rules are set within different circumstances and time, and therefore, more detailed to manipulate behaviors. The principle is like the light tower, guide people or organizations toward the right direction and speed up to reach the well-planned destination. Principles are often transcendental, going across time spans or disciplines. Rules are often domain specific and time relevant, so perhaps there’s no rule which can “rule” the world all the time. And rules need to be updated continually because often the outdated rules become the roadblocks to stifle innovation and progress. It takes the true wisdom to differentiate the principles from rules across disciplines, though. It’s not easy for a set of rules defined that can be applied holistically - their content contains natural conflict, and without a method of prioritizing and implementing them consistently, they become a source of contention. One has to articulate which rule is applicable in which situation. So perhaps you have to abstract the condensed set of principles from a large set of rules in order to advance and harmonize. If fine-tuned, a set of principle could guide, unify and, accelerate the collective human’s progress.

Confuse “Effective Hands-on” with micromanagement: Top digital leaders do need to be tactical and hands-on when necessary, but being effective hands-on means they shouldn't ignore key details or measure results, envisioning the future and seeing around the corner are both important -why, who, what, when, where, how., etc., all matter. However, ineffective “hands-on” means they are interfering, undermining their people and therefore inhibiting the decision-making processes and stifling execution of the required deliverables. They get trapped by micromanagement – A micromanager will overemphasize the 'how' over the 'what' and ‘why,’ and will be focused on minutiae to the detriment of the overall outcome. What makes the pattern more difficult to break is the fact that micromanagers are often seen by the organization as detail oriented. So they don't see the need to change. This can be very perplexing to some of the most talented individuals in the team because they suddenly find themselves more worried about some routines, not laser focus on the top priority. Hence, to improve leadership ability, the delegation style of digital leadership is more effective than controlling, to improve business self-manageability and agility.

Confuse critical thinking and constructive criticism with “finger pointing”: Many organizations are still run with silo mentalities and culture of “finger pointing.” The business is running as a sum of pieces, not a holistic whole. Thus, the true critical thinking and constructive criticism are very important for the business’s improvement continuum. The effective critical thinking scenario includes, knowing by observing; what is said or done, how, when, where, why it's said or done, and who said this or did that. From a management perspective, the best way to learn critical thinking is simply to listen to your workforce. Ensure that everyone in the company feels valued. Unfortunately, many companies confuse critical thinking with finger pointing, not focus on problem-solving, but on blaming. Critical Thinking becomes more “critical’ in today’s “VUCA” digital new normal, and critical thinkers gain in-depth understanding through asking the right questions and open for varying answers. They not only ask the right questions, but rather absorb information forecast potentials; risks/benefits; mitigation and compare and contrast options, facts, ideas against logic and creativity. The good leaders focus on solutions, not on blame. So as far as who is to blame, per se, anyone who contributes to the decline of an organization can own some fault it in its demise. Before accusing or blaming anyone or any function, the organization should understand what went wrong through all available analytical tools. Even the best Critical Thinkers have blind spots. Because we all have a cognitive bias, whether individually or collectively. Therefore, always be open-minded to embrace the new viewpoint, learn and re-learn all the time. The one thing to differentiate talented people from mediocrity is MINDSET, which further drives attitude, they either demonstrate the positive attitude or constructive criticism to build a healthy or even creative workplace. Confuse the symptom with the root cause of business problems or issues: Many business functions or organizations still get overwhelmed by fixing the problems, but often they are busy for fixing symptoms, not root causes. Many times, hunting for root cause takes a holistic approach and need to break down silo processes. If functional executives hold silo thinking; or if leadership teams do not collaborate as a whole, but act as the sum of pieces, unhealthily compete with each other internally about budgeting, resources, credit, and blames, there is no surprise about business friction to changes, and organizational level ineffectiveness. Therefore, the two-way trust is critical, the trust means business as a whole work closely to deliver the business solution with optimal speed. Where there are failures the takeaway should be WHAT (not who) went wrong. It would require members across all business scope to work collaboratively to set up business goals effectively & efficiently, diagnose the root causes, standardize processes of due diligence, and  take clear and constant initiatives to improve and grow businesses strategically.

The business speed can only be accelerated with a clear vision, strong focus, and distinctive capabilities. By clarify those confusions, and avoid change pitfalls, an organization can be well prepared to effectively and efficiently absorb and accept change in all its forms; an organization in which change does not disrupt and interfere with business as usual, an organization for which the ability to evolve, adapt and innovate is business as usual, and digital leadership has been moved up to the next level of maturity.

Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Three 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 transactional managers, but very transformational digital leaders. More specifically, what are possible confusions to drag down leadership effectiveness and how to improve digital leadership maturity?
Confuse guiding principles with rules: Principles are statements of values, to provoke big WHY inquiry -Things that define why one make a decision one way or another. Principles are more abstract, set via wisdom to guide mindset, and rules are more detailed to manipulate behaviors. The guiding principle is like the light tower, navigates people or organizations toward the right direction and speed up the organization to the well-planned destination. Principles are often transcendental, going beyond time span or cross disciplines;  Rules are often domain specific, so perhaps there’s no rule which can “rule” the world. And rules need to be updated continually because often the outdated rules become the roadblock to stifle innovation and progress. It’s not easy for a set of principles defined that can be applied holistically - their content contains natural conflict, and without a method of prioritizing and implementing them consistently, they become a source of contention. One has to articulate which principle is applicable in which situation. However, if fine-tuned, a set of principle could guide, unify and, accelerate the human’s progress.
Confuse “Effective Hands-on” with micromanagement: Top digital leaders do need be tactical when necessary, but being hands-on means they shouldn't ignore key details or measure results, envisioning the future and seeing around the corner are both important -why, who, what, when, where, how., etc. all matter. However, ineffective “hands-on” means they are interfering, undermining their people and therefore inhibiting the decision-making processes and stifling execution of the required deliverables. They get trapped by micromanagement – A micromanager will overemphasize the 'how' over the 'what' and ‘why’ and will be focused on minutiae to the detriment of the overall outcome. What makes the pattern more difficult to break is the fact that micromanagers are often seen by the organization as detail oriented. So they don't see the need to change. This can be very perplexing to some of the most talented individuals in the team because they suddenly find themselves more worried about some routines, not laser focus on the top priority. The delegation style of digital leadership is more effective than controlling, to improve business self-manageability and agility.
Confuse critical thinking and constructive criticism with “finger pointing”: Many organizations are still run with silo mentality and culture of “finger pointing.” The business is running as a sum of pieces, not a holistic whole. The true critical thinking and constructive criticism are still important for the business’s improvement continuum, though. The effective critical thinking scenario includes, knowing by observing; what is said or done, how, when, where, why it's said or done, and who said this or did that. From a management perspective, the best way to learn critical thinking is simply to listen to your workforce. Ensure that everyone in the company feels valued. Critical Thinking becomes more “critical’ in today’s “VUCA” digital new normal, and critical thinkers gain in-depth understanding through asking the right questions and open for varying answers. They not only ask the right questions, but rather absorb information forecast potentials; risks/benefits; mitigation and compare and contrast options, facts, ideas against logic and creativity. The good leaders focus on solutions, not on blame. So as far as who is to blame, per se, anyone who contributes to the decline of an organization can own some fault it in its demise. Before accusing or blaming anyone or any function, the organization should understand what went wrong through all available analytical tools. Even the best Critical Thinkers have blind spots. Because we all have a cognitive bias, whether individually or collectively. Therefore, always be open-minded to embrace the new viewpoint, learn and re-learn all the time.The one thing to differentiate talented people from mediocrity is MINDSET, which further drives attitude, they either demonstrate the positive attitude or constructive criticism to build a healthy or even creative workplace.
Confuse the symptom with the root cause of business problems or issues: Many business functions or organizations still get overwhelmed by fixing the problems, but often they are busy for fixing symptoms, not root causes. Many times, hunting for root cause takes a holistic approach and need breakdown silo processes. If functional executives hold silo thinking; or if leadership teams do not collaborate as a whole, but act as the sum of pieces, unhealthily compete with each other internally about budgeting, resources, credit, and blames, there is no surprise about business friction to changes, and organizational level ineffectiveness. Therefore, the two-way trust is critical, the trust means business as a whole work closely to deliver the business solution with optimal speed. Where there are failures the takeaway should be WHAT (not who) went wrong. It would require members across all business scope to work collaboratively to set up business goals and effectively & efficiently, diagnose the root causes, standardize processes of due diligence, and  take a clear and constant initiative to improve and grow businesses strategically.
The business speed can only be accelerated with a clear vision, strong focus, and distinctive capabilities. By clarify those confusions, and avoid change pitfalls, an organization can be well prepared to effectively and efficiently absorb and accept change in all its forms; an organization in which change does not disrupt and interfere with business as usual, an organization for which the ability to evolve, adapt and innovate is business as usual, and digital leadership has been moved up to the next level of maturity.

Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

CIO’s Leadership Agenda: Digging into the “Keywords” to Get you Digital Ready

From one generation to the next, the substance of leadership does not change, it’s about future, change, and influence. However, the digital leadership trends will continue to emerge. Here is a set of featured blogs to dig into the “keywords” of the 21st century to brainstorming the future of digital leadership.
Digging into the “Keywords” to Get you Digital Ready

SIMPLICITY as a Principle  People are complex by nature, but to dwell on complexity is to complicate an implicate order that is naturally simple. Getting to simple is not easy for most people because they rather follow the traditions and set rules and regulations in the society. They don't bother to remove the dust around them, or want to question the unknown, or challenge the status quo, out of fear. So how to address complexity, and what's the advantage to set simplicity as a principle and live with it?

Is UNCERTAINTY  Problem or Opportunity  Uncertainty and ambiguity are a key challenge for business leaders today. In the past, many business leaders believed their organizations’ long-term goals could wait until they had dealt with the current crisis. In the current business environment with “VUCA” characteristics, this is no longer the case. The rate of change has accelerated, indicating that business leaders must learn how to strike a balance between managing complex issues today and predicting the uncertain issues of tomorrow. So is uncertainty the biggest problem in business today? And is it affecting business in setting long-term strategies and are forced to concentrate on short term goals? And further questions include - how can the soft signals of contextual changes be best determined? How do you structure information systems to deal with uncertainty

Is DIFFERENTIATION a Strategy? Today’s digital business environment is unprecedentedly dynamic, complex and uncertain. There are always players starting with different resources and competitive position. And there are always different complexities in the different time. Thus, the organizations have to build the two sets of business capabilities: The competitive necessity and competitive uniqueness. There are many sources of differentiation. Differentiation just for the sake of being different isn't a strategy, it's a tactic. The real differentiation is to create true value, look forward, not backward, and present the advanced uniqueness to shine through. The question of whether differentiation is the best strategy has to be answered case by case.

Trans-disciplinary Science?  Complex systems science is not a science in itself, but it may be considered as a 'Science of Sciences.’ Or more precisely, are we ready to recognize a complexity science as a "trans-disciplinary Science" and apply it to understand the dynamic digital ecosystem?

BALANCE as the Key in Strategic Planning: Crafting a good strategy is indeed challenging, as a strategy needs to have the “vision thing” to inspire the team; but also, be detailed enough for execution. To put simply, you must have balance - and this is often where businesses fall down.

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 1.3 million page views with about #2900 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

CIO’s Digital Agenda: Digging into the “Keywords” to Get you Digital Ready

From one generation to the next, the substance of leadership does not change, it’s about future, change, and influence. However, digital the leadership trends will continue to emerge. Here is a set of featured blogs to dig into the “keywords” of the 21st century to brainstorming the future of digital leadership.
Digging into the “Keywords” to Get you Digital Ready
SIMPLICITY as a Principle  People are complex by nature, but to dwell on complexity is to complicate an implicate order that is naturally simple. Getting to simple is not easy for most people because they rather follow the traditions and set rules and regulations in the society. They don't bother to remove the dust around them, or want to question the unknown, or challenge the status quo, out of fear. So how to address complexity, and what's the advantage to set simplicity as a principle and live with it?
Is UNCERTAINTY  Problem or Opportunity  Uncertainty and ambiguity are a key challenge for business leaders today. In the past, many business leaders believed their organizations’ long-term goals could wait until they had dealt with the current crisis. In the current business environment with “VUCA” characteristics, this is no longer the case. The rate of change has accelerated, indicating that business leaders must learn how to strike a balance between managing complex issues today and predicting the uncertain issues of tomorrow. So is uncertainty the biggest problem in business today? And is it affecting business in setting long-term strategies and are forced to concentrate on short term goals? And further questions include - how can the soft signals of contextual changes be best determined? How do you structure information systems to deal with uncertainty
Is DIFFERENTIATION a Strategy? Today’s digital business environment is unprecedentedly dynamic, complex and uncertain. There are always players starting with different resources and competitive position. And there are always different complexities in the different time. Thus, the organizations have to build the two sets of business capabilities: The competitive necessity and competitive uniqueness. There are many sources of differentiation. Differentiation just for the sake of being different isn't a strategy, it's a tactic. The real differentiation is to create true value, look forward, not backward, and present the advanced uniqueness to shine through. The question of whether differentiation is the best strategy has to be answered case by case.
Trans disciplinary Science?  Complex systems science is not a science in itself, but it may be considered as a 'Science of Sciences.’ Or more precisely, are we ready to recognize a complexity science as a "trans-disciplinary Science" and apply it to understand the dynamic digital ecosystem?
BALANCE as the Key in Strategic Planning: Crafting a good strategy is indeed challenging, as a strategy needs to have the “vision thing” to inspire the team; but also, be detailed enough for execution. To put simply, you must have balance - and this is often where businesses fall down.
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 1.3 million page views with about #2300 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

Three “Self-Made” Steps in Unleashing Talent Potential

Digital is the age of people, how to tap individuals’ potential and amplify the collective human potential is one of the most meaningful and rewarding areas to catalyze businesses’ growth and advance human society with full speed. Potential is the ability to do something for the future performance, not past performance. What are the real odds of companies that actually put in the time to develop their human capital so employees would achieve their full potential, and ultimately organizations can grow into a Digital Master? And which steps the digital workforce today should take to unleash their full potential?

Self-awareness- Discover your strength or “raw intelligence” - the source of potential: Potential is the strength, ability, and interest to take on more responsibilities in the future which is displayed by their thought leadership or exemplified behavior. It is to do with one’s reputation so it is qualitative. Potential can be unleashed via discovering the innate strength and setting disciplines to shape cohesive skills and capabilities. The strength is not equal to linear skills, it's the good combination of character, mindset, talent, knowledge and expertise. From talent management perspective, are you on the way to recognize the best of the best? How well does the individual continue to perform and grow in their current roles, how likely are they to take on new challenges at work, rapidly learn and grow into next-level roles, or roles that are expanded and redefined as business changes? Individuals showing potential are distinguished usually by their mastery of new roles quickly and effectively, learning more rapidly than their peers, more innovative, taking initiative proactively, and presenting emotional maturity in dealing with “VUCA” new normals.
Self-motivation: At an individual level, self-awareness mind provides clarity, versatility, self-motivation and self-improvement helps you set disciplines and directional opportunities for personal growth, helps you build on your strengths  and improve on your weaknesses. It also allows you to leverage that knowledge to increase the influential outreach via self-actualization. At the business level, the fair reason for hiring self-motivated people is mainly not to cut cost, but let them work independently with minimal interference and guidance so that they think strategically new ways and means precisely " out of the box" techniques to enhance growth for themselves as individuals and for the company per se. it’s important to build a positive and creative working environment in which the talented employees can grow and innovate, unleash their own potential and the business potential and achieve the organizational prosperity for the long term.
Self-development: When an individual has self-awareness to know “Who are you,” self-motivation -the right attitude to learn and grow. And self-development is the full cycle of self-actualization. It takes both attitude and aptitude.  It involves with strategic thinking, planning, risk taking, discipline, creativity, etc. And it includes a personal action navigated by habit and the changeability to moving out of a comfort zone leads to the creation of a new comfort zone which in turn will require you to move out "of" it again. This continuous moving "out" of your comfort zone is complemented by the cycle of self-development. It is also important to have superior time management and prioritization skills, do things matter for you, with ignorance of trivial details (Altitude). Concentrate your energy on building your cohesive capabilities, not just putting eyes on your competitors (as often negative emotions will further drive unprofessional competitions and unhealthy cultures.) Self-development is the journey to improve your digital professionalism, unleash potential and refine the high quality of being a better version of YOU.”
From talent management perspective, identify the right people both via their minds and their acts; their performance and their potential. Helping others recognize the power of self-realization from their vantage point, and invest your people to gain long term ROI -via unleashing their collective potentials, and achieve business maturity.
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"CIO Master" Book Tuning XXXXXXV: Five Interdisciplinary Aspects in Orchestrating a Digital Organization

Applying multidisciplinary management disciplines to orchestrating a digital organization is an evolutionary step to drive the next level of business maturity and harmonize our society.

Digital business ecosystem is dynamic, nonlinear, and complex. Hence, digital management discipline also needs to be nonlinear and transdisciplinary to deal with the "VUCA" characteristics of the Digital Era. Overall speaking, trans or interdisciplinary approach can be applied to management with integrated multi-disciplinary methodology, it enables digital leaders to frame bigger thinking boxes, and approach problems via multi-faceted way, technically, scientifically and culturally. Here are five interdisciplinary aspects in orchestrating a digital organization.
Sociological aspect: Sociology is the study of human interaction, usually within the context of organized groups, communities, or "societies." It is the systematic study of human society, especially present-day societies. You have to look holistically at the problem domain in order to architect and design a sociological organization, and guide conversations based on the artifacts being produced. Designing an organization, that is a socio-technical system, is the order of magnitude more difficult than designing a mechanical or technical system.  As an often forgotten fact is that organizations consist of three types of intersecting and interacting systems: Social, Technical, and Cultural. Hyper-connectivity can foster innovation through collaboration. In other words, try to digitally connect key resources, assets in their vicinity and context to the resource-rich innovation hubs or clusters across the business ecosystem. In doing so, you can create the collegiality and "shared context for learning. Sociology brings much more depth to our knowledge with interdisciplinary understanding about businesses and human society.


Biological aspect: If traditional organizations are often static and mechanical, then from a biological aspect, digital organizations are more like organic systems, and they will be organized as organic systems with cells that have a function, an infrastructure for input and output and for signaling. Do they need brains? The digital brains can refer to the information technology management function (IT). The digital organization is a living thing with the ability to continually change as the world changes, perhaps much like the plants follow the sun. The principles as a compass will guide all levels of the organization to operate more like the human body operates with the cells (employees) and organs (Functions) of the organization being able to make a decision in a very organic relationship with its environment. The digital shift means principles over rules; empowerment over control, engagement over command and dynamic over static. Digital organizations are more like the trees, to continue growing, less like a machine - just keep spinning.

Psychological aspect: One of the key determinants of whether an organization can move to new digital structures is the development level of the people. So part of this journey is to prepare people for the new structures and to recognize this is a crucial step. Therefore, psychology is an important discipline to gain an in-depth understanding of people, their emotions and response to change, innovation, and digital transformation. Recent neuroscience research has shown that our entire experience with the world is subjective, passing through numerous unconscious filters before we become aware of what we are seeing, hearing, or understanding. As a result, no individual has a complete view of what is really happening around him or her, not mention the whole world.  Therefore, winning in the digital dynamic means engaging innovative thinking, and strong collaboration. People have to be ready for moving to a more fluid structure via overcoming change inertia and stepping out of “Comfort Zones.” If look at changes via social neuroscience, you see that (a) People are naturally predispose to maximizing rewards and minimizing threats, (b) the part of the brain that is involved in organizing the “approaches” (perceptions/action/ response toward rewards) or the “withdrawal/retreat in five domains of social experience are status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness.

Technological aspect: IT is impacting every business unit and is becoming the driver of business change. Admittedly IT has come a long way to where it is today. Yes, IT does matter. But, not IT as a silo specialist function, but as a “digital brain,” an “innovation engine,” and a business catalyzer. From the days when geeks sat in the corner, talked with mainframes to where they contribute significantly and touch every perspective of the business and directly make an impact on the business model and direction. Applying digital technologies and embracing digital are inevitable as that is now part of the deal. There are very progressive organizations where IT sparks organizational creativity. High mature IT will enable building high mature organizations.

Philosophical aspect: Philosophy is a Greek portmanteau of the love of wisdom. Philosophy is the mother of all sciences. Though philosophy is often categorized as “soft science,” which seems to be the completely different discipline from science. Agile is the philosophy with a set of principles to run digital organizations today. Philosophy is also methodical and has deliberate processes for identifying questions, reasoning, identifying faulty reasoning, and thinking outside the box. Applying philosophical disciplines helps business leaders and managers to gain an in-depth understanding of strategy, culture and other critical business factors more fundamentally. Consider, what would the answer be, if you were to ask a person from each of these disciplines- “What is a reality? Who are we? Where did we come from? And as human beings; our nature is fully engaged with emotion and imagination; we can not exempt from this portions. Philosophy is the foundation upon which science (including management science) has been built and continues to put forth the questions which help move science onward and upward.

The enterprise consists of an amalgam of socio-systems, techno-systems, bio-systems, and Econo-systems. Understanding that real world development is multifaceted. You can't expect an individual to fully develop such broad-based concepts, it takes the team effort, and more importantly, team coordination. Applying multidisciplinary management disciplines to orchestrating a digital organization is an evolutionary step to drive the next level of business maturity and harmonize our society.
CIO Master Order Link on Amazon CIO Master Ordre Link on Barner & Noble CIO Master Order Link On IBooks “CIO Master” Book Preview Quote Collection III “CIO Master” Book Preview Quote Collection II “CIO Master” Book Preview Quote Collection I, Slideshare Presentation “CIO Master” Book Preview Conclusion Running IT as Digital Transformer “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 9 IT Agility “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 8 Three "P"s in Running Digital IT “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 7 IT Innovation Management “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 6 Digital Strategy-Execution Continuum "CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 5 Thirteen Digital Flavored IT “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 4 CIO as Talent Master Introduction “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 3 “CIOs as Change Agent” Introduction “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 2 “CIOs as Digital Visionary” Introduction “CIO Master” Book Preview: Chapter 1 “Twelve Digital CIO Personas” Introduction "CIO Master - Unleash the Digital Potential of IT" Introduction "CIO Master - Unleash the Digital Potential of IT" Book Preview
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Five Interdisciplinary Aspects in Orchestrating a Digital Organization

Digital business ecosystem is dynamic, nonlinear, and complex. Hence, digital management discipline also needs to be nonlinear and transdisciplinary. Overall speaking, trans or interdisciplinary approach can be applied to management with integrated multi-disciplinary methodology, it enables digital leaders to frame bigger thinking boxes, and approach problems via multi-faceted way, technically, scientifically and culturally.
Sociological aspect: Sociology is the study of human interaction, usually within the context of organized groups, communities, or "societies." It is the systematic study of human society, especially present-day societies. You have to look holistically at the problem domain in order to architect and design a sociological organization, and guide conversations based on the artifacts being produced.Designing an organization, that is a socio-technical system, is the order of magnitude more difficult than designing a mechanical or technical system.  As an often forgotten fact is that organizations consist of three types of intersecting and interacting systems: Social, Technical, and Cultural. Hyper-connectivity can foster innovation through collaboration. In other words, try to digitally connect key resources, assets in their vicinity and context to the resource-rich innovation hubs or clusters across the business ecosystem. In doing so, you can create the collegiality and "shared context for learning. Sociology brings much more depth to our knowledge with interdisciplinary understanding about businesses and human society.
Biologic aspect: If traditional organizations are often static and mechanical, then from biological aspect, digital organizations are more like an organic system, and it will be organized as organic systems with cells that have a function, an infrastructure for input and output and for signaling. Does it need a brain? It can refer to its information technology management function (IT). The digital organization is a living thing with the ability to continually change as the world changes, perhaps much like the plants follow the sun. The principles as a compass will guide all levels of the organization to operate more like the human body operates with the cells (employees) and organs (Functions) of the organization being able to make a decision in a very organic relationship with its environment. The digital shift means principles over rules; empowerment over control, engagement over command and dynamic over static.
Psychologic aspect: One of the key determinants of whether an organization can move to new digital structures is the development level of the people. So part of this journey is to prepare people for the new structures and to recognize this is a crucial step. Therefore, psychology is an important discipline to gain an in-depth understanding of people, their emotions and response to change, innovation, and digital transformation. Recent neuroscience research has shown that our entire experience with the world is subjective, passing through numerous unconscious filters before we become aware of what we are seeing, hearing, or understanding. As a result, no individual has a complete view of what is really happening around him or her, not mention the whole world.  Therefore, winning in the digital dynamic means engaging innovative thinking, and strong collaboration. People have to be ready for moving to a more fluid structure via overcoming change inertia and stepping out of “Comfort Zone.” If look at changes via social neuroscience, you see that (a) People are naturally predispose to maximizing rewards and minimizing threats, (b) the part of the brain that are involved in organizing the “approaches” (perceptions/action/ response toward rewards) or the “withdrawal/retreat in five domains of social experience: STATUS, CERTAINTY, AUTONOMY, RELATEDNESS, and FAIRNESS.
Technologic aspect: IT is impacting every business unit and is becoming the driver of business change.Admittedly IT has come a long way to where it is today. Yes, IT does matter. But, not IT as a silo specialist function, but as a “digital brain,” an “innovation engine,” and a business catalyzer. From the days when geeks sat in the corner, talked with mainframes to where they contribute significantly and touch every perspective of the business and directly make an impact on the business model and direction. Embracing digital is inevitable as that is now part of the deal. There are very progressive organizations where IT sparks organizational creativity. High mature IT will enable building high mature organizations.
Philosophical aspect: Philosophy is a Greek portmanteau of the love of wisdom. Philosophy is the mother of all sciences. Though philosophy is also categorized as “soft science,” which seems to be the completely different discipline from science. Agile is the philosophy with a set of principles to run digital organizations today. Philosophy is also methodical and has deliberate processes for identifying questions, reasoning, identifying faulty reasoning, and thinking outside the box. Applying philosophical disciplines helps business leaders and managers to gain an in-depth understanding of strategy, culture and other critical business factors more fundamentally. Consider, what would the answer be, if you were to ask a person from each of these disciplines- “What is a reality? Who are we? Where did we come from? And as human beings; our nature is fully engaged with emotion and imagination; we can not exempt from this portions. Philosophy is the foundation upon which science (including management science) has been built and continues to put forth the questions which help move science onward and upward.
The enterprise consists of an amalgam of socio-systems, techno-systems, bio-systems, and Econo-systems. Understanding that real world development is multifaceted. You can't expect an individual to fully develop such broad-based concepts, it takes the team effort, and more importantly, team coordination. Applying multidisciplinary management disciplines to orchestrating a digital organization is an evolutionary step to drive the next level of business maturity and harmonize our society.

Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

The CIO’s Digital Agenda: Information Management Tuning to Getting the Business Digital Ready July 2016

IT is the foundation of data, information, and modern knowledge. The biggest misnomer regarding IT is that it is "just technology." The most powerful and differentiating tool in all of the today's businesses is INFORMATION and that, is provided by IT systems. How to fine-tune your organization’s information management to get the business digital ready?
The CIO’s Digital Agenda Information Management Tuning to Getting Business Digital Ready Information Management as a Thresholding Competency of Digital IT?  Nowadays information is the lifeblood of the organization, all forward-looking organizations claim they are in the information management business, managing information and the information position of an organization is what ought to be called Information Management. Information Management is to make sure that the right information is in the right place at the right time and shared to the right persons for making the right decisions. IT is often the information steward of the business, and information management is a thresholding competency for running a digital IT.
From Information Management to Innovation Management? The majority of IT organizations still get stuck at the lower level of IT maturity as a support center. With overflowing information and overwhelming business changes, IT must change -to not just "keep the lights on," but more focus on information and innovation management. What are the logical steps should IT take, and how to manage a balanced innovation portfolio to maximize business value and improve business performance?
Information vs. Decision Making? At today’s digital dynamic, information is abundant and even explosive, the business has become over-complex also hyper-connected, what’s the correlation between information and decision making. If data-decision pair works fine to advocate analytics based culture; as information is the processed data; and knowledge is processed information, how about information-decision pair? It's not necessarily information, but the business insight leads to the right decision making. So how to measure information accuracy as well as decision-making effectiveness.
 The Value of Information? Data is raw, unorganized facts that need to be processed. Data is simple, random and unorganized; on the other hand, information is processed data. Information is structured and presents facts in context to targeted situations and conditions that facilitate business in making the right decisions at the right time. Given this assertion, there is no limit to the value of information in the digital economy.
How to Survive and Thrive at the Age of Information Overloading? We live in the age of information abundance, it’s so delightful to capture the knowledge power because information is only a click away. However, is the Information age flooding one’s brain with an overwhelming amount of diverse knowledge? What are some strategies to prevent overload?
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