Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1335
May 22, 2016
The Agility Impact on Digital Transformation
Agility involves the whole ecosystem.
Agile is both a philosophy and methodology to run a digital organization. The purpose of agile is to provide value to the business by delivering a product that is beneficial to end users, either internal or external customers. All Agile methodologies define a set of best practices, but true agility is much more than the practices defined in a given methodology. Agility involves the whole ecosystem, including all the stakeholders, from the customer's requirement to the delivery. Agility plays a significant impact on digital transformation. It's to change what the organization currently values in regards to process: Look at transformation goal as more often an enterprise strategic decision for the organization to achieve goals related to financial, market etc. And common understanding is an essential input towards this transformation.
Agile is a CULTURE, not a process: If you want to transform the organization to radical digital, you need to change the mindset and the culture. Mindset held by one or more people is a set of assumptions, experiences, and etc that is used as reasons to do things. Often it’s important to adjust the mindset in order to show the benefits of having a common understanding. If there is not a common understanding, then there is more than one mindset to change. Even where people disagree, they really ought to understand why and what they are disagreeing with. Then you can value different opinions and take advantage of them. The construct of the question indicates exclusivity between the two. In fact, they are connected. Many organizations are struggling because they have no common understanding across the board, regardless of methodology, due to their overall culture or mindset. Common understanding can be at many levels. From surface interesting facts understanding to deeper cause-effect reasoning. It's the deeper ones that change the mindset. And it has to be explained from many perspectives thereby, it will create a better model in someone's mind, and explain agility from the user, market, economic, techniques, balance, culture/social and so forth. The mindset change has to do with understanding that doing things differently will bring about that goal more effectively. Agile is not SCRUM, it's not XP, it's a culture within which those processes can flourish. There can be an end state to learning a specific process, but self-improvement is a significant part of the underlying culture. That culture says if something doesn't work, you fix it, and no practices (agile or otherwise) works perfectly all the time. There's always room for improvement, so the process is constantly evolving.
The twin goals of an Agile transformation are to increase value received and decrease risk: An organization at any scale that can retain an overall sense of vision and purpose, can communicate effectively, continuously improve, reflect on its own limitations honestly and respond to change dynamically. It is simply more likely to thrive and survive. Overly rigid organizational structures - fixed plans, processes, and purposes -cause an organization to resist (external) change up to a point, but eventually the stresses become too large and failure is inevitable. There are many corporate examples of this - where organizations are unable to adapt to major disruptive change because of their rigid inflexibility and lack of agility. You need to understand the difference between adoption and transformation. Getting teams to adopt Scrum and start doing that well is one small part of what a transformation requires.Think of it this way, Scrum teams are like lots of small cogs spinning together, as they mature that start spinning faster and in and of themselves, they spin smoothly with no outside friction. However, once you engage a larger cog in the form of a larger component then you have friction. Teams are moving fast than organizations tend to which causes breaks in one or more of the cogs. The world keeps on turning, spinning, and innovating around you and there will be new technologies, new approaches, new tools, new people that will have an impact on your team. Eventually, you are spending time "trimming and paring," finding small things to improve and adjusting to immediately current conditions, looking for new ways to "see waste" etc., this becomes a steady state but dynamic equilibrium rather than "End State." And the organization becomes more resilient with high-level of digital agility and maturity.
"Transformation is one thing. The state 'to be' is quite another: By definition, if it's transforming from a state to another, it means that one is acquiring a whole set of other things quite different from what they currently have. The driver for transformation would differ from organization to organization based on what the specific problem they're trying to solve is. It is that desired state to be that determines what the mode of the ecosystem of delivery would be. The agile way of working happens to be one of those states. If the transformation is to the agile way of working, then the learning of, shift to and conscious use of empiricism to drive development, surgical and critical focus on value delivery, the practice of collaboration, reflection, constant learning, and retrospection away from and in most cases diametrically opposed to disconnected, impersonal practices. Sometimes, efficiency can be overrated. If the objective is to out-innovate the competition, and inefficiency and internal chaos creates the dynamic for creativity and innovation you might win the competition. Being competitive can have an innovation component, a new capability that unlocks a new market/revenue stream, or a cost-saving component, fewer people needed to generate the revenue or reduced cost of expansion; prioritizing between these with a wider user base can be challenging. Nevertheless, eliminating waste and continuously improving should always be ongoing objectives even if you obtain sufficient agility since this can be easily lost as there are so many variables in the business environment. The more you improve in one area the more you will expose weaknesses in others. You improve literally by iterations. The hard part is not getting content with where you are, and always looking to improve.
Agile never ends. Digital organization as a whole is anti-fragile, but some parts may be fragile, via applying tailored agility, the digital organization with anti-fragile characteristics can better survive and thrive in volatility and uncertainty, and it can well adapt to the business nature of complexity and interdependence, as well as lift business maturity significantly. The world is changing and continuous adaptation is the only way to survive in a competitive world. Agile is not just a business principle, but a life principle: stand still, fall behind is not what you want.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Agile is both a philosophy and methodology to run a digital organization. The purpose of agile is to provide value to the business by delivering a product that is beneficial to end users, either internal or external customers. All Agile methodologies define a set of best practices, but true agility is much more than the practices defined in a given methodology. Agility involves the whole ecosystem, including all the stakeholders, from the customer's requirement to the delivery. Agility plays a significant impact on digital transformation. It's to change what the organization currently values in regards to process: Look at transformation goal as more often an enterprise strategic decision for the organization to achieve goals related to financial, market etc. And common understanding is an essential input towards this transformation.
Agile is a CULTURE, not a process: If you want to transform the organization to radical digital, you need to change the mindset and the culture. Mindset held by one or more people is a set of assumptions, experiences, and etc that is used as reasons to do things. Often it’s important to adjust the mindset in order to show the benefits of having a common understanding. If there is not a common understanding, then there is more than one mindset to change. Even where people disagree, they really ought to understand why and what they are disagreeing with. Then you can value different opinions and take advantage of them. The construct of the question indicates exclusivity between the two. In fact, they are connected. Many organizations are struggling because they have no common understanding across the board, regardless of methodology, due to their overall culture or mindset. Common understanding can be at many levels. From surface interesting facts understanding to deeper cause-effect reasoning. It's the deeper ones that change the mindset. And it has to be explained from many perspectives thereby, it will create a better model in someone's mind, and explain agility from the user, market, economic, techniques, balance, culture/social and so forth. The mindset change has to do with understanding that doing things differently will bring about that goal more effectively. Agile is not SCRUM, it's not XP, it's a culture within which those processes can flourish. There can be an end state to learning a specific process, but self-improvement is a significant part of the underlying culture. That culture says if something doesn't work, you fix it, and no practices (agile or otherwise) works perfectly all the time. There's always room for improvement, so the process is constantly evolving.
The twin goals of an Agile transformation are to increase value received and decrease risk: An organization at any scale that can retain an overall sense of vision and purpose, can communicate effectively, continuously improve, reflect on its own limitations honestly and respond to change dynamically. It is simply more likely to thrive and survive. Overly rigid organizational structures - fixed plans, processes, and purposes -cause an organization to resist (external) change up to a point, but eventually the stresses become too large and failure is inevitable. There are many corporate examples of this - where organizations are unable to adapt to major disruptive change because of their rigid inflexibility and lack of agility. You need to understand the difference between adoption and transformation. Getting teams to adopt Scrum and start doing that well is one small part of what a transformation requires.Think of it this way, Scrum teams are like lots of small cogs spinning together, as they mature that start spinning faster and in and of themselves, they spin smoothly with no outside friction. However, once you engage a larger cog in the form of a larger component then you have friction. Teams are moving fast than organizations tend to which causes breaks in one or more of the cogs. The world keeps on turning, spinning, and innovating around you and there will be new technologies, new approaches, new tools, new people that will have an impact on your team. Eventually, you are spending time "trimming and paring," finding small things to improve and adjusting to immediately current conditions, looking for new ways to "see waste" etc., this becomes a steady state but dynamic equilibrium rather than "End State." And the organization becomes more resilient with high-level of digital agility and maturity.
"Transformation is one thing. The state 'to be' is quite another: By definition, if it's transforming from a state to another, it means that one is acquiring a whole set of other things quite different from what they currently have. The driver for transformation would differ from organization to organization based on what the specific problem they're trying to solve is. It is that desired state to be that determines what the mode of the ecosystem of delivery would be. The agile way of working happens to be one of those states. If the transformation is to the agile way of working, then the learning of, shift to and conscious use of empiricism to drive development, surgical and critical focus on value delivery, the practice of collaboration, reflection, constant learning, and retrospection away from and in most cases diametrically opposed to disconnected, impersonal practices. Sometimes, efficiency can be overrated. If the objective is to out-innovate the competition, and inefficiency and internal chaos creates the dynamic for creativity and innovation you might win the competition. Being competitive can have an innovation component, a new capability that unlocks a new market/revenue stream, or a cost-saving component, fewer people needed to generate the revenue or reduced cost of expansion; prioritizing between these with a wider user base can be challenging. Nevertheless, eliminating waste and continuously improving should always be ongoing objectives even if you obtain sufficient agility since this can be easily lost as there are so many variables in the business environment. The more you improve in one area the more you will expose weaknesses in others. You improve literally by iterations. The hard part is not getting content with where you are, and always looking to improve.
Agile never ends. Digital organization as a whole is anti-fragile, but some parts may be fragile, via applying tailored agility, the digital organization with anti-fragile characteristics can better survive and thrive in volatility and uncertainty, and it can well adapt to the business nature of complexity and interdependence, as well as lift business maturity significantly. The world is changing and continuous adaptation is the only way to survive in a competitive world. Agile is not just a business principle, but a life principle: stand still, fall behind is not what you want.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
“CIO Master” Book Tuning XXXVII: How to Understand the “Three Sides of Coin”
The three sides of coin is: business, IT, and interaction & integration of both.
Forward-looking organizations empower their CIOs to lead digital transformation because IT is at a unique position to oversight business process and becomes a critical component in building business capabilities. Most of the senior CIOs understand that the digital transformation of most of the organizations depends, to a large extent, on their capabilities to transform their duty from an inside-out focus into an outside-in focus. They must not just understand both sides: IT and business, but also focus on the third side: How can IT interact with both internal customers and end customers, and how can IT and business integrated into a “whole” to ensure that the holistic business is superior to the sum of pieces?
CIOs are Business Executive first, and IT managers the second: They must devote their time and energy, understand the business and the potential of digital technologies to improve customer experiences, improve business processes and work with senior executives to develop new digital enabled business models. This should be the focus of the digital CIO. Today’s organizations are at a crossroads where the segregation or siloing of business units are at a need to reach across the aisles and respectively work with each other. IT "glues" the silos and delivers the best solution to the business problems which meet business’s requirement or tailor customer’s needs. IT should facilitate the business partners to the right solutions and help to implement them. Therefore, CIOs need to also collect feedback from business upon how to improve IT services and satisfy customers.
Bridging the gap between IT and the Business are really issues of all about change: Some say, that the gap between business and IT has actually widened. The reason is that business and IT have evolved at a different pace over the past few decades. While IT has evolved significantly in all aspects - people, process, technology - business has, and continues to evolve faster. The world has changed and operational process efficiency needs to be on agenda to see economic prosperity return for future generations. Cutting out waste such as shrinking the gap between business and IT as described could make a significant contribution and the sooner it starts the better it will be for all involved. If there is a conflict inherent in serving both individual business functions and the enterprise as a whole, as a rationalization in many cases serves the enterprise at the cost of specific functions. What has to be realized is that sometimes the additional cost to the enterprise is worth it. That's a business call and it precludes an inflexible strategy on the part of functional executives. In this case, CIOs need to capture the full picture, the holistic business insight, rather than IT picture only.
The business needs to learn IT, just like IT needs to understand the business: Often, business still does not wish to learn about technology, operate it or deal with the IT department. Nevertheless, technology intricacies are increasingly hidden by smart interfaces that make possible for its direct operation and management by business people, avoiding as such as the IT department involvement. The CIO should educate other business functions with data that business as whole is superior to the sum of pieces. The CIO can also provide valuable insight in the form of cost saved, revenue from new unexplored business idea etc., Selling IT process improvements is relatively easy only when it is within the CIO's own budget authority. Once you cross that line, it is not easy and it shouldn’t be. Therefore, the “third side of the coin,” IT and business communication, collaboration, and integration becomes more strategic than ever.
It is increasingly more challenging for IT to deliver to business what it wants when it wants. The real paradox is that IT depends on the business to define their technology requirements but the business does not understand the capabilities of technology and it is difficult for them to provide functional requirements for applications. Therefore, In order to integrate IT and business seamlessly, IT needs to understand business problems via knowing the “three sides of the coin,” and provide consultation and recommendations to the business on how to leverage technology. CIOs can deliver ‘competitive capability” to business as many businesses will plateau without IT, so there is a co-dependency that should be recognized in a mature - respectful manner that facilitates the strategic goals and objectives of the Enterprise. It’s a collective and across-functional team effort!
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
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Forward-looking organizations empower their CIOs to lead digital transformation because IT is at a unique position to oversight business process and becomes a critical component in building business capabilities. Most of the senior CIOs understand that the digital transformation of most of the organizations depends, to a large extent, on their capabilities to transform their duty from an inside-out focus into an outside-in focus. They must not just understand both sides: IT and business, but also focus on the third side: How can IT interact with both internal customers and end customers, and how can IT and business integrated into a “whole” to ensure that the holistic business is superior to the sum of pieces?
CIOs are Business Executive first, and IT managers the second: They must devote their time and energy, understand the business and the potential of digital technologies to improve customer experiences, improve business processes and work with senior executives to develop new digital enabled business models. This should be the focus of the digital CIO. Today’s organizations are at a crossroads where the segregation or siloing of business units are at a need to reach across the aisles and respectively work with each other. IT "glues" the silos and delivers the best solution to the business problems which meet business’s requirement or tailor customer’s needs. IT should facilitate the business partners to the right solutions and help to implement them. Therefore, CIOs need to also collect feedback from business upon how to improve IT services and satisfy customers.
Bridging the gap between IT and the Business are really issues of all about change: Some say, that the gap between business and IT has actually widened. The reason is that business and IT have evolved at a different pace over the past few decades. While IT has evolved significantly in all aspects - people, process, technology - business has, and continues to evolve faster. The world has changed and operational process efficiency needs to be on agenda to see economic prosperity return for future generations. Cutting out waste such as shrinking the gap between business and IT as described could make a significant contribution and the sooner it starts the better it will be for all involved. If there is a conflict inherent in serving both individual business functions and the enterprise as a whole, as a rationalization in many cases serves the enterprise at the cost of specific functions. What has to be realized is that sometimes the additional cost to the enterprise is worth it. That's a business call and it precludes an inflexible strategy on the part of functional executives. In this case, CIOs need to capture the full picture, the holistic business insight, rather than IT picture only.
The business needs to learn IT, just like IT needs to understand the business: Often, business still does not wish to learn about technology, operate it or deal with the IT department. Nevertheless, technology intricacies are increasingly hidden by smart interfaces that make possible for its direct operation and management by business people, avoiding as such as the IT department involvement. The CIO should educate other business functions with data that business as whole is superior to the sum of pieces. The CIO can also provide valuable insight in the form of cost saved, revenue from new unexplored business idea etc., Selling IT process improvements is relatively easy only when it is within the CIO's own budget authority. Once you cross that line, it is not easy and it shouldn’t be. Therefore, the “third side of the coin,” IT and business communication, collaboration, and integration becomes more strategic than ever.
It is increasingly more challenging for IT to deliver to business what it wants when it wants. The real paradox is that IT depends on the business to define their technology requirements but the business does not understand the capabilities of technology and it is difficult for them to provide functional requirements for applications. Therefore, In order to integrate IT and business seamlessly, IT needs to understand business problems via knowing the “three sides of the coin,” and provide consultation and recommendations to the business on how to leverage technology. CIOs can deliver ‘competitive capability” to business as many businesses will plateau without IT, so there is a co-dependency that should be recognized in a mature - respectful manner that facilitates the strategic goals and objectives of the Enterprise. It’s a collective and across-functional team effort!
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
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
“CIO Master” Book Tuning : How to Understand the “Three Sides of Coin”
Forward-looking organizations empower their CIOs to lead digital transformation because IT is at a unique position to oversight business process and becomes a critical component in building business capabilities. Most of the senior CIOs understand that the digital transformation of most of the organizations depends, to a large extent, on their capabilities to transform their duty from an inside-out focus into an outside-in focus. They must not just understand both sides: IT and business, but also the third side: How can IT interact with both internal customers and end customers, and how can IT and business integrated into a “whole” to ensure that the holistic business is superior to the sum of pieces.
CIOs are Business Executive first, and IT managers the second: They must devote their time and energy, understanding the business and the potential of digital technologies to improve customer experiences, improve business processes and work with senior executives to develop new digital enabled business models. This should be the focus of the digital CIO. Today’s organizations are at a crossroads where the segregation or siloing of business units are at a need to reach across the aisles and respectively work with each other. IT delivers the best solution to the business problems which meet business’s requirement or tailor customer’s needs. IT should facilitate the business partners to the right solutions and help to implement them. Therefore, CIOs should also collect feedback from business upon how to improve IT services and satisfy customers.
Bridging the gap between IT and the Business are really issues of all about change: Some say, that the gap between business and IT has actually widened. The reason is that business and IT have evolved at a different pace over the past few decades. While IT has evolved significantly in all aspects - people, process, technology - business has, and continues to evolve faster. The world has changed and operational process efficiency needs to be on agenda to see economic prosperity return for future generations. Cutting out waste such as shrinking the gap between business and IT as described could make a significant contribution and the sooner it starts the better it will be for all involved. If there is a conflict inherent in serving both individual business functions and the enterprise as a whole, as a rationalization in many cases serves the enterprise at the cost of specific functions. What has to be realized is that sometimes the additional cost to the enterprise is worth it. That's a business call and it precludes an inflexible strategy on the part of functional executives. In this case, CIOs need to capture the full picture, the holistic business insight, rather than IT picture only.
The business needs to learn IT, just like IT needs to understand the business: Often, business still does not wish to learn about technology, operate it or deal with the IT department. CIO should also educate other business functions with data that business as whole is superior to the sum of pieces. CIO can also provide valuable insight in the form of cost saved, revenue from new unexplored business idea etc., Nevertheless, technology intricacies are increasingly hidden by smart interfaces that make possible for its direct operation and management by business people, avoiding as such as the IT department involvement. Selling IT process improvements is relatively easy only when it is within the CIO's own budget authority. Once you cross that line, it is not easy and it shouldn’t be. Therefore, the “third side of the coin,” IT and business communication, collaboration, and integration becomes more strategic than ever.
It is increasingly more challenging for IT to deliver to business what it wants when it wantsThe real paradox is that IT depends on the business to define their technology requirements but the business does not understand the capabilities of technology and it is difficult for them to provide functional requirements for applications. Therefore, In order to integrate IT and business seamlessly, IT needs to understand business problems via knowing the “three sides of the coin,” and provide consultation and recommendations to the business on how to leverage technology. CIOs can deliver ‘competitive capability” to business as many businesses will plateau without IT, so there is a co-dependency that should be recognized in a mature - respectful manner that facilitates the strategic goals and objectives of the Enterprise. It’s a team effort!
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
May 21, 2016
The Monthly Change Leadership Sum Up May 2016
Change is inevitable, 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. The perspective is often rational, an automatic cultural response; defending already existing structures, all that we take for granted, without questioning the underlying premises. But in order to make change both proactive and sustainable, which is more important, Change Leadership or Change Management, What does change management actually deliver? Is Leadership about Change? The world has changed significantly, and the speed of change is accelerating. Not only has it gotten flatter (globalization), but also it’s gotten hyper-connected (digitalization). This is where leadership must invoke great vision, good tactics and innovation comes into play. Leadership is about future, future is full of changes, is leadership all about change as well?
Five Aspect in Leading Change challenges: The speed of change is accelerated, organizations large or small spend significant time and resource to deal with the Big Changes such as radical digital transformation or small changes such as adopting a new software tool. However, statistically, more than 70% of change management effort fail to achieve the expected result, what are the critical elements in change management, and how to weave them more seamlessly to orchestrate a harmonized change symphony?
What does a Change Leaders/Managers actually Deliver? People change for a reason; they must have a reason to want to adopt the change. The question to be asked is why are you wanting the change? What do you expect to gain from adopting the change? That is where the change originator defines their deliverables and benefits, in real measurable, quantifiable terms. But what is “Change Management” and how can you define its value? What does a change leaders/managers actually deliver?
Three Qualities of Change Leaders: Fundamentally leadership is about change and influencing people to change. Leadership is moving you and others, and evolving to what is needed next. The speed of change is accelerating, Change Leadership becomes a more critical capacity to influence others through inspiration, motivated by a passion, birthed by a conviction of a sense of purpose of why you were created. Leadership is all about the ability to take initiative and the ability to influence with or without authority. It is the power of example that frees people to do willingly and well that needs to be done. What are important qualities in change leadership?
Change Leadership & Change Management Go Hand-in-Hand: Change Management is about mentoring the human side of the business through profound, unsettling change. Change Management has a very wide scope and is a relatively new area of expertise. From a management perspective, First, distinguish between change management and change leadership: the former is being about guiding strategy, systems, and process while the latter is about influencing people and culture. To be successful leaders, you must face and handle both. they are both important to make a change not a one-time project, but an ongoing business capability.The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.3 million page views with about 2800+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify your voice, deepen your digital footprints, and match your way for human progression.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
The Business Fitness for Digital Paradigm Shift
Digital makes a significant impact on every aspect of the business from people, process to technology, both horizontally and vertically. Digital becomes the very fabric of high performing business, being outside-in and customer-centric is the new mantra for forward-looking and high mature digital organizations today. At the heart of digital, it is people and how to build a customer-centric organization. But how to assess the digital fitness of your organization for such a paradigm shift?
Self-diagnoses your business personality: Like people, every organization has its own personality, often, an organization's personality replicates the personality of its leader, and that the personalities of the leadership drive the culture of the organization. Do you have an “authentic” organization that encourages its people to express and grow, or do you have a “silo” organization which has many gaps and is made of sum of parts, not the whole? What are the collective thought processes and behaviors that you can see in your organization? A disconnected or distant layer of management or leadership? A sea of administrative bureaucracy? Silo thinking or poor or inconsistent communication down or across the organization? How would you describe the prevailing business mood? Lack of clarity or direction? Lack of teamwork? Lack of trust in management? Work overload? Unclear or rapidly changing priorities? Continual firefighting? Ambivalence? What are the contributing environmental factors and behaviors? Slow or unclear priorities, strategies or decision processes? A lack of recognition or honest feedback or a disconnect between recognition and performance? What are the needed changes in behavior, process, communication, accessibility, engagement, approach? Do you inspire open conversations about work environment?
Reimagine the fundamentals of how organizations work: At the age of digital, businesses today need nothing less than a paradigm shift in their thinking about the fundamentals of how organizations work to build an authentic culture and an engaging workforce. There are differences between work environment (business mood) and company culture. The work environment is floating on the surface, easy to see and measure and feel, is also relatively easy to change - even in days or weeks. Anyone in the organization can begin to change their work environment! But work culture is how people think and do things here, it is the collective mindset and attitude. A company's culture, which is heavily ingrained and implicit and not directly perceptible, is also very hard to change and changes slowly if at all. Top leadership team often “owns” and make huge impact on business culture. Thus, leadership who listens well and provides ample room for the job development and a leadership who actively partners with HR to develop and advocate an authentic culture, and promote a clear, simple plan for career progression sounds almost too simplistic, but it is indeed the most optimum and efficient route to higher employee engagement. Also, the reality is that the organizational structures and relationships with and between employees were designed for a very different age. It's not just a leadership or management issue; most organizations are grossly dysfunctional, despite often noble attempts at change by the leadership team. And because organizations look to and talk about and mimic their organizational managers and leaders, it is these groups (particularly the first line / middle-level managers) that have a lot of power to influence the environment quickly and substantially. Therefore, leveraging the latest technologies to digitize business processes and fine tune business culture can improve your business fitness for them paradigm shift.
Talent fitness and team fitness: Talent development is a continuous effort to groom the right talent for the business’s long-term prosperity. Employee development plan should be done with employees and not against them. Talent acquisition includes people and skills development, aligning people to organizational vision and values, succession planning, engagement and retention strategies through enlightened leadership and management practices. There are so many things employees will not tell their managers what's in their mind, and unfortunately, there are not so many things that are positives. It is an indication of a lack of true empathic leadership, lack of a culture of innovation and learning, lack of integral and effective talent management and performance management, it’s a real management challenge for all. Talent Management can not be successfully done by Business Leaders or HR alone. Business leaders and HR have to work in partnership with an ideal Talent Management integrated with culture management and performance management. Only then will talent management and employee management, in general, be more comprehensive and advantageous for the company and employee. You need both best fit employees and high-performing teams. Sometimes, it’s not easy to bring all talent people and mold them into an effective team, and there's more to it than what you might think about, but bringing the best together successfully can be done and has been done many times before. People need to be developed and grown so the positive energy can flow and collective human capabilities can really be transformed.
Either at individual, team, or organizational level, digital fitness doesn’t mean to set the cookie-cutting standard to ensure that everyone needs to have the same thought process, the same personalities, the same preferences, or the same experiences. Indeed, the best fit mind means “think differently,” the best fit team has complementary skills and capabilities, and the best fit organization has differentiated competency to achieve high-performing result. Where you want to look for 'fit' is in relation to the values you want to build or maintain within your team, and the kinds of behaviors that you would expect to see as a result of, or in alignment with, those values. ' What is important is that everyone feels encouraged to grow, committed to the goals of the team, and are comfortable with the behavioral expectations associated with those goals, and the business as a whole can accelerate the speed on the journey of digitalization.
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May 20, 2016
What are Common Change Pitfalls?
There are too many different types of change management initiatives, so there is no one size fits all approach to successfully managing change.
Organizations today are more dynamic than ever, there are Big’C’ changes such as digital transformation, merging organizations with overlapping or duplicate functions, and little ‘c’changes such as implement a new software tool, reorganize a department, improving a new process to do things more efficiently. Big ‘C’ Change requires buy-in via digging through the ‘big why’ behind the change, sets success criteria and to hold managers accountable,; and little’c’ change needs to have a step-wise logic on ‘how’ to make change more efficiently. Still, more than two-thirds of business Change Management effort fail to achieve the expectation, what are the pitfalls on the way?
Lack of vision: The most critical element in Change Management is a shared vision for the organization. Change is usually required when an organization is expanding its business, its mission, or is installing/implementing some new technology. In all these cases, a vision provides the guiding light and direction. Without a clear vision, change either turns to be chaos, or for its own sake. With a clear vision and planning, the change managers can internalize the change effectively. This is best done if they participate in the development of the vision. If they don't, then they need to think long and hard about what is the business purpose of the change and how their part of the organization can contribute to it; be more specific for taking actions, but be prioritized without losing the big picture.
Negative Emotions: Such as Fear of the unknown; Fear of failure. Fear of change happens at both personal and organizational level, fear of disruption, the existence of chaos. People like to change, but do not want to be changed and there is the difference. By nature we resist the changes, however, if we are part of it, it is easier to shift to the new behavior. So the more transparent about a change effort, the less uncertainty, and consequently less fear, there will be about the effort. But that takes planning, decisive leadership, and the intestinal fortitude to be transparent with people when the truth might not be pleasant to deliver.
Complacency: Leaders often miss the big picture and become complacent or comfort with the status quo. To lead change effectively, change leaders must think hard and make tough decisions on time. At all levels, change is the process, you must work harder to improve. Change with improvement in mind is a proactive approach that allows for planning and supportive considerations to be made and, therefore, is much more likely to turn into a smooth and successful collaborative transition. Change without wanting to improve is a re-action to outside forces and, therefore, full of limitations. It often reflects a disorganized environment and major irritations for everybody.
"Perceived" cost of transformation: Change is costly, but if the ROI of Change Management is high, not necessarily for short-term, but for long run, it’s still worth doing. Thus, the sponsorship for change is crucial as it is being structured, intentional and resources for focusing on adoption and usage in the first place. You can have an amazing presentation with the right stakeholders, but if the person delivering the message isn't your sponsor or key influencer in the room, people won't care. Still, the top pick key factor in Change Management is situation driven. It could depend on the type of change project as well. If it is a large scale true organizational change project where you aren't simply removing one thing and replacing it with another, then identifying sponsors and influencer is key to success. If you are part of a change project, communication and engagement would be a priority because the system is already in place and you are making enhancements.
Timing: Change has to be orchestrated at all levels with the right timing because strategy management and change management need to go hand-in-hand in a timely manner. Change occurs at the level of the individual and it is only when the majority of people are on the journey that the real results start to emerge. It is commonly noted that most of the 'top-down' driven programs are unsuccessful as they fail to enthuse functional stakeholders. Changing too fast perhaps has difficulty in sustaining the result - only change behaviors manually, not change mindset behind it, changing too slowly will stifle strategy execution and business growth.
There are too many different types of change management initiatives, so there is no one size fits all approach to successfully managing change. But pay more attention to these pitfalls to change. A clear vision, step-wise planning, positive emotions, talent competency, cost effectiveness, and right timing are all important factors to lead change, large or small in effective way.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Organizations today are more dynamic than ever, there are Big’C’ changes such as digital transformation, merging organizations with overlapping or duplicate functions, and little ‘c’changes such as implement a new software tool, reorganize a department, improving a new process to do things more efficiently. Big ‘C’ Change requires buy-in via digging through the ‘big why’ behind the change, sets success criteria and to hold managers accountable,; and little’c’ change needs to have a step-wise logic on ‘how’ to make change more efficiently. Still, more than two-thirds of business Change Management effort fail to achieve the expectation, what are the pitfalls on the way?Lack of vision: The most critical element in Change Management is a shared vision for the organization. Change is usually required when an organization is expanding its business, its mission, or is installing/implementing some new technology. In all these cases, a vision provides the guiding light and direction. Without a clear vision, change either turns to be chaos, or for its own sake. With a clear vision and planning, the change managers can internalize the change effectively. This is best done if they participate in the development of the vision. If they don't, then they need to think long and hard about what is the business purpose of the change and how their part of the organization can contribute to it; be more specific for taking actions, but be prioritized without losing the big picture.
Negative Emotions: Such as Fear of the unknown; Fear of failure. Fear of change happens at both personal and organizational level, fear of disruption, the existence of chaos. People like to change, but do not want to be changed and there is the difference. By nature we resist the changes, however, if we are part of it, it is easier to shift to the new behavior. So the more transparent about a change effort, the less uncertainty, and consequently less fear, there will be about the effort. But that takes planning, decisive leadership, and the intestinal fortitude to be transparent with people when the truth might not be pleasant to deliver.
Complacency: Leaders often miss the big picture and become complacent or comfort with the status quo. To lead change effectively, change leaders must think hard and make tough decisions on time. At all levels, change is the process, you must work harder to improve. Change with improvement in mind is a proactive approach that allows for planning and supportive considerations to be made and, therefore, is much more likely to turn into a smooth and successful collaborative transition. Change without wanting to improve is a re-action to outside forces and, therefore, full of limitations. It often reflects a disorganized environment and major irritations for everybody.
"Perceived" cost of transformation: Change is costly, but if the ROI of Change Management is high, not necessarily for short-term, but for long run, it’s still worth doing. Thus, the sponsorship for change is crucial as it is being structured, intentional and resources for focusing on adoption and usage in the first place. You can have an amazing presentation with the right stakeholders, but if the person delivering the message isn't your sponsor or key influencer in the room, people won't care. Still, the top pick key factor in Change Management is situation driven. It could depend on the type of change project as well. If it is a large scale true organizational change project where you aren't simply removing one thing and replacing it with another, then identifying sponsors and influencer is key to success. If you are part of a change project, communication and engagement would be a priority because the system is already in place and you are making enhancements.
Timing: Change has to be orchestrated at all levels with the right timing because strategy management and change management need to go hand-in-hand in a timely manner. Change occurs at the level of the individual and it is only when the majority of people are on the journey that the real results start to emerge. It is commonly noted that most of the 'top-down' driven programs are unsuccessful as they fail to enthuse functional stakeholders. Changing too fast perhaps has difficulty in sustaining the result - only change behaviors manually, not change mindset behind it, changing too slowly will stifle strategy execution and business growth.
There are too many different types of change management initiatives, so there is no one size fits all approach to successfully managing change. But pay more attention to these pitfalls to change. A clear vision, step-wise planning, positive emotions, talent competency, cost effectiveness, and right timing are all important factors to lead change, large or small in effective way.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
"CIO Master" Book Tuning XXXVI: Running IT as a Digital Differentiator
Digital transformation represents a break with the past, with a high level of impact and complexity.
IT is impacting every business unit and is becoming the driver of business change. However, many IT organizations still get stuck at the lower level of maturity to only “keep the lights on,” and IT is perceived as a support function and cost center in those organizations. With the increasing pace of changes and fierce competition, the forward-looking organizations empower their IT leaders to lead changes? How can IT build its reputation as a business value creator and how to run IT as a digital differentiator?
Technology is a differentiator and creative disruptor, and the information is a “gold mine” of the business: Due to fierce competition, the differentiation provided by innovative technology usually is more long-lived than differentiation provided by marketing actions that can be copied easier. And technologies can push you out of business if you are not agile enough to change your business model. IT not only matters more, but also so critically, many times, it is a determining factor of success for the business strategy to achieve the fast growth and long-term sustainability of large organizations. Nowadays, the opportunities for cost-leadership as a business strategy are now much harder as everything moves so much more quickly, but the differentiation provided by innovative technology and business insight abstracted from the abundant information allow companies to reach the "long-tail" customer that previously was impossible or uneconomic. Therefore, businesses need to invite their IT leaders to co-create strategy via sharing technology vision, not just take orders to align and implement the strategy. Businesses need people who are passionate about exploiting information enabled by information technology to work at the heart of the enterprise and build a competitive business advantage.
It’s ultimately important for IT to discuss with customers about "what's possible" not just "what do you want": For the "what is possible" part, don't just deliver what the business asks for, but be able to provide the "best or most innovative solution" for the business' requirement, offering added value and feature insights based on system understanding, that the business might not even have thought of. This requires a certain depth of understanding the business and having your input respected. Because running IT as a digital differentiator means that IT needs to be run more innovatively, and it accelerates the speed and makes a difference via leveraging the emergent digital trends and exploring the new way to do things, besides exploitation of the existing methods and technologies. Digital IT has a “hybrid” nature, to compete at the digital speed, IT is transforming from a builder to an integrator, from a plumber to an orchestrator; from a service provider to a business solutionary and differentiator. IT management philosophy is also transforming from “built to last,” to “wired for change.”
From IT leadership perspective, the CIO should also shift mentality from a tactical, transactional manager to an innovative strategists and innovator: CIOs as C-level business leaders, do need shift mindset to become business strategists, not only craft IT strategy or draw the solid IT roadmap but also co-create the business strategy, as IT strategy is an integral component of business strategy, and IT strategy and digital strategy are convergent to setting clear digital visions, diagnosing the business issues, building a set of guidelines, taking actions and making continuous delivery for making a leap in digital transformation. Innovative IT leaders can see things differently either via architecture, customer, process, or disruptive creativity lens, to fill the gap at the big table and contribute to business planning. The more dimensions the lens has, the better an innovative leader can manifest a vivid vision. A digital IT leader with a visionary mind is able to and not afraid to leverage contrarian views to shape a holistic picture, and to run IT as a digital differentiator.
Digital transformation represents a break with the past, with a high level of impact and complexity. Therefore, running IT as a digital differentiator is easy to say, and hard to achieve. Transformation efforts need to be undertaken as the means of getting to a differentiative capability to accomplish a defined goal. Otherwise, they cannot have the clear focus and business rationale that is essential to gaining any traction in changing an embedded culture. There is no one size fits all, every IT organization has to explore its own sets of best practices and next practices, to build business competency and elevate digital maturity.
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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IT is impacting every business unit and is becoming the driver of business change. However, many IT organizations still get stuck at the lower level of maturity to only “keep the lights on,” and IT is perceived as a support function and cost center in those organizations. With the increasing pace of changes and fierce competition, the forward-looking organizations empower their IT leaders to lead changes? How can IT build its reputation as a business value creator and how to run IT as a digital differentiator?
Technology is a differentiator and creative disruptor, and the information is a “gold mine” of the business: Due to fierce competition, the differentiation provided by innovative technology usually is more long-lived than differentiation provided by marketing actions that can be copied easier. And technologies can push you out of business if you are not agile enough to change your business model. IT not only matters more, but also so critically, many times, it is a determining factor of success for the business strategy to achieve the fast growth and long-term sustainability of large organizations. Nowadays, the opportunities for cost-leadership as a business strategy are now much harder as everything moves so much more quickly, but the differentiation provided by innovative technology and business insight abstracted from the abundant information allow companies to reach the "long-tail" customer that previously was impossible or uneconomic. Therefore, businesses need to invite their IT leaders to co-create strategy via sharing technology vision, not just take orders to align and implement the strategy. Businesses need people who are passionate about exploiting information enabled by information technology to work at the heart of the enterprise and build a competitive business advantage.
It’s ultimately important for IT to discuss with customers about "what's possible" not just "what do you want": For the "what is possible" part, don't just deliver what the business asks for, but be able to provide the "best or most innovative solution" for the business' requirement, offering added value and feature insights based on system understanding, that the business might not even have thought of. This requires a certain depth of understanding the business and having your input respected. Because running IT as a digital differentiator means that IT needs to be run more innovatively, and it accelerates the speed and makes a difference via leveraging the emergent digital trends and exploring the new way to do things, besides exploitation of the existing methods and technologies. Digital IT has a “hybrid” nature, to compete at the digital speed, IT is transforming from a builder to an integrator, from a plumber to an orchestrator; from a service provider to a business solutionary and differentiator. IT management philosophy is also transforming from “built to last,” to “wired for change.”
From IT leadership perspective, the CIO should also shift mentality from a tactical, transactional manager to an innovative strategists and innovator: CIOs as C-level business leaders, do need shift mindset to become business strategists, not only craft IT strategy or draw the solid IT roadmap but also co-create the business strategy, as IT strategy is an integral component of business strategy, and IT strategy and digital strategy are convergent to setting clear digital visions, diagnosing the business issues, building a set of guidelines, taking actions and making continuous delivery for making a leap in digital transformation. Innovative IT leaders can see things differently either via architecture, customer, process, or disruptive creativity lens, to fill the gap at the big table and contribute to business planning. The more dimensions the lens has, the better an innovative leader can manifest a vivid vision. A digital IT leader with a visionary mind is able to and not afraid to leverage contrarian views to shape a holistic picture, and to run IT as a digital differentiator.Digital transformation represents a break with the past, with a high level of impact and complexity. Therefore, running IT as a digital differentiator is easy to say, and hard to achieve. Transformation efforts need to be undertaken as the means of getting to a differentiative capability to accomplish a defined goal. Otherwise, they cannot have the clear focus and business rationale that is essential to gaining any traction in changing an embedded culture. There is no one size fits all, every IT organization has to explore its own sets of best practices and next practices, to build business competency and elevate digital maturity.
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
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Running IT as a Digital Differentiator
Digital transformation represents a break with the past, with a high level of impact and complexity.
IT is impacting every business unit and is becoming the driver of business change. However, many IT organizations still get stuck at the lower level of maturity to only “keep the lights on,” and IT is perceived as a support function and cost center in those organizations. With the increasing pace of changes and fierce competition, the forward-looking organizations empower their IT leaders to lead changes? How can IT build its reputation as a business value creator and how to run IT as a digital differentiator?
Technology is a differentiator and creative disruptor, and the information is a “gold mine” of the business: Due to fierce competition, the differentiation provided by innovative technology usually is more long-lived than differentiation provided by marketing actions that can be copied easier. And technologies can push you out of business if you are not agile enough to change your business model. IT not only matters more, but also so critically, many times, it is a determining factor of success for the business strategy to achieve the fast growth and long-term sustainability of large organizations. Nowadays, the opportunities for cost-leadership as a business strategy are now much harder as everything moves so much more quickly, but the differentiation provided by innovative technology and business insight abstracted from the abundant information allow companies to reach the "long-tail" customer that previously was impossible or uneconomic. Therefore, businesses need to invite their IT leaders to co-create strategy via sharing technology vision, not just take orders to align and implement the strategy. Businesses need people who are passionate about exploiting information enabled by information technology to work at the heart of the enterprise and build competitive business advantage.
It’s ultimately important for IT to discuss with customers about "what's possible" not just "what do you want": For the "what is possible" part, don't just deliver what the business asks for, but be able to provide the "best or most innovative solution" for the business' requirement, offering added value and feature insights based on system understanding, that the business might not even have thought of. This requires a certain depth of understanding the business and having your input respected. Because running IT as a digital differentiator means that IT needs to be run more innovatively, and it accelerates the speed and makes a difference via leveraging the emergent digital trends and exploring the new way to do things, besides exploitation of the existing methods and technologies. Digital IT has a “hybrid” nature, to compete at the digital speed, IT is transforming from a builder to an integrator, from a plumber to an orchestrator; from a service provider to a business solutionary and differentiator. IT management philosophy is also transforming from “built to last,” to “wired for change.”
From IT leadership perspective, the CIO should also shift mentality from a tactical, transactional manager to an innovative strategists and innovator: CIOs as C-level business leaders, do need shift mindset to become business strategists, not only craft IT strategy or draw the solid IT roadmap but also co-create the business strategy, as IT strategy is an integral component of business strategy, and IT strategy and digital strategy are convergent to setting clear digital visions, diagnosing the business issues, building a set of guidelines, taking actions and making continuous delivery for making a leap in digital transformation. Innovative IT leaders can see things differently either via architecture, customer, process, or disruptive creativity lens, to fill the gap at the big table and contribute to business planning. The more dimensions the lens has, the better an innovative leader can manifest a vivid vision. A digital IT leader with a visionary mind is able to and not afraid to leverage contrarian views to shape a holistic picture, and to run IT as a digital differentiator.
Digital transformation represents a break with the past, with a high level of impact and complexity. Therefore, running IT as a digital differentiator is easy to say, and hard to achieve. Transformation efforts need to be undertaken as the means of getting to a differentiative capability to accomplish a defined goal. Otherwise, they cannot have the clear focus and business rationale that is essential to gaining any traction in changing an embedded culture. There is no one size fits all, every IT organization has to explore its own sets of best practices and next practices, to build business competency and elevate digital maturity.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
IT is impacting every business unit and is becoming the driver of business change. However, many IT organizations still get stuck at the lower level of maturity to only “keep the lights on,” and IT is perceived as a support function and cost center in those organizations. With the increasing pace of changes and fierce competition, the forward-looking organizations empower their IT leaders to lead changes? How can IT build its reputation as a business value creator and how to run IT as a digital differentiator?
Technology is a differentiator and creative disruptor, and the information is a “gold mine” of the business: Due to fierce competition, the differentiation provided by innovative technology usually is more long-lived than differentiation provided by marketing actions that can be copied easier. And technologies can push you out of business if you are not agile enough to change your business model. IT not only matters more, but also so critically, many times, it is a determining factor of success for the business strategy to achieve the fast growth and long-term sustainability of large organizations. Nowadays, the opportunities for cost-leadership as a business strategy are now much harder as everything moves so much more quickly, but the differentiation provided by innovative technology and business insight abstracted from the abundant information allow companies to reach the "long-tail" customer that previously was impossible or uneconomic. Therefore, businesses need to invite their IT leaders to co-create strategy via sharing technology vision, not just take orders to align and implement the strategy. Businesses need people who are passionate about exploiting information enabled by information technology to work at the heart of the enterprise and build competitive business advantage.
It’s ultimately important for IT to discuss with customers about "what's possible" not just "what do you want": For the "what is possible" part, don't just deliver what the business asks for, but be able to provide the "best or most innovative solution" for the business' requirement, offering added value and feature insights based on system understanding, that the business might not even have thought of. This requires a certain depth of understanding the business and having your input respected. Because running IT as a digital differentiator means that IT needs to be run more innovatively, and it accelerates the speed and makes a difference via leveraging the emergent digital trends and exploring the new way to do things, besides exploitation of the existing methods and technologies. Digital IT has a “hybrid” nature, to compete at the digital speed, IT is transforming from a builder to an integrator, from a plumber to an orchestrator; from a service provider to a business solutionary and differentiator. IT management philosophy is also transforming from “built to last,” to “wired for change.”
From IT leadership perspective, the CIO should also shift mentality from a tactical, transactional manager to an innovative strategists and innovator: CIOs as C-level business leaders, do need shift mindset to become business strategists, not only craft IT strategy or draw the solid IT roadmap but also co-create the business strategy, as IT strategy is an integral component of business strategy, and IT strategy and digital strategy are convergent to setting clear digital visions, diagnosing the business issues, building a set of guidelines, taking actions and making continuous delivery for making a leap in digital transformation. Innovative IT leaders can see things differently either via architecture, customer, process, or disruptive creativity lens, to fill the gap at the big table and contribute to business planning. The more dimensions the lens has, the better an innovative leader can manifest a vivid vision. A digital IT leader with a visionary mind is able to and not afraid to leverage contrarian views to shape a holistic picture, and to run IT as a digital differentiator.Digital transformation represents a break with the past, with a high level of impact and complexity. Therefore, running IT as a digital differentiator is easy to say, and hard to achieve. Transformation efforts need to be undertaken as the means of getting to a differentiative capability to accomplish a defined goal. Otherwise, they cannot have the clear focus and business rationale that is essential to gaining any traction in changing an embedded culture. There is no one size fits all, every IT organization has to explore its own sets of best practices and next practices, to build business competency and elevate digital maturity.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
May 19, 2016
The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO” 5/19/2016
The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.3 million page views with 2800+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Here is the weekly insight about digital leadership, IT Management, and Talent Management.
The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO” 5/19/2016The “Future of CIO” #2800 Blog Posting Celebration, with Slideshare: The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.3 million page views with 2800+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. The blog is like a dynamic book, to continue creating new knowledge from the old with accelerating learning cycle; the blog is the means to the end, to help you discover "who you are," grow and master to become "who you want to be." Here is a collection of quotes of the "Future of CIO" Blog to celebrate #2800 blog posting, with Slideshare Presentation.
The Monthly Insight of Digital BoDs: Running a Digital Savvy Corporate Board May 2016 with Slideshare: At today’s “VUCA” digital dynamic, organizations face both unprecedented opportunities to grow and hyper-competition or great risks to survive. Therefore, corporate board plays a more significant role in overseeing business strategy, setting principles and policies, and making the judgment on and assurance of corporate action within a framework of practical knowledge. So how to run a digital savvy board and improve digital organization maturity?
IT Leaders’ Digital Acumen IT plays a more significant role in the business’s digital transformation today. Like any C-suite members, IT leaders have to participate in forming the organization's strategy, its implementation, and assessing its performance. They have to make sure that all IT investments are aligned with the organization's strategy with the approved priorities. Within their understanding, they are responsible for highlighting evolving IT technologies, understands what current technology innovations can add business value and transfer this to the business. They not only should have sufficient business knowledge but also need to gain the digital acumen to drive business changes.
“Digital Valley” Book Tuning VII: Three Questions to Assess a Person’s Culture Wisdom: The definition of culture is “the mindsets, attitudes, feelings, values and behaviors that characterize and inform a group and its member.” There are organizational culture, community culture, societal culture, etc. From a business perspective, culture is the way how we think and do things around here. Culture wisdom is the type of intelligence for tolerance of ambiguity, and a set of capabilities such as learning agility, cultural flexibility, empathetic communication, complexity handling. Etc. Which questions should you ask to assess a person’s culture wisdom?
How to Build Innovation Strength in your Organization Digital innovation has a broader spectrum with hybrid nature, it is the incremental improvement- radical innovation continuum. It has broader scope beyond just a new product or service, radical innovation brings something that was not existing before. Incremental Innovation is more about taking something someone created and adding to it, changing it, adapting it; or to leverage the latest technology for business improvement. A fine tuned innovation is not a serendipity, how to build innovation strength in your organization?Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking and innovating the new ideas; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.
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"CIO Master" Book Tuning XXXV: What Should be the Digital CIO’s Outside-in Business Focus
Make IT more shared, integrated, flexible, reliable, and fast:
Most of the top CIOs understand that the digital transformation of organizations depends, to a large extent, on their capabilities to transform IT from inside-out operation driven to outside-in customer focus. They must devote their time and energy, understanding the business and the potential of digital technologies to optimize customer experiences, improve business processes and work with other senior executives to develop new digital enabled business models. This should be the focus of the digital CIO. So today's CIO should understand the focus / goals of the company to ensure IT is focused on those goals, and they need to continually ask themselves: What’s my 360 degrees of the business view? What's IT's value proposition? Does IT have the vision necessary for the business to succeed and grow?
CIOs need to expand their lenses to both the business dimension as well as the technology dimension with their team: Today’s organizations are at a crossroads where the segregation or silo of business units are at a need to reach across the aisles and respectively work with each other. This is particularly important for IT because it is an integrator to glue silos to the whole. Even go one step further, the top digital CIO understands what current technology innovations can add business value and transfer this to the business for the next level of business growth. The best IT leaders and managers always have a strong understanding of what the business does, how it does it, and how it could be better with 360 degrees of business view. IT delivers the best solution to the business problems which meet business’s requirement or tailor customer’s needs. IT should facilitate the business partners to the right solutions and help to implement them on value, on time and on budget.
Learn the business via empathetic listening: The best way for IT to achieve partnership is to listen to what the business says they need. Let them tell you their stories, challenges. LISTEN to your clients, stakeholders, vendors, partners and staff. The CIO need to understand the needs of the different business units, but their needs / vision would be spelled out by their leaders, not the CIO. Be careful, you do not want to come across as having a solution looking for a problem. You have to know and relate to what they value and how they quantify that value first before you can add real value. The CIO needs to take those needs and translate them into an IT investment to support that vision and fix the “lost in translation” syndrome. Hence, ensuring that you have the commitment from the senior executives to engage in both formal and informal dialogue to derive a viable business strategy that is enabled or driven by IT would be good. To listen, comprehend and understand the people and the business they are part of, before embarking on any new way of thinking to know where you have come from enables you to move to a new place even quicker. Listen, Learn and Advise, in this order.
Make IT more shared, integrated, flexible, reliable, and fast: The best CIOs are good sales people who see opportunities to save money, become more customer experience oriented, or come up with definitive competitive advantages, and with a business mindset. Get engaged in the investment process prior to the decision already being made. Develop and socialize a strategic business plan that aligns both business strategies and technical direction. As a result, you'll have an IT organization that is viewed as a business partner that always adds business value and becomes the business. It starts with building strong and value-creating relationships with C-suites, between IT and vendors or suppliers; and build a strong team with a strong bench. Conduct presentations with management on new technology areas that have a short-term business impact on broadening their view of the team. Setup idea forums to engage the business and build business liaisons proactively to help shape the problem or opportunity before it becomes a project. This starts to build credibility outside of just managing the "run" side of things. Grow, and catalyze business transformation, IT can become a strategic business partner.
As CIOs will continue to be put on the front line, they need to ensure their organizations are ready for change, space and time are made to scope, plan and execute the project. CIO can help business to improve net profit by improving both the top line revenue growth and at the same time decreasing expenses to improve the bottom line. And more importantly, run, growth, and transform, IT can strike the right balance to manage a healthy project portfolio for both reaping the low-hanging fruit and driving the business's long-term digital transformation.
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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Most of the top CIOs understand that the digital transformation of organizations depends, to a large extent, on their capabilities to transform IT from inside-out operation driven to outside-in customer focus. They must devote their time and energy, understanding the business and the potential of digital technologies to optimize customer experiences, improve business processes and work with other senior executives to develop new digital enabled business models. This should be the focus of the digital CIO. So today's CIO should understand the focus / goals of the company to ensure IT is focused on those goals, and they need to continually ask themselves: What’s my 360 degrees of the business view? What's IT's value proposition? Does IT have the vision necessary for the business to succeed and grow?
CIOs need to expand their lenses to both the business dimension as well as the technology dimension with their team: Today’s organizations are at a crossroads where the segregation or silo of business units are at a need to reach across the aisles and respectively work with each other. This is particularly important for IT because it is an integrator to glue silos to the whole. Even go one step further, the top digital CIO understands what current technology innovations can add business value and transfer this to the business for the next level of business growth. The best IT leaders and managers always have a strong understanding of what the business does, how it does it, and how it could be better with 360 degrees of business view. IT delivers the best solution to the business problems which meet business’s requirement or tailor customer’s needs. IT should facilitate the business partners to the right solutions and help to implement them on value, on time and on budget.
Learn the business via empathetic listening: The best way for IT to achieve partnership is to listen to what the business says they need. Let them tell you their stories, challenges. LISTEN to your clients, stakeholders, vendors, partners and staff. The CIO need to understand the needs of the different business units, but their needs / vision would be spelled out by their leaders, not the CIO. Be careful, you do not want to come across as having a solution looking for a problem. You have to know and relate to what they value and how they quantify that value first before you can add real value. The CIO needs to take those needs and translate them into an IT investment to support that vision and fix the “lost in translation” syndrome. Hence, ensuring that you have the commitment from the senior executives to engage in both formal and informal dialogue to derive a viable business strategy that is enabled or driven by IT would be good. To listen, comprehend and understand the people and the business they are part of, before embarking on any new way of thinking to know where you have come from enables you to move to a new place even quicker. Listen, Learn and Advise, in this order.
Make IT more shared, integrated, flexible, reliable, and fast: The best CIOs are good sales people who see opportunities to save money, become more customer experience oriented, or come up with definitive competitive advantages, and with a business mindset. Get engaged in the investment process prior to the decision already being made. Develop and socialize a strategic business plan that aligns both business strategies and technical direction. As a result, you'll have an IT organization that is viewed as a business partner that always adds business value and becomes the business. It starts with building strong and value-creating relationships with C-suites, between IT and vendors or suppliers; and build a strong team with a strong bench. Conduct presentations with management on new technology areas that have a short-term business impact on broadening their view of the team. Setup idea forums to engage the business and build business liaisons proactively to help shape the problem or opportunity before it becomes a project. This starts to build credibility outside of just managing the "run" side of things. Grow, and catalyze business transformation, IT can become a strategic business partner.
As CIOs will continue to be put on the front line, they need to ensure their organizations are ready for change, space and time are made to scope, plan and execute the project. CIO can help business to improve net profit by improving both the top line revenue growth and at the same time decreasing expenses to improve the bottom line. And more importantly, run, growth, and transform, IT can strike the right balance to manage a healthy project portfolio for both reaping the low-hanging fruit and driving the business's long-term digital transformation.
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
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
