Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1372

Back to Fundamental: Digital CIOs are “Chief Information Officer”

Compared to other CXOs, CIO role is considerably new with about three decades history. However, the magic “I” in CIO’s title implies many high expectations for such a contemporary leadership position, Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Insight Officer, Chief Influence Officer, etc. But fundamentally, the CIO role is to be a "Chief Information Office," as an information steward for the dynamic digital company, because nowadays IT is permeating  into every corner of the organization, and information is the lifeblood of any business.
The word "information" is central to the digital IT: But "technology" is the operative part of "information technology." That leads to a CIO focusing on the technology part, rather than the information part of the definition. Now information is the lifeblood of the organization, and all forward-thinking organizations declare they are in the information business. The information side of the IT description is a bit nebulous by the other favorite buzzword of the day: "big data." That gets closer to the role of the CIO though. Because if the CIO role is to survive and thrive for more than an on-demand term, the focus has to be on acquiring, managing, manipulating, teasing intelligence out of, and providing insight to the organization based on information that the organization creates or acquires. Or simply, the CIO role needs to be elevated to the "information" part of the definition, or back to the basic as the title implies: "Chief Information Officer.”
Digital IT is all about how to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time to help them make the right decision. IT is the steward of business data & information. Data by itself is meaningless until it’s interpreted and analyzed. Technology enables large data sets to be captured and presented for analysis, but the value hidden in data is only revealed through intelligent reasoning. Information is raw material when you manipulate the raw material in meaningful ways, which give you business insight to interpret and utilize, then you have established a value. IT plays the critical role in information lifecycle management to transform raw data - information - insight/intelligence - wisdom. As the tech matures and the technology becomes better understood by most of the enterprises, information  will get better and become more valuable, and it will become a digital business capability IT can build on.
The digital CIO is an information master: The digital CIO should focus on the information content and context; how that information can be tapped from the underlying data and be utilized to turn it into valuable strategic insight, how the information and insight can be penetrated through the business and be actively used in managing business processes and shaping the business capabilities to execute business strategy solidly. Today, the CIO is not just managing IT to keep the lights on but is managing the information to enable enterprises to become nimble and gain the competitive edge. harness innovation catalyzed by IT  and lead to business transformation.
As CIOs will continue to be put in the front line to run IT as a digital transformer, they need to ensure their organizations are information savvy and where CIOs have had success, has been bridging the business value gap. IT has to find ways to measure and value projects that bring value for the business. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

CIO’s Digital Agenda XXXII: IT Agility

Agility within and of itself is a strategy. The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.2 million page views with about 2300+ 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.
Agility is not only the ability to create the change, but also the capability to adapt to the changes. Within an IT, organizational agility should be defined as the speed in which the organization can enable the enterprise's goals and objectives as IT strategy is an integral element of business strategy. Agile is a culture as well!It is important to recognize that moving to Agile may require a significant culture change that affects the entire business. It certainly is NOT just a "development thing.”IT AgilityCIO’s Agile Way: The business environment is volatile and uncertain; we have been experiencing the rapid pace of business and technology evolution since the emergence of the internet, so it is imperative that IT leaders embrace agile philosophy and development methodologies, from doing agile to being agile. But more specifically, what’s CIO’s Agile Way?
How to Define IT Agility? Agility is a common business term that is used frequently these days to measure how fast business will respond to opportunities or threats, and enterprises are even having key agility indicators. IT Agility is about how IT will enable business agility, how fast IT will deliver the required effectively and efficiency. The more alignment between business and IT the more level of agility for both will be achieved.
IT Agility vs. Strategy: We all remember the old saying: culture eats strategy for lunch. Nowadays, as the speed of change is accelerated, there comes to the new saying: Agility will eat strategy every morning. Are agility and strategy mutually exclusive or they do co-exist? And what’s the best way to balance strategy and IT agility?
Is Agile a set of Principles or Practices? Agile originally started out as a revolution against rigid, dogmatic practices, but the ironic is that the way some people practice Agile has come full circle back to that rigid adherence to the mechanics of how practices are implemented and have lost sight of the original intent of Agile. So here is an interesting debate: Is agile a set of principles or practices?
How to Overcome the Obstacles of Agile Transformation? More and more organizations are on their journey from doing Agile to being agile, and there are many obstacles on the way, what are the causes of those failures, do they fail to follow the principles, or are they failing to do the best practices? Are they failing forward or backward? Who should take more responsibility -the leadership or fellowship?
Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify your voice, deepen your digital footprints, and match your way for human progression.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Three “Sights” from the Third Eyes

The third eye, in reality, is the pineal gland.It is located in the geometric center of the cranium.  The first eye (sensory input such as sight) and the second eye (the eye of reason, meditation, and reflection). As a sense, your third eye can be used in many different ways. The third eye is a metaphor for higher consciousness and perception, the ability to see through the common facade and be able to perceive the truth beneath the visible from the first eye. So regardless of different culture or religious articulation about the third eye, what’re the sights you can “see” from a management point of view?
Insight: Insight is about penetrating and often sudden understanding, as of a complex situation or problem, it’s like the vision from your “third eye.”  The best observations come from (1) staying still and trying to understand what you're observing is all about. So staying a novice of some sort, keep fresh eyes, with beginner's mind. Then try to do that very things you've been observing because it will bring much more insights when you try to fiddle with it. The more complex the situation is, the more different approaches and role gaming is needed to reach for understanding. Too often people may take the easy path, think and work at a superficial level rather than spending the time to understand what is going on underneath. Insight is an understanding of cause and effect based on the identification of relationships and behaviors within a model, context, or scenario.The insight of situation requires in-depth understanding.
Vision: A vision is a future state of being. Vision is a foresight as if it comes from your “third eye,” with a proactive understanding of cause and effect, not reactive seeing. A vision re-conceptualizes the future, connects the previously unconnected dream. It fires the imagination and opens the mind to new concepts and ideas. It is a clear choice among future scenarios that advocates future trends and promotes certain behavior. The "aha" vision is an "entrepreneurial" attribute; the ability to envision a solution to a perceived or not-yet-perceived need. Vision is something you see, others don't, and a visionary mind is able to and not afraid to leverage contrarian views to shape a holistic picture.
Empathetic views: It’s part of empathy where a person can touch and feel the emotions of others. It’s a sort of special view to see through others as if it comes from your “third eye,” to stand at the other person’s position. Design-driven empathy will dig beneath articulated 'solutions' to recognize underlying needs and wants. It’s about the ability to weave the architecture of empathy for self, others and nature into a vibrant, cohesive whole.
Many other applications exist for how people have used the third eye. It is possible to use the third eye to learn how to sense and visually interpret energy around us, between us, and between us and nature. “Our eyes only ‘see’ what they are designed to see, light. What our third eye does is process information and then overlay that information over our other senses in such a way we can then interpret and interact with energy in a more precise manner. In this way, we can understand where the energy is and we can ‘see’ it.” (PersonalTao.com)




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Innovation Agility

Innovation is neither a serendipity nor a rigid process or discipline, there is no such universal way to do innovation as well. It’s always about connecting, questioning and collaborating. It’s the certain mix of something old and new, being prepared to change what you are doing. So what’re further aspects of innovation agility?
Continuous Adaptability: In order to  build a creative workplace and workforce, innovation leaders need to realize that continuous adaptability is necessary in a continuously changing world. Innovation management process needs to be nimble, not rigid: acknowledge the idea, provide some starter resources, flesh out an idea on competing for technologies/complexity, develop it into a more solid form. Nurture this culture and its output before stress testing immature ideas. Businesses need to determine where best to focus their innovation activities. From a business perspective, 'anything new to your business' is an effective definition to encourage both large and small ideas and ideas that are new and 'copied with pride' from others. If it brings increased value to the business, then that's what's important, not semantics. Establishing sustained and institutional-level innovation is the goal.
Setting the central part of innovation: The central point of innovation provides the clear lenses to "Keep the end in mind" by clarifying overloaded information. Start from defining an ideal target, also break down the large problems to the smaller pieces: There's a way to make real change less disruptive; starting from defining an ideal target -- which all can possibly agree about, and looking at the present situation just in terms of how to pursue that target and overcoming constraints. Disruption is a necessary, but clearly not a sufficient condition for innovation. The solution for many complex / thorny problems is looking for necessary conditions, and starting with breakdown them to smaller pieces and implementing them (hoping that the rest will possibly come by itself). It's a bet, but a sensible one. An overload of information makes creative efforts more complex. Information is, of course, useful as a creative resource, but it all needs processing. A balance is required. Selling disruption can't be done on the basis of fear - even though there's more than enough to be fearful of; it has to be sold on the basis that it's the only means to achieve comparatively certain superior growth.
Hyperconnectivity: One of the important characteristics of the digital age is hyperconnectivity. It can foster dot connection capacity of digital innovation. In other words, try to digitally connect key resources and assets in the context to the idea reach innovation hubs and clusters across the digital ecosystem. In doing so, you can create the shared context for learning and co-creating. That, in turn, will further fuel more collaboration in innovative initiatives and projects to their environments. Most often, innovation is a multi-disciplinary effort, thus, the most productive innovation teams should embrace multiple disciplines, close cognitive gaps, connect more dots to yield better ideas and competitive advantage.
'Innovation Agility' enables people to see and solve problems in flexible and adaptive ways. Innovation agility is a critical digital capability to manage innovation life cycle with speed, it’s about to get all the way around the world, to capture all relevant information, to see from different angles, and to apply collective wisdom. It is about incorporating entrepreneurial and startup principles, with a focus on reducing risk adversity to add value to the quality of people’s lives.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

CIO’s Digital Agenda XXXI: The Alphabet Soup in Running Digital IT (Part II: F-L)

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.2 million page views with about 2300+ 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.
Due to the “disruptive” nature of technology and the abundance of information, IT plays more significant role in business’s digital transformation, There is “alphabet soup” in running a digital IT which must lead in reaching high-level performance and improve IT agility. The Alphabet Soup in Running Digital IT (F-L])The Triple “F”s in Digital IT: Digital transformation represents the next stage of business maturity which will improve how the enterprise works and interacts with its ecosystem, with customers at the center of its focus. IT plays a pivotal role in such a radical transformation. There is an “alphabetic soup” in running a digital IT which must lead in reaching high-level performance and maturity. Here we introduce triple “F”s in running a high-performing and high mature digital IT.
Three “G”s in Running a High-Performing Digital IT:  Nowadays information is the lifeblood and technologies are often the innovation disruptor. The days of the invisible, back office CIO are gone - or going. The enterprise needs to see and know, what the CIO is delivering to enable business growth. IT leaders are at the unique position to oversight business processes and sees beyond the silos with an in-depth understanding about their organizations’ differentiated capabilities.
Three “I”s in Digital IT:  Nowadays, information is the lifeblood of organizations, and technology is often the innovation disruptor. Information technology should be seen by any business as a “digital transformer” and strategy enabler. It is a significant part of the business strategy, and not simply as a tool or mechanism to support business goals. Therefore, IT leaders need to be able to intrinsically understand business needs - growth, cost structure, processes etc and translate that into an IT strategy which is the integral component of business strategy, it is responsive and can be scaled. Fundamentally, there are three “I”s in digital IT.
Three “K”s in Running a Digital IT: There is an inherent conflict if IT views its primary objective as standardization, rationalization, and consolidation, but nowadays at the era of digitalization, IT also means innovation, integration, and intelligence, etc. Trust is the key, which means IT needs to behave more like an integral part of the business.
Three “L”s in Running a Digital IT: IT is at the crossroad, the majority of IT organizations get stuck in the lower-level of maturity and struggle to prove their unique value, for helping the business gain competitive advantage.  So what are the best ways to demonstrate IT value, and build competitive advantage. here we introduce three “L” factors in running a high-value digital IT.
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

An Authentic Culture

Culture is the collective mindset, attitudes and behaviors. Culture is not something that can be dictated and followed such as a new policy or rule from management. Therefore, the organizational culture expression shouldn’t be read on the surface, the mantra put on their slogans or the speeches made in the conferences. Culture is what happens when managers are not around or the small group chatting in the coffee room, or how do they deal with talent management (leadership development, hiring & firing, etc.). It is like an iceberg where the visible elements, such as behaviors, make much sense with recognizing and understanding the underlying mindsets, expectations, and assumptions. So what are the fundamental elements to build an authentic culture in order to run a high-valuable and high-mature digital organization?
Authentic leadership: Authenticity is the most fundamental, but challenging attribute for leadership effectiveness. We all know leadership is neither a title nor a certificate, the truth is great leaders are both nature and nurtured. They may encounter certain life events to inspire them to become leaders, which is the nature way, but in more nurtured logic, every authentic leader needs to mind certain gaps and bridge the cognitive difference. Great Leaders ought to be concerned not only with the here and now but prayerfully with their legacy to future generations -- a better future!! It's only when we lead with our true selves that we're able to connect meaningfully, build trust, and truly engage with others' authentic selves. The spirit of organization comes from the top. Not only walk the talk; leaders, believing in the effects and high value of a company-culture, need a lot of resilience, to follow their roadmap continuously.
Authentic Communication: If communication has to develop fully and authentically, it is essential that the person communicating should also be equally aware of what he/she wants to communicate, how he/she communicates and above all ensure that he/she has communicated correctly. Lack of trust is an often overlooked barrier to communication. The reality of messages is that they have to be "real." Most of the organizations today are process and control driven. Emphasis is on compliance with the result people forget to think freely. Words and techniques won't matter if the relationship between the giver and sender has been damaged. Leaders, or those who are sending the message, must have integrity, openness, and insight. Usually in the workplace, some managers put up a barrier of being judgmental. Without leaving an open mind, and allowing the individual to finish their message, they would have taken a stand.  Respect in any situation goes along way in getting your message across, even difficult. Also ensuring that you are using a respectful tone in delivering the message to the individual is important.Well mix the richness of multiple digital communication channels. For communicating changes, the richest communication channel you can possibly use is important. It’s important to leverage multiple digital channels and methods to communicate both via virtual communication channels and face-to-face meetings. Also, communication is a two-way street, it takes a while for two-way communication if handled properly. The authentic communication practices include:(1) Deep Listening Practice - Collective/Internal communication(2) Team Inception Practice - Collective/External collaboration; gets teams off on the right foot(3) Dynamic Facilitation Practice - Collective/Internal & External interaction; continuous maintenance, antifragile4) Peer-based Feedforward Practice -Very much about individual performance tuned in a collective setting.
Authentic workforce: Highly authentic digital cultures don't reflect their members, their members reflect them; meaning you select team members who are natural fits. It is a culture that encourage real thinking and being authentic, one that is comfortable with uncertainty. Culture is determined by behaviors - how do you act/react to everything at all times. It is a reflection of the mind-set. Successful culture change helps people become who they are. By encouraging people to focus on who they are, and pursue the purpose discovery, autonomy, and mastery, the great culture catalyzes positive mind, attitude, and behaviors; but discourage negativity and unprofessionalism. At the conversations about culture, we need to remember that it is the policies, procedures, rewards and retributions that drive and groom advanced mind and good behavior and it is the employee behavior that expresses "culture." With authentic leadership, authentic communication and well-set principles, but not so overly rigid processes, people are inspired to strengthen their strength, to become who they are, and unleash the talent potential which is well aligned with business’s goals and purpose, to create synergy and accelerate business growth and maturity.
Either in a stagnant business giant or an energetic start-up, culture can be a critical component of business success for long term. An organization with an authentic culture can inspire openness, innovation and motivate team members to work toward a common goal, and build a strong business grand and unique business competency.
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Three Digital Management Styles

Organizations large or small are on the journey to digital transformation, there are different theories of organizational structure evolution, continuous brainstorming about the concept of digital management methodology or tools, and the format of future of the organization. Ultimately, what's the digital management style to run a high effective business?


Holism: If the majority of organizations at industrial age are manipulated by silo thinking and hierarchical style, and then digital means holism and interconnectivity. It’s important for leaders and managers to learning to think the systemic wholeness: This digital wholeness comprises various media that are each functionally contrary to the unitive, fluid and seamless nature of the whole, it’s about seeing interrelationships rather than isolated things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static “snapshots.” It is to leverage systems thinking to set general management principles to understand how the “part” interconnected with the”whole”: This is always a good start when working to build collaboration: understanding where each is coming from and having some trust from them. This is something that you should work towards. And organizations arise when the scale of the interrelations, interactions, or interrelational interactions surpasses our brain's capacity to be able to do whatever it does with smaller scales. It's important to leverage ST to understand the variety of business relationship. advocates the concept of “business as a whole is superior to the sum of pieces.” In terms of how to break down silos between cultures, shared goals are useful. These goals should include the needs of all different functional dialect and cultures. For example, when coming up with new innovations, IT management should not only be responsible for technical performance, but also for ensuring that their ideas can be made and that they will be profitable for the company. Digital management styles include:-Interrelational: management processes being developed that help to reduce the tensions, frictions, and conflicts that arise.-Interactional: management processes being developed that help to communicate objects and concepts.-Interrelational interactions: management processes being developed that help to communicate objects and concepts that are being used, or that are wanted by at least one other person.-Organizational - management processes being developed that help to live together despite the disjunction process that took place as the size of the group exceeded your brain's threshold.
Solution-driven: many industrial organizations are process driven and inside out, but digital is about outside-in, customer centricity. That ‘digital way” is moving those who practice it to a new paradigm very similar to the cultural shift you are undergoing towards this unpredictable world of order-disorder complete with butterfly effects and tipping points. The negative reactions to the problems come from a state of distrust, disengagement, and disempowerment. It is so easy to point the finger elsewhere and not look within. Just think of the time/energy/money wasted by this pattern of blaming others. Avoiding this pattern begins with a belief and understanding behaviors have ripple effects and that we all tend to be drawn into situations which force us to learn and grow, and focus on PROBLEM-SOLVING. The digital management focuses on cultivating the positive attitude with a problem-solving mindset. When people decide together to change something they don't look first for the negatives. They see the positives - the goals, the benefits, the vision. That drives them to work through the negatives together - to find solutions, not problems. The focusing is what is going on in people's brains when change is happening, and how to mitigate the harmful impacts without alienating the people who need the help in the first place. Quite possibly, the next step is to have a deeper discussion about what it means to sense and respond in a dynamic unpredictable world clearly and skillfully when it is possible rather than trying to predict and control the way through.
Agility: From doing Agile to being agile is a significant aspect of digital transformation. The problem is that the whole organization and all of its departments, need to embrace the agile philosophy. The Agile principle applies to strategy-execution cycle and digital management methodology. Once you have that vision of the well-defined goals, then the process can start. Break the goal to deliverable elements.  Each task is weighed and assessed and delivered in continuous burndown chunks with the flexibility to adapt in solution design. The greater the speed of change in the market, the greater the level of agility is required to respond to it effectively. Digital management has to strike the balance of stability and agility. In the digital business dynamic, projects can be complex with uncertain outcomes and goals that can change over time. The main focus of agile methods is to address the issues of complexity, uncertainty, and dynamic goals. Agile strategy management integrates planning with execution allowing an organization to "search" for an optimal ordering of work tasks and to adjust to the changing requirements. The major causes of chaos on a project include incomplete understanding of project components, incomplete understanding of component interactions and changing requirements. Balance in everything. You need to focus on the well thought out strategy - and follow that star. But you do need the agility, that when markets move, you can move with them - or even better - ahead of them - and adjust the strategy accordingly.
Therefore, the real Digital Masters are those high-mature organizations with both clear digital vision, well-crafted digital strategy, and high-effective digital management discipline and styles, because they can more proactively develop advanced digital capabilities step-by-step, and embed digital premium into the very foundation of their business, keep the end in mind, and achieve high-performance business results.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

CIO’s Digital Agenda XXXI: The Alphabet Soup in Running Digital IT (Part I: A-E)

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.2 million page views with about 2300+ 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.
Due to the “disruptive” nature of technology and the abundance of information, IT plays more significant role in business’s digital transformation, There is “alphabet soup” in running a digital IT which must lead in reaching high-level performance and improve IT agility.

The Alphabet Soup in Running Digital IT (A-E)The Triple “A”s in Digital IT: IT is the only entity in the organization supposed to understand business entirely and oversight organizational processes horizontally, IT needs to be able to provide innovative solution or supply a differentiated solution that contributes to both top line growth and the bottom line success of the organization.
Three “B” Factors in Running a Digital IT:  IT is working hard to transform from a cost center into a value center, but some of the challenges facing in IT valuation is that too often, IT is driving by a look at rear mirror only, not pay enough attention to the front window and create forward-looking view upon how to run IT smoothly, or only focus on ‘tangible’ value, with ignorance of ‘intangible’ one. So here we introduce three “B”s in running a digital IT
Three “C”s in Running a Digital IT? At industrial age, IT is often considered as maintenance department and cost center, which lenses do you take to look into IT depends on the senior executives’ perspectives, background, and the organization’s culture as well. With the emergent digital era, many IT organizations are at turning point of change from transactional IT to transformational IT, and from operational IT to strategic IT. Here are three “C”s in running a digital IT. 
Three “D”s in Digital IT:  With the exponential flow of information and accelerating disruption of technology, IT plays a more significant role in the organization for driving long-term prosperity than ever. However, most of IT organizations get stuck at reactive mode as an order taker, running at a lower level of maturity. From leadership, structure, management perspective, how to improve IT agility, flexibility, and overall IT manageability? Here are three “D”imenstions in running a digital IT.
Three “Es” in Running a Digital IT: Although technology is more often than not, the disruptive force for business and industry innovation, IT organizations seem to have a tendency to align with the slow changing parts of the organization, so how should CIOs prepare for the digital disruption and speed up accordingly? Here, we introduce the triple “E”s in digital IT.
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

Three Insights in Digital Strategy Management

The depth of strategy needs to capture the business insight and make clear linkage of strategy-culture-execution mapping.
In the world where everything is touched by digital technologies, businesses across sectors are at the journey to digital transformation, they should not just include the digital aspects of strategy to their strategic plans, but think deep on how to reshape the digital version of the corporate strategy. Because a digital strategy is cross-functional effort and multidisciplinary and multidimensional planning, so what are important aspects you need to consider in crafting an insightful digital strategy and achieve it confidently?


Organizational readiness: The first step of building a good strategy is to diagnose the key issues need to be solved, and the gaps need to be bridged. High valued businesses are the ones listening to the wildest desires and needs of their potential customers. Besides gaining customer insight via analytics, it is also critical to take a deep look at the organization itself, because strategy management and change management often should go hand-in-hand to synergize strategy implementation. Too many organizations are mechanistic, control and command hierarchies. Organizational change readiness can be determined via a validated instrument, the change profile-scan. Self-diagnoses the business moods: What are the collective minds, attitude, and behaviors that you can see? Slow or unclear priorities or ineffective decision processes? A sea of bureaucracy? Poor or inconsistent communication down or across the organization? A disconnected or distant layer of management or leadership? How would you describe the prevailing mood? Lack of trust in management? Lack of clarity or direction? Unclear or rapidly execution/changing priorities? Poor communication or silo thinking? Disconnect between recognition and performance? If you organization fits these descriptions, get out fast or initiate change within. Only through in-depth understanding about the business and beyond, a digital strategy can weave all necessary business factors such as internal communication, organizational culture, supply pipeline, customer demand and innovation to a holistic perspective and set the proper guidelines for taking actions.

Digital fluidity: Traditional strategy making is often top-down and single dimensional push. However, digital strategy is more agile, outside-in and bottom-up feedback and inclusiveness become crucial for the effectiveness of strategy-making and implementation continuum. Because Digital means flow: the energy flow, the information flow, the idea flow and the mind flow, so the view of the business ecosystem needs to become more dynamic and more adjustable. The blurring line of business boarder and the uncharted frontier of an organization provides both unprecedented opportunities and emergent risks, so in order to craft a living strategy, the management has to have the ability to ask the hard questions and engage in meaningful dialogue even if you do not agree with one another-you can indeed-agree to disagree-yet, stay engaged with one another because the strategic dialogue is important, yet, the harmony is priceless. And then leverage the resource, and prioritizing the strategic goals for seamless implementation.

Contextual intelligence: Digital organizations become more complex than ever, knowledge needs to be facilitated and managed more systematically for building an insightful strategy, as well as executing it with agility. Often one of the biggest gaps in strategy management is “lost in communication,” or lack of insight sharing. Every business function speaks its own dialect, misinterpret each other, or keeps the silo mentality. Therefore, knowledge management and strategy management should also work as a pair. Create/provide a shared framework which will lead to a shared meaning, which will aid in unifying the feeling of being part of the same system, have the common understanding about the strategic focus and ensure the subcomponents of strategy (IT, talent, marketing,etc.) are integrated and the business as a whole is superior to any of its part. Now digitalization is also shortening the knowledge life cycle significantly, it doesn’t mean that knowledge is less important, but more important. Knowledge alone is not sufficient, the insight is the most wanted and abstracted knowledge to “empower” a good strategy and its implementation.

Traditional strategic plans are often developed in isolation, with limited understanding and static knowledge about business context and the readiness of the current organization. With the new characteristics of digitalization such as hyper-connectivity, over-competition and interdependence, the length of strategy needs to well balance the long term vision and short term benefit with the sense of urgency; the breadth of strategy needs to go beyond silo thinking and the depth of strategy needs to capture the business insight and make clear linkage of strategy-culture-execution mapping, in order to manage strategy with effectiveness, efficiency, and agility.

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Three Aspects in Crafting an Insightful Digital Strategy

In the world where everything is touched by digital technology, businesses across sectors are the journey to digital transformation, they should not just include the digital aspects of strategy to their strategic plans, but think deep on how to reshape the digital version of corporate strategy. Because a digital strategy is cross-functional effort and multidisciplinary and multidimensional planning, so what are important aspects you need to consider in crafting in an insightful digital strategy?

Organizational readiness: The first step of building a good strategy is to diagnose the key issues need to be solved, and the gaps need to be bridged. High valued businesses are the ones listening to the wildest desires and needs of their potential customers. Besides gaining customer insight via analytics, it is also critical to take a deep look at the organization itself, because strategy management and change management need to go hand-in-hand in synergizing strategy implementation. organizational change readiness can be determined via a validated instrument, the change profile-scan. Too many organizations are mechanistic, control and command hierarchies. If you organization fits the description, get out fast or initiate change within.Self-diagnoses the business moods: What are the collective minds, attitude, and behaviors that you can see?  Slow or unclear priorities,  or decision processes? A sea of bureaucracy? Poor or inconsistent communication down or across the organization? A disconnected or distant layer of management or leadership? How would you describe the prevailing mood? Lack of trust in management?  Lack of clarity or direction? Unclear or rapidly execution/changing priorities? Poor communication or silo thinking? Disconnect between recognition and performance? Only through in depth understanding about the business and beyond, a digital strategy can weave all business factors such as internal communication, organizational culture, supply pipeline, customer demand and innovation to a holistic perspective and set the proper guidelines for taking actions.
Digital fluidity: Traditional strategy making is often top-down and single dimensional push. However, digital strategy is more agile, outside-in and bottom-up feedback and inclusiveness become more crucial for the effectiveness of strategy. Because Digital means flow: the energy flow, the information flow, the idea flow and the mind flow, so the view of the business ecosystem needs to become more dynamic and more adjustable. The blurring line of business boarder and the uncharted frontier of an organization provides both unprecedented opportunity and emergent risks, so in order to craft a living strategy, the management has to have the ability to ask the hard questions and engage in meaningful dialogue even if you do not agree with one another-you can indeed-agree to disagree-yet, stay engaged with one another because the strategic dialogue is important, yet, the harmony is priceless. And then leverage the resource, and prioritizing the goals for seamless implementation.
Contextual intelligence: Digital organizations become more complex than ever, knowledge needs to be facilitated and managed more systematically for either building an insightful strategy, as well as execute it with agility. Often one of the biggest gaps in strategy management is “lost in communication,” or lack of knowledge sharing. Every business function speaks its own dialect, misinterpret each other, or keeps the silo mentality. Therefore, knowledge management and strategy management should also work as a pair. Create/provide a shared framework which will lead to a shared meaning, which will aid in unifying the feeling of being part of the same system, have the common understanding about the strategic focus and ensure the subcomponents of strategy are integrated and the business as a whole is superior to any of its part. Now digitalization is also shortening the knowledge life cycle significantly, it doesn’t mean that knowledge is not less important, but more important. Knowledge alone is not sufficient, the insight is the most wanted and abstracted knowledge to “empower” a good strategy.
Traditional strategic plans are often developed in isolation, with limited understanding and static knowledge about business context and the readiness of the current business. With the new characteristics of digital such as hyper-connectivity, over-competition and interdependence, the length of strategy needs to well balance the long term vision and short term benefit; the breadth of strategy needs to go beyond silo thinking and the depth of strategy needs to capture the business insight and make clear linkage of strategy-execution.  

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