Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1374

Five Innovation Dilemmas in Running a Digital Organization

Generally speaking, innovation is how to transform the novel ideas to achieve the business value. Innovation at the digital age is coming at seemly a much faster pace, more change and more potential disruption, with broader scope, scale, and impact on the business’s surviving and thriving. Also in order to manage innovation successfully, innovation leaders and managers have to deal with the following dilemmas to achieve a long-term business result.


Efficiency vs. Innovation:  At many organizations, in pursuit of operational excellence, there is such an emphasis on efficiency rather than innovation or creativity. Companies are focusing on improving margins by reducing the bottom-line cost rather than increasing the top-line growth. The improving bottom line takes little creativity and risk, while working on the top-line takes risk and creativity, as it is not a sure thing. Does that mean efficiency killing innovation? Efficiency and innovation just have to learn to live and function together. Many process innovations will be concerned with increasing and optimizing efficiency and maintaining existing skills and linkages. The greater the efficiency of an organization, the greater the need is for creativity to maintain high performance. Efficiency will extract the maximum benefit from a new idea. If an organization is inefficient, it will be inefficient with new ideas as well. An obsession with the rigidity of efficiency stunts the innovation creation process. Innovation is fluid and should not be straight-jacketed. Efficiency may easily destroy the seed of innovation which is not quite ready to be analyzed for its profit margin. It is the art of balance and continuity regardless of the emphasis. Efficiency and creativity complement, not oppose, one another." - Edward de Bono
Standardization vs. Innovation: Standardization is inside-the-box, and innovation is outside-the-box, some may equate outside-the-box thinking with innovation, and similarly equate inside-the-box thinking with standardization. Hence, organizations indeed need both, and in fact, cannot realistically exist without a healthy balance of both. That balance, ought to actually be strongly in favor of standardization at the vast majority of the time! Think 80:20 rule here, although the golden ratio may vary based on the culture, capability and overall maturity of the organization. Consider the continuum between innovation and standardization. Business should always be open to, conscious of, and feel empowered to act upon-Out of the box thinking. It is very much a "consciousness" thing, imagine yourself rising above that continuum, and looking down upon the balance between the two. What you've just done is to raise your consciousness of that balance, and that, in and of itself, makes a world of difference.
Prioritization vs. Innovation: A company has finite resources to apply to get the best yield possible to meet a stakeholder expectation. So there’re always some constraints for businesses to explore the new opportunities or deploy the new ideas, therefore, evaluation and prioritization are taken place to leverage resources in project or innovation management. Does it mean such prioritization process will stifle the creativity?In general, prioritization increases creativity and does not decrease it. But the term has a different semantic connotation, and each situation is different, so there is always going to be lots of different opinions. If you prioritize across all projects, you know which projects should get that extra increment of analysis and design effort. Creativity typically comes from having some resources that you can apply to problem-solving. Prioritization brings transparency to the organization, creating internal competition among new ideas and projects. Prioritization forces people to be more creative, to come up with better ideas, because now they know that their ideas will be discussed at the board level, and if chosen, they will be followed closely. In addition, prioritization helps to focus the strategy of the organization, which has huge benefits in terms of execution.Prioritization provides a framework for focusing on the creativity. It's only if the actual work is micro-managed and regulated to the point where resources are not able to create, and then creativity becomes stifled. Prioritization is also the process and method that one communicates either top down or bottom up and impact how a creative approach, idea, or project is received in an organization.
Complexity vs. Innovation: In business, complexity both drives innovation and also hinders it. When a business becomes overly complex and people get frustrated and annoyed by not being able to accomplish things easily, this drives the search for simpler concepts and methods, which is the need to take the innovative initiative. Also, over-complexity in a business may be hiding simple and innovative ways to achieve things because the people involved just don't get the time to step back from the complexity and hence, they continue to follow the old routine to do the things, lack of the out of box creativity. An overly complex process can easily stifle innovation as organizations get locked into huge processes around building extensive business cases. There are also needed complexities such as design complexity that competitors cannot imitate easily; or the collaboration complexity that make people more productive and business more agile to adapt to the changes. Usually, innovation either through need seeker or technology driver is the key factors to weave such complexity in order.
Agility vs. Innovation: Agile is really a means to realize value: Agile is emerged as leadership philosophy and principle to manage projects and to run digital business today. Agile is neither a product-oriented philosophy nor an innovation-centric philosophy; Agile is a system development philosophy that assumes your customers and stakeholders know what's best for the product and for the consumer. It means agile could either stimulate or stifle innovation. Agile stifles innovation when stakeholders dictate "how" and not get "why" and "what": When a team in agile gets "how" in the format of a user story, they tend to look only in one direction. But when they get "what" or "why" in the form of the user story (store the accepted/not accepted value), they can think of the optimal solution, and they can be creative and innovative at the same time. Agile is a fantastic way of working to involve everyone in the process of creation and delivery. The team does the analysis and design themselves rather than depend on a 'designer.' If this doesn't result in increased creativity, then what does? Creativity and innovation are more a function of motivation and latitude. A motivated team will be creative and will innovate, but the team must have the latitude. The organization must allow for learning, experimentation and failure. That means you cannot run at maximum capacity. All structure and business processes tend to funnel creativity in a specified direction; Agile is no different in this regard. Given no structure and no process to follow. Despite the facilitation for creativity, whether this results into useful improvements is up to your organizational culture and how well people are encouraged to be creative. The spirit of creativity and innovation will be more influenced by mindset, culture, and processes or behaviors around the teams rather than whether Agile itself is used or not. Creativity is the more of a culture and environment thing rather being tied to a delivery process.
Innovation is the core activities of digital revolution and societal progress. That’s why innovation is more important than ever whereas technology becomes more advanced. By dealing with these innovation dilemmas seamlessly, the flow of innovation will have reached a new level, a level that can address the business challenges at VUCA digital dynamic, and innovation brings new energy, forces you to be at your best at all times, it is the air we breathe, the water we drink, and it’s the nature element to keep business grow and mature.
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The Wealth of Wisdom

We are moving to the deep, deep digital dynamic, hopefully, we are also moving from a knowledge economy to the digital age with the abundance of wisdom slowly, but also steadily. If knowledge is concrete, intelligence is contextual and then wisdom is abstract, like the light to guide us through. What is the enriched content about wisdom?

Abstract Wisdom: Wisdom is not knowledge; one cannot have wisdom without knowledge, but one cannot substitute wisdom for knowledge as well. Wisdom is broader and abstract, and knowledge is narrow and detailed; wisdom comes through the result of life experience or knowledge transcendence. Knowledge helps you figure out “HOW,” - the practices; and wisdom guides you through “WHY” - the principles. Wisdom is the ultimate human intelligence -timeless and wordless, to unify and harmonize. The wise leaders with abstract thinking have the capability to foresight the future of an organization, to zoom in the furthest things closer, it’s also the thinking process to shape the holistic view from silo functions, to abstract wisdom from information, to manage the detailed business issues from architectural, social, philosophical perspective. Wisdom is willingness to accept that, there is unknown in life journey: Putting aside all the trained thoughts, systems and boxes, let the open possibility come connect, naturally, the way to attain wisdom is to have an open mind, be aware you could be wrong, learn from your experiences and those of others, be aware yours is not the only valid worldview, learn to see the world from different angles.Be brief, be succinct, be essential!
System Wisdom: In Systems Thinking (ST), the true wisdom often comes from a willingness to let go of past learning. In the context of Systems Thinking, there is a huge difference in what ST wisdom stands for - and that is possibly what makes it 'uncommon' in the sense of being difficult to 'acquire.' The underlying principles of system wisdom seem not make so much sense with the rational wisdom. So, non-intuitively ST wisdom is not derived from 'accumulating' - but in observing the changing context of relationships - and in many cases, that means 'letting go of accumulated traditional wisdom.' That perhaps makes the systems thinkers “struggle,” because it means that one has to make a huge effort to get beyond rational linear thinking - what all traditional education systems groom trainees to do - and the 'rational wisdom' that comes as part of that package. Does it mean system wisdom is complementary to rational wisdom, or rational wisdom is more scientific, but system wisdom is more philosophical? Rational wisdom is the usual meaning of the term 'wisdom' - it means accumulative wisdom that grows with age - or 'learning from past experience.’ But unlearning is more difficult, and the difficulty grows exponentially with age. So ST wisdom is more difficult to acquire with age. Still, getting older doesn't mean getting mind closed, being learning agile is the digital fitness for all ages.
Collective Wisdom: Collective wisdom is abundant and invaluable at digital age because the world becomes hyperconnected, the talent people can share insight, co-create new knowledge and co-solve the challenges more seamlessly. It becomes the new normal for businesses to crowdsourcing for fresh ideas, and digital business is about leveraging social technologies and collaboration platforms to amplify collective human capabilities, achieve collective performance and share economic prosperity. Yet successful business achievement is a complex fabric with numerous variables, contextual nuances, and human sensitivities. The collective wisdom not only has enriched context but also is an attitude to understand and be understood; to share and grow; to ask questions, also become part of solutions to things bigger than each one of us. It improves the agility of organizational agility to adapt to rapid changes stimulates the next level of innovation, and therefore, many think, digital is also the age of innovation.
We become wise when we are humble enough to be aware of and admit what we don't know and share what we know. Wisdom and humility go hand in hand; we become wise when we admit the limit of our ability, but also restlessly unleash the unlimited human potential; we become wise when we see the trees without missing the forest; and we become wise when we can learn from nature balance, the sunshine and moonlight, the full spectrum of colors, the change of seasons, and more.



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CIO’s Digital Agenda XXVIII: What’s IT Role in Business Decision Management

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. At today’s digital dynamic, information is abundant and even explosive, the business has become over-complex also hyper-connected, what’s the correlation between data, information, and decision making. And what’s IT Role in business decision management? What’s IT Role in Business Decision Management
Analytics vs. Decision-Making? Analytics is the great methodology and tool enabling in making better decision. However, there’s significant difference between analytics and decision-making. Analytics can give you the best answer to the right question. The purpose of human decision making is to frame the right questions and validate the assumptions.
Who is Accountable for Strategic IT Decisions? Traditionally, IT has been treated as a cost center or a support function, not as a strategic business partner. As businesses move into the digital future, technology is the fastest growing arena, the potential innovation disruptor, and it would be an understatement that IT is complex. Though more and more CIOs are invited to the big table, the provocative debate would be: Is it true that certain IT decisions should never be made by IT people, if so who is accountable for strategic IT decisions? Or more broadly, what’s the best scenario to make IT decisions, and how to enforce IT governance as well.
Seven Reasons Why Decision Making is so Hard? Both business and world becomes over-complex than ever, making decision right is both art and science. The biggest mistake some people make is limiting the definition of "decision making" to the decision itself. The definition should include the entire process including understanding the need, engaging key stakeholders, ensuring effective communication, assessing alternatives, developing consensus, planning, communicating, executing, and following-up on the decision making. In other words, decision-making is a process, not an event. Decision making is an art only until the person understands the science (process, analytics. etc).
Data or Process, Which is More Critical in Decision Making? Decision making is a daily challenge for most business leaders because organizations become over-complex, hyper-connected, uncertain and ambiguous. What is more important to effecting good decisions within your organization? A sound process? Or the "best" (reliable and relevant) data? What’s your best scenario to make effective decisions?
Decision-Making in Digital Way: One significant effect of digitization is increased velocity, complexity, unpredictability, and a need for a faster response to changes in business and industry based on effective and efficient decision making. How is that possible? What’s the digital way to make the right decision? And how to avoid the pitfalls to make bad decisions?
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 Digital Mind Flow

Change is about moving forward and improving. People are complicated, probably the most complicated 'thing' on the planet, but it doesn't mean we can't change to improve who we are and what we're doing. If you change people’s behavior, more often you try to fix the symptoms; the critical step in change is to change one’s mindset, in order to cure the root causes. Perhaps our mind should never get set, but keep flowing, to compete with the speed of digital.


Mindshift from mindset to mind-flow is an significant perspective of digital transformation: Mindset is at the heart of our belief system. These are beliefs that we all hold and have formed over time via education culture, or hard experience. We can look at changing our own mindsets in the context of ourselves; we are all part of social systems with both individual and collective mindsets. Everyone can take the time to listen to and create some space for us to realign what is important to us? What do we value? What is our purpose in life? We learn our beliefs. Most beliefs are learned and ingrained in our minds at a very young age. Our beliefs are developed from what we see, hear and experience growing up. Some of these beliefs develop from our misinterpretation of what we see, hear and experience. Too often, we operate on autopilot, with our thoughts, emotions, and decisions coming from a subconscious level - accurate or not. Unfortunately, these learned beliefs are oftentimes limiting your mind, forming your bias or blind you from seeing the other side of the coin.
It is in the individual's mindset to either adapt or embrace the changes.  It has been said that,  "to embrace change requires a change of mindset at every level and an understanding that things cannot stay the same. This is the groundwork that has to be done at all levels prior to initiating major change.”  It requires that we move from mind SET to mind FLOW, from fixed mind to growth mind, so that it allows the mind to seek possibility or to make impossible possible. What is needed right now is continuous change and flexibility of our mind, completely away from being set in a fixed way, to put another way, our mind needs to be continually sharpened and shaped in order to adapt to the changes. In order to change anyone’s mindset, the individual must have an open mind. Some say, "the most expensive thing anyone can own is a closed mind.”
Knowledge is key to changing mindsets and wisdom helps mind grow and mature : Everyone has the ability to change their mindsets. Because every person has degrees of both open and closed mindsets in different contexts.Tied into this is the degree of resistance to change. We are all works in progress; learning, growing and changing. It is important to consider that having an open-mind does not equate to have a critical-mind, and this difference has fundamental implications regarding the process through which mindset changes or expands, grow and mature.
So, you are not likely to see the mind changes overnight. It is a long process, it could take from seven-year itch to lifetime learning. Optimistically, we live in the digital age, may the progressive thinking gets amplified and distributed promptly to speed up such mind changes. A healthy mind is like a running river, keep flow, keep open, keep cleanse;  keep touch, to prepare for merging into the sea..

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Is DevOps the Next Thing or the Real Thing

DevOps is a deployment pipeline that stresses communication, collaboration and integration between software developers and information Technology (IT) professionals. Is it just the buzzwords, the trending ideas, the "next big thing" or the real thing happening? Do you consider DevOps a tool, a technique, a collection of methods, a focus, an approach, or, like agile, a philosophy or mindset?
"DevOps" is a new buzzword for old ideas. They are good ideas; they fit in with Agile principles such as, "Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software" - the first principle of the manifesto, but the core ideas aren't new. Devops is just the inclusion of ops folks on the team. That should have been happening from day one, given that continuous delivery is an important part of agility.  It's just part of being cross functional. DevOps is the real thing because it lowers the technical barrier to producing the full construct; it improves the chances for many to learn about what actually "happens" upon deployment, instead of wondering what "would/will" happen.
DevOps brings in a cultural shift to an organization to not only develop but also to maintain the application with continuous change in place. Devops as a natural consequence of applying agile thinking not only to development but to the whole lifecycle of a service that has IT-components as central assets. A cultural shift is important and if achieved, it brings a whole lot of benefits to the business. Devops in the context of any flavour of agile is just an extension of one of the basic philosophies of agile. True Agile demands cross functional team, particularly in the era of cloud, where generally release happens more frequently, an external team supporting the application/product in such a fast moving environment becomes next to impossible. Hence the Dev Ops concept is very much evident particularly in the context of cloud and the team which develops the product also supports the product once it goes live. And one of the major requirements for a smooth DevOps is automation of the features developed, which also is one of the basic philosophies of any flavour of Agile. And it improves the team and the business agile maturity:Level 1 - agile with visibility, processes etcLevel 2- increase cadence, Continuous Integration and Delivery, better engineering practices etc. this level looks like devopsLevel 3 - the team incorporate the business knowledge. Level 4 - the teams more integrated, where the organization has more synergy. Looks like SAFe
DevOp is software instrumentation. DevOps is a great method to suffice the modern customer need to continuously deliver assets to the operational battlegrounds quickly and securely. Operations needs are often neglected due to a focus on end users. As a result, information often needs to be manually gathered post deployment. Areas to instrument include fault detection and reporting, performance metrics, usage statistics, and user error information.Production monitoring, instrumentation, and end user analytics allow you to empirically measure what is valuable, and whether it's working as needed. Infrastructure as code, automated deployment, and continuous quality allow you to reduce the batch sizes and the latency between an idea and its realization.
Avoid pitfalls to use DevOps solving problems in one dimensional way: Hyper focusing on interactions between a single "exchange" in the value stream is bound to ignore a multitude of problems in your business. And the risk of focusing on DevOps is of losing focus on the rest of the value stream; of optimizing the part at the expense of the whole. Also DevOps these days seems to only solve the problem in a one dimensional way-- tooling. DevOps techniques and technologies allow to produce and consume full constructions of the software product at each unit of effort - so that it can be tried out more often and by more people, such that people may learn more, earlier and more often. Once it is understood that you need to focus on the whole value stream, then "DevOps" becomes part of what you do; eliminating handovers and silos, etc. it is common to simply keep grinding the same processes week in and week out without disciplined processes to continuously improve how they deliver value internally or externally.
IT spends more than a decade applying the principles and practices of agile development to deliver value more effectively on software development teams. DevOps ideas expand the focus to delivering real value quickly, to the end of the value stream. Devops isn't "the next thing," it's just "a thing." There is no magical silver bullet, single solution for every problem. Devops is appropriate for problems suited to those types of solutions. Other problems require other solutions.
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CIO’s Digital Agenda XXVII: How to Solve these Innovation Dilemmas

The traditional role of CIOs is to manage information, IT systems, and cost, now with information is permeating into every corner of business and digital technologies are more often the cause to innovation disruption, Chief Innovation Officer is indeed one of the most pertinent titles for CIOs to run IT as the innovation engine of their organization and move up IT maturity, because innovation is the “must have” strategic capability of their business. But what are CIO’s innovation Dilemmas?
  CIO’s Innovation Dilemmas
What Triggers Innovation? The dictionary defines invention as 'a product of the imagination' and Innovation as "the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices, or methods." Everyone has, at least, one good idea that is capable of invention and innovation, great or small, manifested by overcoming that inner fear. And innovation does not just accidentally happen, it can be managed in more systematic way. But first you need to figure out: What triggers innovation?
Is Agile the friend or foe of creativity?: As an emergent management philosophy and methodology, Agile spurs many fiery debates, such as Does Agile improve software quality or is it the very reason for defects increase? Are Agile making manager’s happy, employees unhappy? Can Agile thrive in a large enterprise environment? Here is another one: Is Agile the friend or the foe of creativity?
Is Efficiency Killing Innovation? At many organizations, in pursuit of operational excellence, there is such an emphasis on efficiency rather than innovation or creativity. Companies are focusing on improving margins by reducing the bottom-line rather than increasing the top-line. The improving bottom line takes little creativity and risk, while working on the top-line takes risk and creativity, as it is not a sure thing. Does that mean efficiency killing innovation?
Standardization vs. Innovation: Are they Opposite?  Modern organizations have many hidden paradoxes, for example, customer satisfaction or employee satisfaction, which one comes first? Analytics or intuition, how to make a better decision? Here is another interesting dot connection debate: Standardization vs. Innovation, which one is more important?
Does Prioritization Stifle Creativity?  A company has finite resources to apply to get the best yield possible to meet a stakeholder expectation. So there’re always some constraints for businesses to explore the new opportunities or deploy the new ideas, therefore, evaluation and prioritization are taken place to leverage resources in project or innovation management. Does it mean such prioritization process will stifle the creativity?
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

Culture vs. Strategy: Which Comes First?

The strategy is the essence of winning. And a positive culture makes such winning more purposeful and meaningful. The strategy is like the business roadmap to leverage the company's resources and achieve its vision; and culture is the collective mindset, attitude, and behaviors of the group of people and it's about how people think and do things here. Many of us like Drucker's witty quote, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” A strong culture can lift up a mediocre strategy, but a weak or negative culture will screw a superior strategy. So culture vs. strategy: which comes first? And what are the interwoven relationship between them?

Culture first, the strategy is tailored around a specific culture" In a strict sense, the culture within which the organization is founded is first. Then the business model and business strategy followed by the organizational culture required to support them. And if the business has a great culture, it will strengthen of strategy execution and you will get a great result. In this sense culture is one of many resources required to execute and realize the strategy. Determining the culture required is part of determining the strategy. A strategy should be developed to leverage the underlying culture. If the need for a strategy change stemmed from the inside of the organization. Then culture would have been the prime mover and strategy would have to follow.

The strategic intent should include the desired culture changes. The cultural changes should be made before any other strategy elements which require a particular culture. Culture changes best take form before strategy implementation during the strategy design process. To quote Drucker again, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." If your culture is dysfunctional, it doesn't matter what your strategy is. Secondly, organizations that try to adopt a strategy counter to their culture and then try to change the culture will see their strategy fail before the culture can change. Keep in mind that culture changes slowly, probably more slowly than any other attribute or characteristic of an organization. Additionally, changing the culture takes incredible efforts, in part because culture is a byproduct of every facet of an organization, not just its leaders and people. What is observed is that an organization has:(a) Its desired culture that is propagated intentionally by management.
(b) The prevailing culture, how in reality the organization behaves and acts and which to a varying degree can deviate from (a) above.
(c) Various subcultures in its different units, departments, and sections that are the result of the group dynamics in each of them and their local conditions.

Strategy and culture must be integrated and mutually reinforcing. The challenge is understanding the progress needed to achieve a certain target on the timeline of the strategy because culture sometimes has to be 'installed' to meet aggressive targets. the two are interrelated and intertwined. A strategy should be developed to leverage the underlying culture. On the occasions when a new strategy requires the culture to be modified, the modification in culture needs to be "relatively" minor and inline with another more fundamental aspect of the existing culture. The more favorable aspects of the existing culture need to outweigh the less favorable aspect of the existing culture, thereby allowing the employees to accept the change in culture as being in line with their existing beliefs. It means that organizations change strategies and when they do, they must adopt an appropriate culture. Some cultures are more adaptable than others. Take for instance that of a learning organization. A lot of its culture is in a state of flux and can transform to suit a new chosen strategy.

Strategic implementation influences culture as well. The strategic intent must be clear and include the desired culture output. Prevailing culture dominates while being influenced at varying degrees by strategy crafting and execution. Some more important questions to ask the leadership team during strategy development is which core values you need to promote to propel the organization forward in line with the strategic ambitions? Are they different from today and if so what needs to change? What are the beliefs and unspoken rules that everybody in the company knows and shares? How does it drive organizational behaviors? In the digital era, the strategy's time span continuously shortened, and strategy execution is a dynamic continuum. In many cases, the need for change comes from the external business environment. These external changes call for a new strategy. The strategy is "the ESSENCE of the organization and how it thrives." This is fundamentally cultural and is enduring and changes slowly.

The strategy is the essence of winning. And a positive culture makes such winning more purposeful and meaningful. Do not underestimates the inertia of culture. If the strategy doesn't find a welcoming culture, that strategy stands a small chance of being successfully implemented. Changing the culture to fit the strategy is tough because culture changes both slowly and reluctantly. Few strategies can wait for culture's evolutionary change. So the two are strongly intertwined and any change should be lock-stepped and used together to make a business stronger.



Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Culture vs. Strategy: Which Comes FIrst?

The strategy is like the roadmap to achieve business vision; and culture is the collective mindset, attitude, and behaviors about how people think and do things here. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” A strong culture can lift up a mediocre strategy, but a weak or negative culture will screw a superior strategy. So culture vs. strategy: which comes first? And what are the interwoven relationship between them?
Culture first, strategy is tailored around a specific culture.  In a strict sense, the culture within which the organization is founded is first. Then the business model and business strategy followed by the organizational culture required to support them. And if the business has a great culture, it will strengthen of strategy execution and you will get a great result. Determining the culture required is part of determining the strategy. In this sense culture is one of many resources required to execute and realize the strategy. A strategy should be developed to leverage the underlying culture. If the need for a strategy change stemmed from the inside of the organization. Then culture would have been the prime mover and strategy would have to follow.
The strategic intent should include the desired culture changes. The cultural changes should be made before any other strategy elements which require a particular culture. Culture changes best take form before strategy implementation during the strategy design process. To quote Drucker, "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." If your culture is dysfunctional, it doesn't matter what your strategy is. Secondly, organizations that try to adopt a strategy counter to their culture and then try to change the culture will see their strategy fail before the culture can change. Keep in mind that culture changes slowly, probably more slowly than any other attribute or characteristic of an organization. Additionally, changing the culture takes the incredible effort, in part because culture is a byproduct of every facet of an organization, not just its leaders and people. What is observed is that an organization has: (a) Its desired culture that is propagated intentionally by management.(b) The prevailing culture, how in reality the organization behaves and acts and which to a varying degree can deviate from (a) above(c) Various subcultures in its different units, departments, and sections that are the result of the group dynamics in each of them and their local conditions
Strategy and culture must be integrated and mutually reinforcing. The challenge is understanding the progress needed to achieve a certain target on the timeline of the strategy because culture sometimes has to be 'installed' to meet aggressive targets. the two are interrelated and intertwined. A strategy should be developed to leverage the underlying culture. On the occasions when a new strategy requires the culture to be modified, the modification in culture needs to be "relatively" minor and inline with another more fundamental aspect of the existing culture. The more favorable aspects of the existing culture need to outweigh the less favorable aspect of the existing culture, thereby allowing the employees to accept the change in culture as being in line with their existing beliefs. It means that organizations change strategies and when they do, they must adopt an appropriate culture. Some cultures are more adaptable than others. Take for instance that of a learning organization. A lot of its culture is in a state of flux and can transform to suit a new chosen strategy.
Strategic implementation influences culture as well. The strategic intent must be clear and include the desired culture output. Prevailing culture dominates while being influenced at varying degrees by strategy crafting and execution. However, in the digital era, the strategy's time span continuously shortened, and strategy execution is a dynamic continuum. In many cases, the need for change comes from the external business environment. These external changes call for a new strategy. The strategy is "the ESSENCE of the organization and how it thrives." This is fundamentally cultural and is enduring and changes slowly. One of the more important questions to ask the leadership team during strategy development is which core values you need to promote to propel the organization forward in line with the strategic ambitions? Are they different from today and if so what needs to change? What are the beliefs and unspoken rules that everybody in the company knows and shares? How does it drive organizational behavior.  
The strategy is the essence of winning. And a positive culture makes such winning more purposeful and meaningful. Do not underestimates the inertia of culture. If the strategy doesn't find a welcoming culture, that strategy stands a small chance of being successfully implemented. Changing the culture to fit the strategy is tough because culture changes both slowly and reluctantly. Few strategies can wait for culture's evolutionary change. So the two are strongly intertwined and any change should be lock-stepped and used together to make a business stronger.



Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

The Monthly Digital Leadership Brief Jan. 2016: Leading through Questioning!

Digital Leaders Lead Through Questioning!

The blog is a dynamic book flowing with your thought; growing through your dedication; sharing your knowledge; conveying your wisdom, and making influence through touching the hearts and connecting the minds across the globe. The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.2 million page views with about #2300 blog posting. Among 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. Digital LEADERSHIP is the hidden GEM,  Here is a set of featured digital leadership inquiries to celebrate the New Year! Leading through Questioning.

Is Leadership Situational? In substance, leadership is all about future, about change, about progress and innovation, direction and dedication. Leaders set principles, open for criticism, and take the risk for innovation. Leadership is composed of three characteristics: substance, skills, and styles, what are the golden ratio of leadership, though? In practice, is digital leadership “harder” or “softer”? Generic or situational?

Is Leadership about Power or Empowerment? Power has many different formats; some visible, some invisible; some are earned, some are given; some are delightful, some are intimidating; here are a few different types of powers: position power is associated with people who are in a position to ‘boss” others. People fear the consequences of not doing what is asked of them. Expert power comes from a person’s expertise. This is commonly a person with an acclaimed skill or accomplishment. Influence power is associated with people who are well-liked and respected hold this kind of power. What’s the correlation between leadership and power? Is leadership more about power or empowerment?

Is Digital Leadership more “Harder” or “Softer”?: The digital world today is much more complicated and that requires an ability to juggle multiple and competing demands and clear the vision under cloudy climate and uncertain circumstances. Businesses need to recognize changes and help leaders meet the challenge via business savvyness and agility. Improvisation, fact finding, analysis and synthesis, trial and error, all are marks of leadership. However, comparing to the industrial leadership, is digital leadership 'harder or softer'? How can you get the balance right - Leadership substance, leadership competency & skills, and leadership styles?

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 bold innovations comes into play. Leadership is about future, future is full of changes, is leadership all about change as well?

Does A Highly Effective Leader Create Discomfort? Leaders play the pivotal role in driving organization’s growth and leading societal progress, how to walk the talk and lead effectively? Should a high-effective leader get liked by all or create discomfort to provoke talent growth? Getting respected or being popular, which one is more important?  

Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking and innovating the new ideas; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

The Monthly Digital Leadership Brief Jan. 2016: Leading by Questioning!

The blog is a dynamic book flowing with your thought; growing through your dedication; sharing your knowledge; conveying your wisdom, and making influence through touching the hearts and connecting the minds across the globe. The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.2 million page views with about #2300 blog posting. Among 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. Digital LEADERSHIP is the hidden GEM,  Here is a set of featured digital leadership inquiries to celebrate the New Year! Leading by Question.
Is Leadership Situational? In substance, leadership is all about future, about change, about progress and innovation.  Leaders set principles, open for criticism, and take the risk for innovation. Leadership is composed of three characteristics: substance, skills, and styles, what are the golden ratio of leadership, though? In practice, is digital leadership “harder” or “softer”? generic or situational?
Is Leadership about Power or Empowerment? Power has many different formats; some visible, some invisible; some are earned, some are given; some are delightful, some are intimidating; here are a few different types of powers: position power is associated with people who are in a position to ‘boss” others. People fear the consequences of not doing what is asked of them. Expert power comes from a person’s expertise. This is commonly a person with an acclaimed skill or accomplishment. Influence power is associated with people who are well-liked and respected hold this kind of power. What’s the correlation between leadership and power? Is leadership more about power or empowerment?
Is Digital Leadership more “Harder” or “Softer”?: The digital world today is much more complicated and that requires an ability to juggle multiple and competing demands and clear the vision under cloudy climate and uncertain circumstances. Businesses need to recognize the change and help leaders meet the challenge via business savvy and agility. Improvisation, fact finding, analysis and synthesis, trial and error, all are marks of leadership. However, comparing to the industrial leadership, is digital leadership 'harder or softer'? How can you get the balance right - Leadership substance, leadership competency and leadership styles?
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?
Does A Highly Effective Leader Create Discomfort? Leaders play the pivotal role in driving organization’s growth and leading societal progress, how to walk the talk and lead effectively? Should a high-effective leader get liked by all or create discomfort to provoke talent growth? Getting respected or being popular, which one is more important?  


Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking and innovating the new ideas; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu