Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1392
October 29, 2015
Three Aspects to Manage an Emergent Strategy
Strategy Management is about putting a good team together to give you a multifaceted picture. It is about evaluating the long-term, not just the immediate, and building about agility and flexibility.
In today's digital dynamic and unstable business circumstances, the evidence points to strategy emerging rather than being prescribed. The strategy should be formed on the basis of some logical intent - after all, if you have no plan, and success happens, it was an accident! With the increasing speed of changes, you need to be in tune with customer value, and particularly how that value changes or migrates over time, and you need to manage the emergent strategy with agility and flexibility.
The strategy cannot be something that the CXO thinks and develops in isolation. It has to be thought through, shared and designed by the management team. And then, strategy needs to be made tangible by defining strategic objectives, which in turn need to be translated into concrete targets. Finally, and this is the hardest but the most important part, you need to have a plan to implement it. You need to come up with concrete actions and initiatives through which the targets will be achieved. Discipline and determination make the rest. A successful strategy implementation requires management support and commitment of every staff member. It must be simply drafted and understood by all. If your front line workers cannot explain your strategy, then there is a problem. Senior leadership must be intimately involved or associated with strategy development and execution. Communication is key.
A successful strategy management is a function of effective and efficient "Strategy Champions" and a "Strong and Reliable Strategy Sponsor."If you are a strategy manager or officer, you are a strategy champion, seek the support of senior executives - Strategy Sponsors to make the impact. The best-laid plans often fall short for one reason or other. Falling short is clearly not an indication of failure nor is it an outright failure. Given that so many factors may appear to throw a plan off track, having the smarts to acknowledge these factors,and then to respond in a decisive manner that still leads to the achievement of the stated objectives or plan is what being flexible is all about. For well-established companies, the specific function is responsible not only for co-ordination and monitoring but also for designing the strategy and keeping an eye on market dynamics. It definitely has to be a senior leader with authority and influence in the organization. However, most managements/leaders have a definite mindset that blinds their mind from strategies, thus, irrespective of the quality of the strategy, they intend to ignore it and carry out their personal thoughts.
Another major issue with strategy formulation and implementation is the availability of information. Strategy is not created in isolation, valuable and reliable information about the organization must be available for the design of effective strategy. Unfortunately, such valuable information is hidden away from strategy departments which eventually make strategy formulation ineffective. Business leaders today must leverage information in decision making and strategy crafting. It is also crucial to make a risk assessment and constant evaluation of business environment, otherwise, you may end up having a strategic plan which is oceans apart from reality. Strategy isn't just about making decisions. It is about getting the best information you can, continuously update. It is about uncovering all the options, even the unpalatable ones.
Strategy has to suit your organization, if it is too rigid or prescriptive, it becomes a waste of time. Strategy is also about analyzing the customer's needs from the customer's viewpoint and then creating a deliverable plan to meet and exceed the customer's expectations based on the customer's viewpoint. It is about putting a good team together to give you a multifaceted picture. It is about evaluating the long-term, not just the immediate, and building about agility and flexibility.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
In today's digital dynamic and unstable business circumstances, the evidence points to strategy emerging rather than being prescribed. The strategy should be formed on the basis of some logical intent - after all, if you have no plan, and success happens, it was an accident! With the increasing speed of changes, you need to be in tune with customer value, and particularly how that value changes or migrates over time, and you need to manage the emergent strategy with agility and flexibility.
The strategy cannot be something that the CXO thinks and develops in isolation. It has to be thought through, shared and designed by the management team. And then, strategy needs to be made tangible by defining strategic objectives, which in turn need to be translated into concrete targets. Finally, and this is the hardest but the most important part, you need to have a plan to implement it. You need to come up with concrete actions and initiatives through which the targets will be achieved. Discipline and determination make the rest. A successful strategy implementation requires management support and commitment of every staff member. It must be simply drafted and understood by all. If your front line workers cannot explain your strategy, then there is a problem. Senior leadership must be intimately involved or associated with strategy development and execution. Communication is key.
A successful strategy management is a function of effective and efficient "Strategy Champions" and a "Strong and Reliable Strategy Sponsor."If you are a strategy manager or officer, you are a strategy champion, seek the support of senior executives - Strategy Sponsors to make the impact. The best-laid plans often fall short for one reason or other. Falling short is clearly not an indication of failure nor is it an outright failure. Given that so many factors may appear to throw a plan off track, having the smarts to acknowledge these factors,and then to respond in a decisive manner that still leads to the achievement of the stated objectives or plan is what being flexible is all about. For well-established companies, the specific function is responsible not only for co-ordination and monitoring but also for designing the strategy and keeping an eye on market dynamics. It definitely has to be a senior leader with authority and influence in the organization. However, most managements/leaders have a definite mindset that blinds their mind from strategies, thus, irrespective of the quality of the strategy, they intend to ignore it and carry out their personal thoughts.
Another major issue with strategy formulation and implementation is the availability of information. Strategy is not created in isolation, valuable and reliable information about the organization must be available for the design of effective strategy. Unfortunately, such valuable information is hidden away from strategy departments which eventually make strategy formulation ineffective. Business leaders today must leverage information in decision making and strategy crafting. It is also crucial to make a risk assessment and constant evaluation of business environment, otherwise, you may end up having a strategic plan which is oceans apart from reality. Strategy isn't just about making decisions. It is about getting the best information you can, continuously update. It is about uncovering all the options, even the unpalatable ones.
Strategy has to suit your organization, if it is too rigid or prescriptive, it becomes a waste of time. Strategy is also about analyzing the customer's needs from the customer's viewpoint and then creating a deliverable plan to meet and exceed the customer's expectations based on the customer's viewpoint. It is about putting a good team together to give you a multifaceted picture. It is about evaluating the long-term, not just the immediate, and building about agility and flexibility.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
How should GRC Programs be Approached?
The effective GRC should sustain the transformative change in business with the right order: People, Process, and Technology.
The purpose of the GRC (governance, risk management, and compliance) is to improve business performance through the creation of value to shareholders and other stakeholders. Nowadays, businesses have to deal with the unprecedented level of uncertainty and change, hence, GRC becomes more critical than ever. Here's the context; how should GRC programs be approached? Should technology be a driver? What’re the most important GRC strategies?
Continual GRC Improvement Program - The body who, in theory, should govern measurable processes and control activities based on established tolerance levels - they rely on process and control operators input. There should never be a compliance failure that is a surprise of different methods to GRC tools, from true GRC intended solutions, customized home grown issues management solutions that morphed into GRC like platforms, basic Excel based work, and custom risk assessment solutions that too fulfill many of the needs of a GRC. If your organizations are highly regulated, then your GRC would focus on compliance and audit foremost. If you are less regulated, you can use the GRC to facilitate discussion of common risks and issues across the enterprise and avoid duplicating effort for risk remediation. The latter is where GRC can be used to drive business change and business value the most, as there's less of a requirement to focus exclusively on regulatory and audit findings.
People; processes; technology. A GRC application is just a tool to compliment what people already do. Expecting a tool to drive processes that do not exist is a difficult way to approach things. Focus on core competencies of the technology before diving down into detail for individual departments. GRC can be used to raise visibility and awareness for many things that are captured at the working group levels of the organization, and bring them in front of leadership without the audit or regulatory compliance stamp on them. Things can be a business improvement and business drivers including improvements to areas of the business have a direct customer impact. Every business is different with its own set of issues, problems and concerns regarding its strategic and inherent risks; reliance on platforms or technology only can lead management to a false sense of security and potentially a failure to rely on human intelligence simply because a computer system said something was so.
'Acquisition, development and management of human talent in the organization' is one of the most important GRC strategies. There is an ongoing problem with highly structured GRC approaches that seem to overlook the very human and social behavioral factors that underpin real GRC success. It's partly the 'what gets measured gets managed' conundrum and the social/behavioral side is harder to measure. Risk management is an activity we are ALL involved with every day, whether we call it that or not, and the discussions above often touch on issues of engagement, shared commitment, alignment between executive and workforce etc. Put emphasis on a solution that 'all employees can leverage.' Any solution with that kind of 'reach' is on the right track. Management needs to continue to check: what about supervision of the staff engaged in processes critical to the strategic risks being audited? Is this adequate or are there issues going unnoticed or glossed-over due to workplace politics, cronyism, or other forms of staff disengagement from what should be hyper-awareness of risk and its impact and consequences on the company they work for?
GRC is and remains the purview of top organization management. While the critical objectives of compliance with policies, and adherence to risk management mandates can and should be tied in with staff performance and development, there is no substitute for human critical thinking when it comes to utilization of tools in organizations’ toolbox developed over time that enhance what we as humans observe, analyze, discuss and resolve on using our own native intelligence. The effective GRC should sustain the transformative change in business with the right order: People, Process, and Technology.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
The purpose of the GRC (governance, risk management, and compliance) is to improve business performance through the creation of value to shareholders and other stakeholders. Nowadays, businesses have to deal with the unprecedented level of uncertainty and change, hence, GRC becomes more critical than ever. Here's the context; how should GRC programs be approached? Should technology be a driver? What’re the most important GRC strategies?
Continual GRC Improvement Program - The body who, in theory, should govern measurable processes and control activities based on established tolerance levels - they rely on process and control operators input. There should never be a compliance failure that is a surprise of different methods to GRC tools, from true GRC intended solutions, customized home grown issues management solutions that morphed into GRC like platforms, basic Excel based work, and custom risk assessment solutions that too fulfill many of the needs of a GRC. If your organizations are highly regulated, then your GRC would focus on compliance and audit foremost. If you are less regulated, you can use the GRC to facilitate discussion of common risks and issues across the enterprise and avoid duplicating effort for risk remediation. The latter is where GRC can be used to drive business change and business value the most, as there's less of a requirement to focus exclusively on regulatory and audit findings.
People; processes; technology. A GRC application is just a tool to compliment what people already do. Expecting a tool to drive processes that do not exist is a difficult way to approach things. Focus on core competencies of the technology before diving down into detail for individual departments. GRC can be used to raise visibility and awareness for many things that are captured at the working group levels of the organization, and bring them in front of leadership without the audit or regulatory compliance stamp on them. Things can be a business improvement and business drivers including improvements to areas of the business have a direct customer impact. Every business is different with its own set of issues, problems and concerns regarding its strategic and inherent risks; reliance on platforms or technology only can lead management to a false sense of security and potentially a failure to rely on human intelligence simply because a computer system said something was so.
'Acquisition, development and management of human talent in the organization' is one of the most important GRC strategies. There is an ongoing problem with highly structured GRC approaches that seem to overlook the very human and social behavioral factors that underpin real GRC success. It's partly the 'what gets measured gets managed' conundrum and the social/behavioral side is harder to measure. Risk management is an activity we are ALL involved with every day, whether we call it that or not, and the discussions above often touch on issues of engagement, shared commitment, alignment between executive and workforce etc. Put emphasis on a solution that 'all employees can leverage.' Any solution with that kind of 'reach' is on the right track. Management needs to continue to check: what about supervision of the staff engaged in processes critical to the strategic risks being audited? Is this adequate or are there issues going unnoticed or glossed-over due to workplace politics, cronyism, or other forms of staff disengagement from what should be hyper-awareness of risk and its impact and consequences on the company they work for?GRC is and remains the purview of top organization management. While the critical objectives of compliance with policies, and adherence to risk management mandates can and should be tied in with staff performance and development, there is no substitute for human critical thinking when it comes to utilization of tools in organizations’ toolbox developed over time that enhance what we as humans observe, analyze, discuss and resolve on using our own native intelligence. The effective GRC should sustain the transformative change in business with the right order: People, Process, and Technology.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
How should GRC programs be approached?
The effective GRC should sustain the transformative change in business with the right order: People, Process, and Technology.
The purpose of the GRC (governance, risk management, and compliance) is to improve business performance through the creation of value to shareholders and other stakeholders. Nowaday, businesses have to deal with the unprecedented level of uncertainty and change, hence, GRC becomes more critical than ever. Here's the context; how should GRC programs be approached? Should technology be a driver? What’re the most important GRC strategies?
Continual GRC Improvement Program - The body who, in theory, should govern measurable processes and control activities based on established tolerance levels - they rely on process and control operators input. There should never be a compliance failure that is a surprise of different methods to GRC tools, from true GRC intended solutions, customized home grown issues management solutions that morphed into GRC like platforms, basic Excel based work, and custom risk assessment solutions that too fulfill many of the needs of a GRC. If your organizations are highly regulated, then your GRC would focus on compliance and audit foremost. If you are less regulated, you can use the GRC to facilitate discussion of common risks and issues across the enterprise and avoid duplicating effort for risk remediation. The latter is where GRC can be used to drive business change and business value the most, as there's less of a requirement to focus exclusively on regulatory and audit findings.
People; processes; technology. A GRC application is just a tool to compliment what people already do. Expecting a tool to drive processes that do not exist is a difficult way to approach things. Focus on core competencies of the technology before diving down into detail for individual departments. GRC can be used to raise visibility and awareness for many things that are captured at the working group levels of the organization, and bring them in front of leadership without the audit or regulatory compliance stamp on them. Things can be a business improvement and business drivers including improvements to areas of the business have a direct customer impact. Every business is different with its own set of issues, problems and concerns regarding its strategic and inherent risks; reliance on platforms or technology only can lead management to a false sense of security and potentially a failure to rely on human intelligence simply because a computer system said something was so.
'Acquisition, development and management of human talent in the organization' is one of the most important GRC strategies. There is an ongoing problem with highly structured GRC approaches that seem to overlook the very human and social behavioral factors that underpin real GRC success. It's partly the 'what gets measured gets managed' conundrum and the social/behavioral side is harder to measure. Risk management is an activity we are ALL involved with every day, whether we call it that or not, and the discussions above often touch on issues of engagement, shared commitment, alignment between executive and workforce etc. Put emphasis on a solution that 'all employees can leverage.' Any solution with that kind of 'reach' is on the right track. Management needs to continue to check: what about supervision of the staff engaged in processes critical to the strategic risks being audited? Is this adequate or are there issues going unnoticed or glossed-over due to workplace politics, cronyism, or other forms of staff disengagement from what should be hyper-awareness of risk and its impact and consequences on the company they work for?
GRC is and remains the purview of top organization management. While the critical objectives of compliance with policies, and adherence to risk management mandates can and should be tied in with staff performance and development, there is no substitute for human critical thinking when it comes to utilization of tools in organizations’ toolbox developed over time that enhance what we as humans observe, analyze, discuss and resolve on using our own native intelligence. The effective GRC should sustain the transformative change in business with the right order: People, Process and Technology.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
The purpose of the GRC (governance, risk management, and compliance) is to improve business performance through the creation of value to shareholders and other stakeholders. Nowaday, businesses have to deal with the unprecedented level of uncertainty and change, hence, GRC becomes more critical than ever. Here's the context; how should GRC programs be approached? Should technology be a driver? What’re the most important GRC strategies?
Continual GRC Improvement Program - The body who, in theory, should govern measurable processes and control activities based on established tolerance levels - they rely on process and control operators input. There should never be a compliance failure that is a surprise of different methods to GRC tools, from true GRC intended solutions, customized home grown issues management solutions that morphed into GRC like platforms, basic Excel based work, and custom risk assessment solutions that too fulfill many of the needs of a GRC. If your organizations are highly regulated, then your GRC would focus on compliance and audit foremost. If you are less regulated, you can use the GRC to facilitate discussion of common risks and issues across the enterprise and avoid duplicating effort for risk remediation. The latter is where GRC can be used to drive business change and business value the most, as there's less of a requirement to focus exclusively on regulatory and audit findings.
People; processes; technology. A GRC application is just a tool to compliment what people already do. Expecting a tool to drive processes that do not exist is a difficult way to approach things. Focus on core competencies of the technology before diving down into detail for individual departments. GRC can be used to raise visibility and awareness for many things that are captured at the working group levels of the organization, and bring them in front of leadership without the audit or regulatory compliance stamp on them. Things can be a business improvement and business drivers including improvements to areas of the business have a direct customer impact. Every business is different with its own set of issues, problems and concerns regarding its strategic and inherent risks; reliance on platforms or technology only can lead management to a false sense of security and potentially a failure to rely on human intelligence simply because a computer system said something was so.
'Acquisition, development and management of human talent in the organization' is one of the most important GRC strategies. There is an ongoing problem with highly structured GRC approaches that seem to overlook the very human and social behavioral factors that underpin real GRC success. It's partly the 'what gets measured gets managed' conundrum and the social/behavioral side is harder to measure. Risk management is an activity we are ALL involved with every day, whether we call it that or not, and the discussions above often touch on issues of engagement, shared commitment, alignment between executive and workforce etc. Put emphasis on a solution that 'all employees can leverage.' Any solution with that kind of 'reach' is on the right track. Management needs to continue to check: what about supervision of the staff engaged in processes critical to the strategic risks being audited? Is this adequate or are there issues going unnoticed or glossed-over due to workplace politics, cronyism, or other forms of staff disengagement from what should be hyper-awareness of risk and its impact and consequences on the company they work for?GRC is and remains the purview of top organization management. While the critical objectives of compliance with policies, and adherence to risk management mandates can and should be tied in with staff performance and development, there is no substitute for human critical thinking when it comes to utilization of tools in organizations’ toolbox developed over time that enhance what we as humans observe, analyze, discuss and resolve on using our own native intelligence. The effective GRC should sustain the transformative change in business with the right order: People, Process and Technology.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
How to Overcome Data Cleansing Challenge
Good governance is essential to overall Data Management.
Data is the lifeblood of digital organizations. Data Cleansing has always been a challenge. The best data-driven organizations focus relentlessly on keeping their data clean. Cleaning the data is often the most difficult and time-consuming part of data science. So what are the best principles and practices to overcome Data Quality challenge?
Data left unmanaged is a HUGE liability, whether it's multi-structured, semi-structured or fully structured. How to determine if collected data was independent. How to determine if data meets stationary requirements, and what other types of data requirements that might be necessary for various big data tools; to include homogeneity, identically distributed, gaussian/non-gaussian, and sample size requirements. And importantly, you need to know where your data came from and how it was collected. There is a notion that poor quality data is a result of broken business processes, so when you start your investigations, are you considering the scope of the business process, its architectural components and the associated information lifecycle across this, or just the focal point where poor quality data manifests itself? Though Hadoop has provided a platform where now data can be collected more rapidly and looked at. The challenge of cleansing data still remains on hand: Are you collecting good data and are you collecting data wisely? Are you trying to resolve problems much earlier in the ecosystem and then waiting to push it further? Are you following the Data Governance and doing the due diligence?
The old adage "garbage in garbage out" holds true. First of all, "data" is scattered. Secondly, data is not really ugly... it's just scattered and needs cleansing and improvement. This can be a major challenge at times depending on the size of the data. Collecting data and trying to make sense of it later to meet your needs should not be the approach; understand your data needs, remove redundancy, require referential integrity, ensure synchronization / timing and collect your data more responsibly. When trying to sort through unstructured data, build your data rules to catch possible false positives and use to further understand your data and tighten your data rules. It is important to know your business, know your data. It is best to solve the problem as early on as possible at the source which would be more ideal, but the reality is different. There are many analytical tools that can help solve this, but maybe not at 100% accuracy. It will only improve, but not make it entirely better.
Data governance at the point of impact: Messy internal data is due to a lack of proper data governance, everybody knows that and not a single organization has solved it since the beginning of times. Good governance is as essential as storing raw data and overall data management. Very important to know who where and what is accessing the data and what they are doing to it to make changes. Then, knowing the before and after pictures of the changes are all part of the governance plan. Transformation and sorting are vital in the data world to put things in perspective for business to read between the lines with accuracy and clarity of information that is needed for making an effective decision. Produce the data set in a clean (and often disposable) view of the data. Working to keep all data everywhere clean is impossible given the rate of change and diversity of our relevant data sources and streams. It's not only important to be able to categorize your data but also to be aware of the dangers of dark data with regards to Legal and Regulatory risk, Intelligence risk and Reputation risk. Dark Data as unstructured, uncategorized and potentially unmanaged and untapped data could contain confidential or sensitive information and as such may pose a significant risk to the organization. This Dark Data left unstructured and unmanaged, could be more of a liability to the business than a potential asset. Regarding unmanaged data - this is a very bad thing to collect. For audibility and traceability, it is important to store historical snapshots of the facts, and ensuring "re-constitution of the actual source system for a given point in time."
An enterprise data hub is a powerful new platform. In the future, most enterprise data will land first in an enterprise data hub, and increasingly it will stay there. In the near term, an enterprise data hub delivers unprecedented flexibility to comprehensively and economically analyze and process data in new ways. Organizations that deploy an enterprise data hub alongside their existing infrastructure will continue to manage data:
-raw historical data storage (call it a warehouse, corporate memory, enterprise data hub)
-turning data into information (the business side of making sense of the raw data, adding value and augmenting business systems) this is where the organizations understand the true nature will really begin to see huge value gains if they can ask the right questions.
Many organizations invest heavily in processing the data, with the hopes that people will simply start creating value from it. Usually, this results in large operational and capital expenditures to create a vault of data that rarely gets used. Easy to use systems and automation are revolutionizing the way Big Data is being used. Implementing software to analyze data should make it easier to interpret results and help improve business processes. This can help eliminate the struggles in dealing with too much data! And most importantly, build a strong data governance discipline to overcome data management challenge.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Data is the lifeblood of digital organizations. Data Cleansing has always been a challenge. The best data-driven organizations focus relentlessly on keeping their data clean. Cleaning the data is often the most difficult and time-consuming part of data science. So what are the best principles and practices to overcome Data Quality challenge?Data left unmanaged is a HUGE liability, whether it's multi-structured, semi-structured or fully structured. How to determine if collected data was independent. How to determine if data meets stationary requirements, and what other types of data requirements that might be necessary for various big data tools; to include homogeneity, identically distributed, gaussian/non-gaussian, and sample size requirements. And importantly, you need to know where your data came from and how it was collected. There is a notion that poor quality data is a result of broken business processes, so when you start your investigations, are you considering the scope of the business process, its architectural components and the associated information lifecycle across this, or just the focal point where poor quality data manifests itself? Though Hadoop has provided a platform where now data can be collected more rapidly and looked at. The challenge of cleansing data still remains on hand: Are you collecting good data and are you collecting data wisely? Are you trying to resolve problems much earlier in the ecosystem and then waiting to push it further? Are you following the Data Governance and doing the due diligence?
The old adage "garbage in garbage out" holds true. First of all, "data" is scattered. Secondly, data is not really ugly... it's just scattered and needs cleansing and improvement. This can be a major challenge at times depending on the size of the data. Collecting data and trying to make sense of it later to meet your needs should not be the approach; understand your data needs, remove redundancy, require referential integrity, ensure synchronization / timing and collect your data more responsibly. When trying to sort through unstructured data, build your data rules to catch possible false positives and use to further understand your data and tighten your data rules. It is important to know your business, know your data. It is best to solve the problem as early on as possible at the source which would be more ideal, but the reality is different. There are many analytical tools that can help solve this, but maybe not at 100% accuracy. It will only improve, but not make it entirely better.
Data governance at the point of impact: Messy internal data is due to a lack of proper data governance, everybody knows that and not a single organization has solved it since the beginning of times. Good governance is as essential as storing raw data and overall data management. Very important to know who where and what is accessing the data and what they are doing to it to make changes. Then, knowing the before and after pictures of the changes are all part of the governance plan. Transformation and sorting are vital in the data world to put things in perspective for business to read between the lines with accuracy and clarity of information that is needed for making an effective decision. Produce the data set in a clean (and often disposable) view of the data. Working to keep all data everywhere clean is impossible given the rate of change and diversity of our relevant data sources and streams. It's not only important to be able to categorize your data but also to be aware of the dangers of dark data with regards to Legal and Regulatory risk, Intelligence risk and Reputation risk. Dark Data as unstructured, uncategorized and potentially unmanaged and untapped data could contain confidential or sensitive information and as such may pose a significant risk to the organization. This Dark Data left unstructured and unmanaged, could be more of a liability to the business than a potential asset. Regarding unmanaged data - this is a very bad thing to collect. For audibility and traceability, it is important to store historical snapshots of the facts, and ensuring "re-constitution of the actual source system for a given point in time."
An enterprise data hub is a powerful new platform. In the future, most enterprise data will land first in an enterprise data hub, and increasingly it will stay there. In the near term, an enterprise data hub delivers unprecedented flexibility to comprehensively and economically analyze and process data in new ways. Organizations that deploy an enterprise data hub alongside their existing infrastructure will continue to manage data:-raw historical data storage (call it a warehouse, corporate memory, enterprise data hub)
-turning data into information (the business side of making sense of the raw data, adding value and augmenting business systems) this is where the organizations understand the true nature will really begin to see huge value gains if they can ask the right questions.
Many organizations invest heavily in processing the data, with the hopes that people will simply start creating value from it. Usually, this results in large operational and capital expenditures to create a vault of data that rarely gets used. Easy to use systems and automation are revolutionizing the way Big Data is being used. Implementing software to analyze data should make it easier to interpret results and help improve business processes. This can help eliminate the struggles in dealing with too much data! And most importantly, build a strong data governance discipline to overcome data management challenge.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
October 28, 2015
Are you Actively Participated in your Vision?
Creative expanding cannot happen without vision.
Vision is to zoom in the future as if it were closer. We always measure ourselves in terms of our vision - what we intend to be or to accomplish, and what we leave behind is our action upon those intentions. We contemplate, we reflect, we learn, we act, we perceive, and our vision evolves and leads us - the reason we usually see that what we have accomplished is always less than our potential. The future is based on your visions. Either as an individual or an organization, do you allow them to evolve, and actively participate in it?
The future is based on your visions. If we see disunity, failure, and destruction and focus on them, then we are consigned to that misery for as long as we insist on that vision. On the other hand, if we envision unity, success and construction then the negatives become the shadows that tell us we must do better and we try and try again. We always measure ourselves in terms of our vision - what we intend to be or to accomplish, and what we leave behind is our action upon those intentions.
Vision comes to those who exercise themselves to understand what they hear, as they listen; to perceive what they see, as they look. The envisioning is the imagination' s inner screen lighting up in the context of where the envisioning grows. To envision is the focus coming in contact with the natural deployment, grown from the whole envisioning atmosphere you soak in daily life.The essence of vision is from the personal relatedness development, in its whole simplicity of perceptual connection of the moment. Vision grows for those who learn to see and enter in the experience of simple perceptual connection with the wide open personal completion into the moment's happening. As one develops full participation within the moment, so does the perceptual envisioning dexterity, expanding reception and reach.
The importance of allowing the visions to be creative instead of destructive. Many say creative thinking expands and critical thinking narrows. Too often it is our need to assess things critically that limits the creative possibilities that would emerge. How do we know so quickly what will not work for us? The whole point of critical thinking is to first put aside preconceptions and agendas. That is somewhat difficult, but it is something you should attempt if you really want to understand. The biggest single obstruction is a failure to take any notice whatsoever of the clues, which are often there but seldom stand out. The key is to focus on those that challenge your preconceptions, and not simply move on to more comforting "facts."
Creative expanding cannot happen without vision. We have no choice but to participate with our vision. Being conscious, becoming self-aware, is a choice we actively make in each moment. It is not automatic, and it takes practices to become conscientious in your journey to reach the destination via your vision.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Vision is to zoom in the future as if it were closer. We always measure ourselves in terms of our vision - what we intend to be or to accomplish, and what we leave behind is our action upon those intentions. We contemplate, we reflect, we learn, we act, we perceive, and our vision evolves and leads us - the reason we usually see that what we have accomplished is always less than our potential. The future is based on your visions. Either as an individual or an organization, do you allow them to evolve, and actively participate in it?
The future is based on your visions. If we see disunity, failure, and destruction and focus on them, then we are consigned to that misery for as long as we insist on that vision. On the other hand, if we envision unity, success and construction then the negatives become the shadows that tell us we must do better and we try and try again. We always measure ourselves in terms of our vision - what we intend to be or to accomplish, and what we leave behind is our action upon those intentions.
Vision comes to those who exercise themselves to understand what they hear, as they listen; to perceive what they see, as they look. The envisioning is the imagination' s inner screen lighting up in the context of where the envisioning grows. To envision is the focus coming in contact with the natural deployment, grown from the whole envisioning atmosphere you soak in daily life.The essence of vision is from the personal relatedness development, in its whole simplicity of perceptual connection of the moment. Vision grows for those who learn to see and enter in the experience of simple perceptual connection with the wide open personal completion into the moment's happening. As one develops full participation within the moment, so does the perceptual envisioning dexterity, expanding reception and reach.
The importance of allowing the visions to be creative instead of destructive. Many say creative thinking expands and critical thinking narrows. Too often it is our need to assess things critically that limits the creative possibilities that would emerge. How do we know so quickly what will not work for us? The whole point of critical thinking is to first put aside preconceptions and agendas. That is somewhat difficult, but it is something you should attempt if you really want to understand. The biggest single obstruction is a failure to take any notice whatsoever of the clues, which are often there but seldom stand out. The key is to focus on those that challenge your preconceptions, and not simply move on to more comforting "facts."
Creative expanding cannot happen without vision. We have no choice but to participate with our vision. Being conscious, becoming self-aware, is a choice we actively make in each moment. It is not automatic, and it takes practices to become conscientious in your journey to reach the destination via your vision.
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Agility vs. Quality
Agility should not be translated to sacrificing planning, management guidelines and quality assurance.
Agile is emerged as a major software development and management methodology, it is a set of principles, philosophy, and mindsets to either build software or run a business today. However, from quality perspective, Agile is one of those things that's simple in principle but may be very challenging in practice. How can you maintain quality whilst trying to become agiler?
Agility is “the ability of business to adapt rapidly and cost efficiently in response to changes in the business environment.” What do you put in place or how would you then structure your business to ensure that the ability of your business to adapt rapidly. The focus is necessary to maintain or improve quality because there can be positive impacts as well as negative needs to be on capabilities. The "people, process, technology" must be defined and maintained to support the quality goal. The right people (those who share the business objective and have the requisite skills to deliver it) using processes that are valid and evolving can adapt and adopt technology that maintains and expands capabilities that support strategies and priorities in accordance with the corporate culture.
Agility is targeted for enhancing business on-demand. Quality is a function of scope, budget and resources. Agility is a model of performance without sacrificing the basic modularity of the business functions. Thus, the better the management control on delivery, the better the quality and vice versa. This is why Agile approach involves users early in a process of creation the "things," and uses them continuously to "assure quality." Agility is dependent upon planning the roadmap and executing accordingly. Any misalignment between these factors impacts quality. Agility should not be translated to sacrificing planning, management guidelines or life cycle of processes, projects and/or products. Responsibility is a primary factor in the agile development model. Responsibility is effective because it includes shared responsibility with others; the activities and the group are agile, not only one person, to ensure quality delivery.
AUTOMATION->QUALITY->AGILITY. The ability to deliver a quality product is a matter of clear focus on the things that deliver quality. Remove the obstacles to quality, clearly describe what quality looks like, and practice the activities that produce quality results. The long-term cost of cutting quality will eat your attempts to change rapidly and stifle agility. The ability to change quickly requires the ability to train your staff on changes, the ability to design changes quickly that will work, the ability to implement cost-effective solutions quickly to enable the changes, and the willingness of the team / staff to make changes that may not be comfortable. Also, you need to automate all your quality assurance tasks so you can be agile in your development process. Agility is a must in today's cloud world where the customer expects everything on-demand and cost-effective. No way you can get that doing anything manually and especially quality checks and you can not compromise on that. Start early in your quality checks and automate and be agile.
There's no one size fits all when it comes to methodologies. Every organization and team is unique and has different strengths and needs. Agile takes more disciplines, not less. It is not just the methodology by which the quality software projects can be ensured; but the mindset, the talent, the discipline, the methodology, the process and the measurement need to be well aligned, in order to improve product quality and customer satisfaction.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Agile is emerged as a major software development and management methodology, it is a set of principles, philosophy, and mindsets to either build software or run a business today. However, from quality perspective, Agile is one of those things that's simple in principle but may be very challenging in practice. How can you maintain quality whilst trying to become agiler?
Agility is “the ability of business to adapt rapidly and cost efficiently in response to changes in the business environment.” What do you put in place or how would you then structure your business to ensure that the ability of your business to adapt rapidly. The focus is necessary to maintain or improve quality because there can be positive impacts as well as negative needs to be on capabilities. The "people, process, technology" must be defined and maintained to support the quality goal. The right people (those who share the business objective and have the requisite skills to deliver it) using processes that are valid and evolving can adapt and adopt technology that maintains and expands capabilities that support strategies and priorities in accordance with the corporate culture.
Agility is targeted for enhancing business on-demand. Quality is a function of scope, budget and resources. Agility is a model of performance without sacrificing the basic modularity of the business functions. Thus, the better the management control on delivery, the better the quality and vice versa. This is why Agile approach involves users early in a process of creation the "things," and uses them continuously to "assure quality." Agility is dependent upon planning the roadmap and executing accordingly. Any misalignment between these factors impacts quality. Agility should not be translated to sacrificing planning, management guidelines or life cycle of processes, projects and/or products. Responsibility is a primary factor in the agile development model. Responsibility is effective because it includes shared responsibility with others; the activities and the group are agile, not only one person, to ensure quality delivery.
AUTOMATION->QUALITY->AGILITY. The ability to deliver a quality product is a matter of clear focus on the things that deliver quality. Remove the obstacles to quality, clearly describe what quality looks like, and practice the activities that produce quality results. The long-term cost of cutting quality will eat your attempts to change rapidly and stifle agility. The ability to change quickly requires the ability to train your staff on changes, the ability to design changes quickly that will work, the ability to implement cost-effective solutions quickly to enable the changes, and the willingness of the team / staff to make changes that may not be comfortable. Also, you need to automate all your quality assurance tasks so you can be agile in your development process. Agility is a must in today's cloud world where the customer expects everything on-demand and cost-effective. No way you can get that doing anything manually and especially quality checks and you can not compromise on that. Start early in your quality checks and automate and be agile.
There's no one size fits all when it comes to methodologies. Every organization and team is unique and has different strengths and needs. Agile takes more disciplines, not less. It is not just the methodology by which the quality software projects can be ensured; but the mindset, the talent, the discipline, the methodology, the process and the measurement need to be well aligned, in order to improve product quality and customer satisfaction.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Digital Master Tuning #112: How to Manage Digital Strategy Effectively
An emergent digital strategy has to incorporate disruption.
Digital strategy is a type of business strategy, enabled by information science and technology, so once that is understood, it is always going to be driven top down, especially for a large enterprise. The key question is how much to anticipate disruptive digital business strategy by investing in information technology without either constraining the thinking or ability to pivot, which investment will tend to do, or wasting that investment when the game changes. And what are important success factors in managing digital strategy more effectively?
C-levels has to lead the effort by convincing the shareholders and management team about the core direction. Once this is done, it will be easier for functional leaders to define the sub-strategy and plan the implementation. The psychological and organizational factors that get in the way of understanding that critical dimension of true 'digital strategy' is about disrupting the conventional ways of creating value within established markets. So rather than how do we use information related science and technology to 'organically' make things better, 'digital strategic' thinking is more about the big 'WHY' about digital transformation, how do we use it to change the game!
An emergent digital strategy has to incorporate disruption. The focus is on why companies focus on evolution (perhaps, digitally-enabled extensions of existing operational capabilities) vs. disruption (tear up the road map.) It's tough to plan for disruption because what's disruptive is inherently unexpected. It's very much like positioning yourself for playing a game. You can get caught playing for one move when your opponent makes a different one. Alternatively, you can choose a conservative position that should allow you to react and respond to a number of different moves and still get beaten. Every company has to decide what strategic framework to employ and architect the enterprise, its processes and infrastructure consistent with the plan they derive from it. A valid strategy that has existed for some time is 'second mover,' in which a company validates the viability of a new (possibly even disruptive) technology before employing it, themselves. Failures in some percent new technology-enabled business models are guaranteed and sometimes, waiting for a little maturity can put later adopters on a preferable learning and cost curve.
Building a set of digital capabilities is the preparatory steps in Digital Strategy Management: There may be many elements of digital infrastructure that are foundational to almost any foreseeable digital strategy so implementing them could be viewed as a valid preparatory first step in readiness for a strategic opportunity when it is recognized. Maybe you have identified a characteristic of disruption--a discontinuity between the operational processes that can be supported with the existing structure and architecture and new ones are required to adapt to the changes. 'Digital infrastructure,' whether this might, for example, include establishing a data analytics capability or change/innovation ability, in any case to monitor or seek disruptive opportunities requires something more like a digital capability than infrastructure only.
Embed the startup culture to accelerate innovation: For an existing organization to successfully progress almost any kind of discontinuous, or indeed truly innovative strategy, it somehow needs to embed a start-up culture. This can and has been achieved by establishing a kind of parallel organization within the organization that is able to field and move new ideas forward rapidly without the kind of psychological and process barriers. The corollary perhaps is that without such a mechanism, 'digital strategy' typically ends-up as business as usual, IT related evolution with a fancy new title.
IT's a balancing act. It always was and always will be. IT is a significant component of core business capabilities. Building flexibility, agility, sustainability and performance into applications and systems infrastructure is expensive. Building reusability into components is, likewise, expensive. The offsetting benefits for these incremental investments come only when planned-for scenarios are realized and the capabilities in which you invested get you to a desirable state more quickly, at lower cost and with less disruption than you might have otherwise. If the world doesn't cooperate or you've missed the boat on events, you may have made an unnecessarily large investment and get nothing in return.
Digital Strategy Management is an iterative continuum, managers need to have admirable core strengths and highly effective people skills to lead, influence and empower others. It is not only about how much they know, but it is also about what they can and do that really matters. Therefore, setting the right priority and delegation is very important to improve management effectiveness and ensure first doing right things, and then doing things right.
Digital Master Featured URLs:Digital Master Author Home PageDigital Master on Future of CIO BlogDigital Master at FlipboardDigital Master at TwitterDigital Master on LinkedinGoodreads Author’s Home PageDigital Master Introduction, Fun Quiz on SlideshareDigital Master Introduction on YoutubeDigital Master Online Order Links:
Digital Master on AmazonDigital Master on B&NDigital Master on Apple iTunesDigital Master on LuLuDigital Master on Google BooksDigital Master on KOBODigital Master on FeedbooksDigital Master on BOL
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Digital strategy is a type of business strategy, enabled by information science and technology, so once that is understood, it is always going to be driven top down, especially for a large enterprise. The key question is how much to anticipate disruptive digital business strategy by investing in information technology without either constraining the thinking or ability to pivot, which investment will tend to do, or wasting that investment when the game changes. And what are important success factors in managing digital strategy more effectively?
C-levels has to lead the effort by convincing the shareholders and management team about the core direction. Once this is done, it will be easier for functional leaders to define the sub-strategy and plan the implementation. The psychological and organizational factors that get in the way of understanding that critical dimension of true 'digital strategy' is about disrupting the conventional ways of creating value within established markets. So rather than how do we use information related science and technology to 'organically' make things better, 'digital strategic' thinking is more about the big 'WHY' about digital transformation, how do we use it to change the game!
An emergent digital strategy has to incorporate disruption. The focus is on why companies focus on evolution (perhaps, digitally-enabled extensions of existing operational capabilities) vs. disruption (tear up the road map.) It's tough to plan for disruption because what's disruptive is inherently unexpected. It's very much like positioning yourself for playing a game. You can get caught playing for one move when your opponent makes a different one. Alternatively, you can choose a conservative position that should allow you to react and respond to a number of different moves and still get beaten. Every company has to decide what strategic framework to employ and architect the enterprise, its processes and infrastructure consistent with the plan they derive from it. A valid strategy that has existed for some time is 'second mover,' in which a company validates the viability of a new (possibly even disruptive) technology before employing it, themselves. Failures in some percent new technology-enabled business models are guaranteed and sometimes, waiting for a little maturity can put later adopters on a preferable learning and cost curve.
Building a set of digital capabilities is the preparatory steps in Digital Strategy Management: There may be many elements of digital infrastructure that are foundational to almost any foreseeable digital strategy so implementing them could be viewed as a valid preparatory first step in readiness for a strategic opportunity when it is recognized. Maybe you have identified a characteristic of disruption--a discontinuity between the operational processes that can be supported with the existing structure and architecture and new ones are required to adapt to the changes. 'Digital infrastructure,' whether this might, for example, include establishing a data analytics capability or change/innovation ability, in any case to monitor or seek disruptive opportunities requires something more like a digital capability than infrastructure only.
Embed the startup culture to accelerate innovation: For an existing organization to successfully progress almost any kind of discontinuous, or indeed truly innovative strategy, it somehow needs to embed a start-up culture. This can and has been achieved by establishing a kind of parallel organization within the organization that is able to field and move new ideas forward rapidly without the kind of psychological and process barriers. The corollary perhaps is that without such a mechanism, 'digital strategy' typically ends-up as business as usual, IT related evolution with a fancy new title.
IT's a balancing act. It always was and always will be. IT is a significant component of core business capabilities. Building flexibility, agility, sustainability and performance into applications and systems infrastructure is expensive. Building reusability into components is, likewise, expensive. The offsetting benefits for these incremental investments come only when planned-for scenarios are realized and the capabilities in which you invested get you to a desirable state more quickly, at lower cost and with less disruption than you might have otherwise. If the world doesn't cooperate or you've missed the boat on events, you may have made an unnecessarily large investment and get nothing in return.
Digital Strategy Management is an iterative continuum, managers need to have admirable core strengths and highly effective people skills to lead, influence and empower others. It is not only about how much they know, but it is also about what they can and do that really matters. Therefore, setting the right priority and delegation is very important to improve management effectiveness and ensure first doing right things, and then doing things right.
Digital Master Featured URLs:Digital Master Author Home PageDigital Master on Future of CIO BlogDigital Master at FlipboardDigital Master at TwitterDigital Master on LinkedinGoodreads Author’s Home PageDigital Master Introduction, Fun Quiz on SlideshareDigital Master Introduction on YoutubeDigital Master Online Order Links:
Digital Master on AmazonDigital Master on B&NDigital Master on Apple iTunesDigital Master on LuLuDigital Master on Google BooksDigital Master on KOBODigital Master on FeedbooksDigital Master on BOL
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
October 27, 2015
Three Aspects in Innovation Management
Innovation must have an end result. It starts from managing business goals transparently together with innovation.
Innovation Management is an important pillar of strategy management. With today's emphasis on innovation per se and its importance to corporate survival, perhaps innovation is so important that the semantic should be recognized as such. So how to identify the gaps and manage it seamlessly?Are there truly bad or wrong ideas? Or merely poorly executed ones? Can we unilaterally pick "winning ideas" or is that subject to interpretation and ultimately implementation/execution? Gaming as it applies to innovation is intriguing -- to truly have the impact it MUST capture both the fuzzy front end and the strategic back end of innovation, what are the further aspects of Innovation Management?Innovation ecosystem and governance are very important. It is a common knowledge, that innovation management requires the highest risk taking at a strategic value chain; including organization, investments, and assets. Create a disciplined, managed space for developing and testing new models, products, and business approaches, shielding innovation teams from the organization’s dominant logic and established standard operating procedures, which can stifle new thinking and approaches. It’s also important to highlight the benefits of "interaction." Innovation is a non-linear process much akin to evolution. Seeing innovation as a complex adaptive system one can easily see the value of placing ideas into an environment of interaction/ collaboration where they can be tested and are have the opportunity to evolve.
Close three gaps in innovation management: idea gaps, collaboration gaps, and implementation gaps. This differentiation helps delineate the problems and opportunities for innovation. Build a heterogeneous team with a diversity of thoughts is the best way to close idea gaps; modern technology has made collaboration increasingly easy and seamless. The gap between collaboration and innovation is a big issue, especially in the booming world of collaboration software. Even after implementing a company-wide social collaboration platform, it hardly never affects to your innovation development directly, true collaboration doesn't happen as often as we'd like and people are sometimes afraid of letting go regarding of their title or whatever... It is also more difficult to just create human contact when the teams spread globally and/or if sharing values are still poor due to organization belonging importance. What also vexes most companies (and "innovators") is an implementation (commercialization of new ideas). That is why most innovation initiatives fail. People need to learn how to incubate and commercialize ideas more successfully. And in today's go-to-market business environment - the art of commercialization is becoming increasingly complex.
Innovative organizations have deployed a range of different management, technology, process, and structural solutions:• Earlier commercial involvement in project decision making, in an effort to enhance focus on commercially relevant compounds• More rigorous procedures for portfolio management and more stringent criteria for the adoption of new projects• Clearer guidelines for the handover from discovery to development, and for the integration of basic laboratory research with clinical trials and other applied research• More sophisticated and comprehensive incentive and reward structures• New structures that enable more external partnerships for discovery and the outsourcing of “non-core” activities
Innovation must have an end result. It starts from managing business goals transparently together with innovation. If social collaboration, innovation management, and development processes are driven with clear strategic goals, the risks are easier to manage. This also enables co-creative processes not only to innovation but to business development overall. Achieving the above objectives requires a contracted process with clear stages, performance thresholds, and decision-making parameters combined with an iterative, experiential learning process that supports wide-ranging exploration at each stage.
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Leadership Training: Is It Worth the Effort
Attitude and culture shift first, tools and techniques training then delivers more.
Leadership is a life-long learning journey. That learning comes in many forms, classrooms, study, service work in the field, moments of triumph and life experience. It is spiritual, intellectual, and mostly in the trenches. It is a cognitive, cultural, behavioral, and systemic issue as to why we are not getting the impact we need. Obviously if companies don't do ROI beforehand this development training just becomes a 'nice to have' rather than a 'business need.' Overall speaking, is leadership training worth the effort?Leadership is both nature and nurtured. Leadership is a diamond to be found in coal...not in a lab, the leadership landscape is littered with ineffective training programs. Leadership development must be integrated into the regular talent development scheme that is on-going and deep. True, the applicability of the competencies needs to be connected to business goals. That makes the competencies real to the participants. In addition, most leaders need remedial work on what makes people tick. Leadership is neither a franchise to be sold as a package, nor a skill set but a complex mix of a growth mindset, innate capabilities, finely tuned communication and strategy skills, and vision of purpose...and, of course, a purpose worth following. Leadership training programs begin with an inner fire and a passion for navigating life. Begin from the inside out and be completely honest about your fears, weaknesses, misgivings and shortcomings. Do everything you can to build up your courage, wherewithal and confidence from the inside out. Do not expect the external world to solve your problems. Abandon all sense of ego, arrogance and entitlement. At that point, you will be ready. A leader is just as likely to bring unwanted change to an organization as they are likely to bring wanted change. Leaders are not controlled by command structure or corporate organizational boundaries. What companies also need are highly skilled (hard and soft skills) managers who buy into the culture and purpose of the organization. o if there is no clear linkage between leadership development and achieving real work outcomes then it’s hard to find time for your own development.
Leadership development training has its place in introducing leadership theories that can provide a framework to the skills a leader wants to develop. Skills themselves are going to be highly personal depending on the leader and are best learned through continual practice. Most leadership initiatives are a waste because most of Leadership Programs are not well-developed and highly effective. There is a great opportunity for leadership development to understand their business better, consult better and design better holistic and journey based solutions reinforced by other company systems and processes. Often organizations rely too heavily on the sporadic one-day training to develop and equip managers and directors and leaders. Everyone is different - so the 'classroom' alone is not enough to make lasting changes and get a good RoI. But will the coaching after the training individualized application is possible and highly beneficial. We need to create a business environment that allows for mentorship and mistakes to truly groom great business leaders. It is about leader training (enhancing human capital) rather than leadership training (enhancing social capital). Although in both cases abstract conceptualisation through training is not a waste of time if you engage in the active experiential bit and the reflective bit as well. For individuals with a strong preference towards theoretical learning styles then the course aspect will hold more value.
Attitude and culture shift first, tools and techniques training then delivers more. Authenticity and candor are fundamental in a trainer being effective. Companies throw people into training, giving the trainers the mandate to "fix them." That's where one of the major flaws hides - the top of the organization needs improvement most. Without upper management practicing the tenets of effective leadership. To encourage the development of a corporate leadership or a cultural model you need to work on communication. Training is important, but the creation of a collective image in which people can aggregate their mind is the essential key to success. Leadership training helps tremendously if you are lucky enough to be a part of a mentorship program designed to craft you into a competent leader. Leadership means work! No real, genuine work and experience living in the trenches yields no admiration and no willingness to follow. Ultimately, leadership is a humbling experience. What we have learned from neuroscience is powerful as it helps give understanding to the process of making real changes in patterns of behavior. Developing a new neural pathway in the brain takes time, awareness, and a skilled professional to help you become aware of when the behavior is still in charge. Emotional regulation begins with self-awareness and an intention to change. Overall, the trigger for the behavior can vary which makes it difficult to catch, this is why some of the training doesn't "stick" long after the program.
Leadership development is about change. Saying that one approach is the only solution is no longer the pathway forward. Hence, leadership training approaches need to be vertical and developmental moving forward ... not horizontal and behavioral like the old days. We need to train the culture we want to cultivate and we need to train management skills. Saying that leadership training is a huge waste is like saying that going to school is a huge waste since anyways you are going to learn more in the job. Training isn't going to make you, but it will certainly help you to be more knowledgeable, and think about what you are currently doing. In essence, Leaders need to engage their people so that this improves company performance and everyone knows that they have an impact/stake in the business in making it grow. This also comes out of ensuring that any type of leadership program is based on sound vision and values which lead ultimately into the business overall mission, integrated into talent management practices. This then will impact the bottom line profitability and sustainability.
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Is Uncertainty Problem or Opportunity
When business is for people uncertainty is an opportunity, when people are for business it’s a problem.
Uncertainty and ambiguity are a key challenge for business leaders today. In the past, many business leaders believed their organizations’ long-term goals could wait until they had dealt with the current crisis. In the current business environment with “VUCA” characteristics, this is no longer the case. The rate of change has accelerated, indicating that business leaders must learn how to strike a balance between managing complex issues today and predicting the uncertain issues of tomorrow. So is uncertainty the biggest problem in business today? And is it affecting business in setting long-term strategies and are forced to concentrate on short term goals? And further questions include - how can the soft signals of contextual changes be best determined? How do you structure information systems to deal with uncertainty - note era of Big Data and cognitive analytics?
When business is for people uncertainty is an opportunity, when people are for business it’s a problem. This is where the mission of the business at the core is tested, how much the team is aligned to the mission is tested. Uncertainty could be an opportunity enabling to foresee possibilities and probabilities that might crop in our way of progress. As we all know the only "Certainty" or a "Constant" is "CHANGE." Business is only an extended part of our life and all businesses have to accept change to survive. Strategic planning is paramount but, in these uncertain times, this should go hand in hand with contingency planning around “what if” scenarios. Uncertainty is only certain and the best opportunity in business or any field. If there is no uncertainty then there will be a monopoly, in fact, anarchy. Uncertainty per se is not a problem, it poses a risk for those who have a fixed mindset and creates opportunities for those with a growth mindset. We can not predict anything beforehand but can imagine with many experiences involved in current or in the past. As uncertainties are a common occurrence in any walk of our progress, be it social, professional or personal life. We can make provision to meet any eventuality.
The way to effectively deal with uncertainty is to reduce it by getting information. Yes, the challenges, competition & complexities may be in on the increase but along with it there comes the increase in opportunity too and in the form of demand. Every day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created. The ability of companies to consume and make sense of the information that is available (and necessary) to make good decisions is becoming a nearly insurmountable challenge. The problem to be solved is to deal with this mountain of information with both technology and human know-how, then to convert this information into valuable knowledge in handling business uncertainty more effectively. That is why good strategic planning is based on good information about the customers, competition, internal capabilities, and costs. While there is always some remaining uncertainty, reducing the uncertainty, particularly if one broadly involves the organization, leads to better decisions / strategic plans and better implementation. This does not ensure success, but it does raise the probability of success. If uncertainty is the biggest problem for a company and it keeps them from running a business productively they should not be in business. There is no guarantee of success in business. Without a positive proactive approach, there is no positive result.
Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are useful and relevant to the organization – whether that’s the number of new customers acquired in a month, units sold, phone calls made, the number of web visitors or any other measure. Monitoring KPIs on a regular basis should ensure an accurate picture of what’s happening in the business as well as giving you the chance to be flexible and make changes based on real information rather than assumption. Monitoring KPIs will enable the business to spot an opportunity or downturn and take action accordingly. Strategic planning, KPIs are all lagging indicators. In the current dynamic world, real time data (leading indicators) and empowered employees who can respond to challenges are key to success and not some central Head Office Strategy making.
Uncertainty in the business or in any situation is a smoke cover for the opportunist to take the risk to advance in the direction of the goal. The business starts with simple values and when it starts growing, to maintain their standards and brand image etc., etc., they float with time and money leaving behind their value systems and they don't maintain the same simplicity. They forget long term planning, so when business people focus only on business and keep anticipating about future hurdles or complications then they need to worry even in uncertainties. The business plans should be long term. For most of organizations, we still do have contexts of relative certainty, while simultaneously having contexts reflecting both complexity and chaos. Each of these contexts requires a different management approach. The traditional scientific management theory still assumes relevance in contexts of predictability, yet complexity theory would appear to be more effective for dealing with emergence and uncertainty. A problem is often the lack of management understanding of how to apply complex adaptive systems theory in contexts of unpredictability. History has evidence of this.
Life is uncertain. We still have to get up every day and make the best of it. We plan for gloom we get gloom. Reach for the stars and fly. The business leaders and their team cannot afford to be unprepared for the challenging task of facing an uncertainty. The problem is not uncertainty rather it is unpreparedness towards the efficient handling of uncertainty. The task of business is to deal with the uncertainty while moving forward. The greatest indicator of success in the era of social technology will be an open mind control that let you go at the right time, the right place, in the right doses. Who leads the organizations must find within him/herself the emotional stability and greater safety because an open and global leadership first requires discipline, structure, constant effort. The uncertainty will be the new normality and the leader must act with speed but quietly, he/she will need stability, must be safe and aware of itself. The leader of the future is no longer the charismatic prophet capable of seducing the masses, but scientific guidance for individuals. Science has created the world where individuals play the role that was once entrusted to the community. For the leadership of the future is not enough natural talent. He/she must become aware of its own resources, to achieve behavioral strategies effectively and have a path of personal and professional improvement, a great preparation, vision, intuition, perseverance and the ability to work hard.
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Uncertainty and ambiguity are a key challenge for business leaders today. In the past, many business leaders believed their organizations’ long-term goals could wait until they had dealt with the current crisis. In the current business environment with “VUCA” characteristics, this is no longer the case. The rate of change has accelerated, indicating that business leaders must learn how to strike a balance between managing complex issues today and predicting the uncertain issues of tomorrow. So is uncertainty the biggest problem in business today? And is it affecting business in setting long-term strategies and are forced to concentrate on short term goals? And further questions include - how can the soft signals of contextual changes be best determined? How do you structure information systems to deal with uncertainty - note era of Big Data and cognitive analytics?When business is for people uncertainty is an opportunity, when people are for business it’s a problem. This is where the mission of the business at the core is tested, how much the team is aligned to the mission is tested. Uncertainty could be an opportunity enabling to foresee possibilities and probabilities that might crop in our way of progress. As we all know the only "Certainty" or a "Constant" is "CHANGE." Business is only an extended part of our life and all businesses have to accept change to survive. Strategic planning is paramount but, in these uncertain times, this should go hand in hand with contingency planning around “what if” scenarios. Uncertainty is only certain and the best opportunity in business or any field. If there is no uncertainty then there will be a monopoly, in fact, anarchy. Uncertainty per se is not a problem, it poses a risk for those who have a fixed mindset and creates opportunities for those with a growth mindset. We can not predict anything beforehand but can imagine with many experiences involved in current or in the past. As uncertainties are a common occurrence in any walk of our progress, be it social, professional or personal life. We can make provision to meet any eventuality.
The way to effectively deal with uncertainty is to reduce it by getting information. Yes, the challenges, competition & complexities may be in on the increase but along with it there comes the increase in opportunity too and in the form of demand. Every day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created. The ability of companies to consume and make sense of the information that is available (and necessary) to make good decisions is becoming a nearly insurmountable challenge. The problem to be solved is to deal with this mountain of information with both technology and human know-how, then to convert this information into valuable knowledge in handling business uncertainty more effectively. That is why good strategic planning is based on good information about the customers, competition, internal capabilities, and costs. While there is always some remaining uncertainty, reducing the uncertainty, particularly if one broadly involves the organization, leads to better decisions / strategic plans and better implementation. This does not ensure success, but it does raise the probability of success. If uncertainty is the biggest problem for a company and it keeps them from running a business productively they should not be in business. There is no guarantee of success in business. Without a positive proactive approach, there is no positive result.
Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are useful and relevant to the organization – whether that’s the number of new customers acquired in a month, units sold, phone calls made, the number of web visitors or any other measure. Monitoring KPIs on a regular basis should ensure an accurate picture of what’s happening in the business as well as giving you the chance to be flexible and make changes based on real information rather than assumption. Monitoring KPIs will enable the business to spot an opportunity or downturn and take action accordingly. Strategic planning, KPIs are all lagging indicators. In the current dynamic world, real time data (leading indicators) and empowered employees who can respond to challenges are key to success and not some central Head Office Strategy making.
Uncertainty in the business or in any situation is a smoke cover for the opportunist to take the risk to advance in the direction of the goal. The business starts with simple values and when it starts growing, to maintain their standards and brand image etc., etc., they float with time and money leaving behind their value systems and they don't maintain the same simplicity. They forget long term planning, so when business people focus only on business and keep anticipating about future hurdles or complications then they need to worry even in uncertainties. The business plans should be long term. For most of organizations, we still do have contexts of relative certainty, while simultaneously having contexts reflecting both complexity and chaos. Each of these contexts requires a different management approach. The traditional scientific management theory still assumes relevance in contexts of predictability, yet complexity theory would appear to be more effective for dealing with emergence and uncertainty. A problem is often the lack of management understanding of how to apply complex adaptive systems theory in contexts of unpredictability. History has evidence of this.
Life is uncertain. We still have to get up every day and make the best of it. We plan for gloom we get gloom. Reach for the stars and fly. The business leaders and their team cannot afford to be unprepared for the challenging task of facing an uncertainty. The problem is not uncertainty rather it is unpreparedness towards the efficient handling of uncertainty. The task of business is to deal with the uncertainty while moving forward. The greatest indicator of success in the era of social technology will be an open mind control that let you go at the right time, the right place, in the right doses. Who leads the organizations must find within him/herself the emotional stability and greater safety because an open and global leadership first requires discipline, structure, constant effort. The uncertainty will be the new normality and the leader must act with speed but quietly, he/she will need stability, must be safe and aware of itself. The leader of the future is no longer the charismatic prophet capable of seducing the masses, but scientific guidance for individuals. Science has created the world where individuals play the role that was once entrusted to the community. For the leadership of the future is not enough natural talent. He/she must become aware of its own resources, to achieve behavioral strategies effectively and have a path of personal and professional improvement, a great preparation, vision, intuition, perseverance and the ability to work hard.
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