Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1393
October 26, 2015
What Do Positive Policies Look Like?
What do positive policies look like in action- they look like making the right things easy to do by everyone and the wrong things hard to do by everyone.
Generally speaking, the policy is a set of principles for decision making or guidelines to drive behaviors. A policy is implemented via a protocol, process or practice, etc. When having positive policies, what do they look like, and how do they affect organizational performance and maturity?
Policies need to serve a purpose. Just because a policy exists, doesn't mean they will be effective or followed - that takes leadership and commitment. There are some organizations out there that have a plethora of policies and many of them are nothing more than that, just a policy. Stagnant documents filling a binder or a folder on a hard drive do not assist the organization in moving forward. Organizations need to do what their policies say or have the policies say what they do. If not, then the policy is more than likely not needed.
We do need to not just develop positive policies and align actions and attitudes with them. Policies are communication from the top. Owners and Management need to take responsibility and take their leadership position seriously with the educated intention or step into the background out of leadership roles. The sticking point is "not focus on energy on those that don't fit"? Avoid the misleading simplistic view of corporate culture. It is much more complex than that and problems with culture are driven by many more things than any human "Host." The other sticking point is the misinformation that the problems of the organization are because of one person or one department and if we just surgically remove or extract that culture-killing virus, the organization will be cured and everybody can just go back to normal/status quo. But often the problems that catch our attention in organizations are symptoms of a deeper problem, so just treating the symptom doesn't get to the root cause of the problem.
Culture is the policy. We have to shift gears and mindsets to see the culture of an organization as a collective whole living breathing, a human system composed of uniquely diverse people who have much to offer to grow and develop the culture and the organization. If leaders, do not care about positively growing and developing the people within the organization and act in alignment with that, then no amount of writing positive policies will cure the culture; and the organization will continue to be unhealthy. Band-aids/quick fixes never cure a virus. The cure comes from within the people/ organization- the collective whole, whether individual or a group that we want to change from how they are working by appreciating the right things they are doing and during any discussion maintain the self-respect of the individual and their opinions irrespective of how much we disagree with it. Instead, ask how it will serve the purpose that we are trying to serve. By focusing on the issue instead of the individual, we become a team, an ally to solve a problem. And focus more on the right people and not to waste energy on the wrong people who are contaminating and polluting the true culture. In other words, along with containing/eliminating the virus, our major focus should be more on the health promoters.
What do positive policies look like in action- they look like making the right things easy to do by everyone and the wrong things hard to do by everyone because everyone is on the same playing field despite differences in roles/job titles and such. The policies when based on the purpose of what value the organization delivers to the customers and supported by appropriate systems, technologies and support to the people, it thrives.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Generally speaking, the policy is a set of principles for decision making or guidelines to drive behaviors. A policy is implemented via a protocol, process or practice, etc. When having positive policies, what do they look like, and how do they affect organizational performance and maturity?
Policies need to serve a purpose. Just because a policy exists, doesn't mean they will be effective or followed - that takes leadership and commitment. There are some organizations out there that have a plethora of policies and many of them are nothing more than that, just a policy. Stagnant documents filling a binder or a folder on a hard drive do not assist the organization in moving forward. Organizations need to do what their policies say or have the policies say what they do. If not, then the policy is more than likely not needed.
We do need to not just develop positive policies and align actions and attitudes with them. Policies are communication from the top. Owners and Management need to take responsibility and take their leadership position seriously with the educated intention or step into the background out of leadership roles. The sticking point is "not focus on energy on those that don't fit"? Avoid the misleading simplistic view of corporate culture. It is much more complex than that and problems with culture are driven by many more things than any human "Host." The other sticking point is the misinformation that the problems of the organization are because of one person or one department and if we just surgically remove or extract that culture-killing virus, the organization will be cured and everybody can just go back to normal/status quo. But often the problems that catch our attention in organizations are symptoms of a deeper problem, so just treating the symptom doesn't get to the root cause of the problem.
Culture is the policy. We have to shift gears and mindsets to see the culture of an organization as a collective whole living breathing, a human system composed of uniquely diverse people who have much to offer to grow and develop the culture and the organization. If leaders, do not care about positively growing and developing the people within the organization and act in alignment with that, then no amount of writing positive policies will cure the culture; and the organization will continue to be unhealthy. Band-aids/quick fixes never cure a virus. The cure comes from within the people/ organization- the collective whole, whether individual or a group that we want to change from how they are working by appreciating the right things they are doing and during any discussion maintain the self-respect of the individual and their opinions irrespective of how much we disagree with it. Instead, ask how it will serve the purpose that we are trying to serve. By focusing on the issue instead of the individual, we become a team, an ally to solve a problem. And focus more on the right people and not to waste energy on the wrong people who are contaminating and polluting the true culture. In other words, along with containing/eliminating the virus, our major focus should be more on the health promoters.
What do positive policies look like in action- they look like making the right things easy to do by everyone and the wrong things hard to do by everyone because everyone is on the same playing field despite differences in roles/job titles and such. The policies when based on the purpose of what value the organization delivers to the customers and supported by appropriate systems, technologies and support to the people, it thrives.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Can you “Move out of your Comfort Zone”
It takes courage, motivation, discipline and persistence to get out of comfort zone.
Change is the new normal. Change is situational. It happens when something starts or stops, or when something that used to happen in one way starts happening in another. But acceptance of change is transitional, and “moving out of your comfort zone" can be used in all levels and as a starting point for change. It might sound like a cliche, the trick is understanding that moving out of a comfort zone leads to the creation of a new comfort zone which in turn will require you to move out "of" it again. This continuous moving "out" of your comfort zone is complemented by the cycle of self-development. There is a classic fable about a lion and a gazelle to analogize such a "surviving and thriving cycles": The lion wakes up and starts running otherwise it will not catch lunch. The gazelle does the same but, in this case, to avoid becoming lunch. Either way, you have to move to survive. This principle can be applied in a physical sense as well. The human body is designed for motion and physical effort.
The most general term used in science that identifies circumstances when resistance occurs is inertia. It applies to both matter and energy everywhere in terms of movement. Resistance only - and always - manifests when the state of inertia changes. So replacing resistance with inertia helps talk about change with far less emotional contamination, including placing covert “blame.” It's more the natural way things work. In science, resistance takes different forms based on what is affected. For solid objects, it is usually friction or external force. For electricity, it is ohms. In deliberate social matters, there is always some response to shifting in the inertial state as well, but it is not always direct resistance. What people “resist” or favor or foster or encourage is based on values we hold. What is better or worse is – barring physical threat from others – can be viewed as progress or regression. Progress is a concept that is not only conceived by humans, it applies only to outcomes of human (or human attribution about) behavior. The same “change” may be lauded by some and vilified by others based on how similar and deep the values they hold are.
A highly diverse groups almost always accelerates innovation dramatically as well as spurs general creativity. Variance by personality, function, industry experience, role and audience (customers, suppliers, resellers/retailers, regulators, insurers and the like) allow for superior need discovery, ranking and business model creation, assessment, and validation. Managers are taught to manage process and resources effectively. Often conflicting goals within the organization, for example, increase resources to accomplish goals, yet cutting costs to remain viable. A very simple way initially to improve innovation in almost any organization is to simply broaden the audience, and it's diversity for solving challenges. That's something anyone can do except in the most dysfunctional of organizations. The fact is that people's belief system on a subconscious level is slowly "adjust" to a new set of rules rather than the conscious level. In any case, behavioral change in organizations happens on a group level and a person's "resistance" is just the symptom of an "organizational allergy" to the loss of the previously set operational equilibrium. Most of the time, in fact even while advocating change, management are the custodians - indeed the strong defenders of - the status quo. Even while advocating (certain limited) change, the reins are held tight. Is it any wonder people are resistant?
Delivering a change management training to a large group of people increases the group's ability to get through the denial and resistance phases easier. People exposed to change undergo several psychological stages by which they come to terms with the new situation. Although the original model of transitions was based on five stages of grief, people exposed to change undergo similar stages. When faced with change, we all go through the phases - denial, resistance, exploration. and acceptance. So it is important to try to find ways to make people feel involved in the design and implementation of the change.Change requires the management of people’s anxiety and confusion or conversely their excitement and engagement. These are emotions most managers try to deal with or address. Managing the change process and transition emotions is fundamental to the success of a change-oriented project. Many people are inherently cynical about change, many doubt there are effective means to accomplish major organizational change.
The model has evolved into a change management tool with one popular version consisting of different phases of individual transition. Managing Transition. Identify who’s losing what, and discuss it openly. Organizational change often goes against the very values held dear by people. Resistance is a natural defense mechanism for those losing something. Accept the reality and importance of subjective losses; acknowledge the pain people will go through, openly and sympathetically. Don’t be surprised about overreaction take it in your step. Expect and accept the signs of grieving. Compensate for the losses by showing staff the benefits of the future. Give people information and do it again and again and again and again. Define what’s over and what isn’t. Mark the endings; make sure there are actions or activities that dramatize the processes, systems, cultures and that reflected the old ways. Let people take a piece of the old way with them; endings occur more easily if the people can take a bit of an old way with them. Show how endings consist of what really matters. What must end.
Applying visualization techniques for folks that resist change; That usually helps. if the person in question is resisting change you have to change his/her frame of vision. The sailboat analogy is a popular one: The ship is the company, the sea is the environment, the old world is the past, and the New World is the future. The ship or the company must get to the New World to grow. The only way to get there is to be a proponent of change. If you want the boat goes toward the right direction, you must adjust your sails with the direction of the wind get you to the New World. You don't have any choices but to change your sails to move forward; You cannot go back to the old world as it is the ship going to the New World and the only way to get there is by using change techniques. If the ship remains idle, then the boat or the company stagnates. If you stagnate you don't grow and your company don't grow. For this growth to happen the whole team must ALL be on board. Change has to be anchored in and set in movement by ALL parties. The only way out would be to jump off the ship because change is happening no matter what. The art of sailing depends on knowing how to manage the wind. When very fortunate the wind is blowing in the direction you want to go. For a longer voyage, the likelihood of this happening is 1/360 of the time. The worst condition is if the wind is blowing 180 degrees opposite your intended destination. In this and all other situations, navigational skill is required.
It takes courage, motivation, discipline and persistence to get out of comfort zone, so humanize change management and remind leaders that the people they are trying to change have hearts and minds, doubts and fears - you have to bring it back to the fact that resistance to change has root causes in fear driven by evolutions. When someone is resisting change, it is usually because one or more of the elements is missing for them. Look at the issues from their perspective. Gaining their buy-in to the change, switch the conversation to goals- innovation, excellence flexibility, responsiveness etc. and use analytics to support change and manage transformation.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Change is the new normal. Change is situational. It happens when something starts or stops, or when something that used to happen in one way starts happening in another. But acceptance of change is transitional, and “moving out of your comfort zone" can be used in all levels and as a starting point for change. It might sound like a cliche, the trick is understanding that moving out of a comfort zone leads to the creation of a new comfort zone which in turn will require you to move out "of" it again. This continuous moving "out" of your comfort zone is complemented by the cycle of self-development. There is a classic fable about a lion and a gazelle to analogize such a "surviving and thriving cycles": The lion wakes up and starts running otherwise it will not catch lunch. The gazelle does the same but, in this case, to avoid becoming lunch. Either way, you have to move to survive. This principle can be applied in a physical sense as well. The human body is designed for motion and physical effort.
The most general term used in science that identifies circumstances when resistance occurs is inertia. It applies to both matter and energy everywhere in terms of movement. Resistance only - and always - manifests when the state of inertia changes. So replacing resistance with inertia helps talk about change with far less emotional contamination, including placing covert “blame.” It's more the natural way things work. In science, resistance takes different forms based on what is affected. For solid objects, it is usually friction or external force. For electricity, it is ohms. In deliberate social matters, there is always some response to shifting in the inertial state as well, but it is not always direct resistance. What people “resist” or favor or foster or encourage is based on values we hold. What is better or worse is – barring physical threat from others – can be viewed as progress or regression. Progress is a concept that is not only conceived by humans, it applies only to outcomes of human (or human attribution about) behavior. The same “change” may be lauded by some and vilified by others based on how similar and deep the values they hold are.
A highly diverse groups almost always accelerates innovation dramatically as well as spurs general creativity. Variance by personality, function, industry experience, role and audience (customers, suppliers, resellers/retailers, regulators, insurers and the like) allow for superior need discovery, ranking and business model creation, assessment, and validation. Managers are taught to manage process and resources effectively. Often conflicting goals within the organization, for example, increase resources to accomplish goals, yet cutting costs to remain viable. A very simple way initially to improve innovation in almost any organization is to simply broaden the audience, and it's diversity for solving challenges. That's something anyone can do except in the most dysfunctional of organizations. The fact is that people's belief system on a subconscious level is slowly "adjust" to a new set of rules rather than the conscious level. In any case, behavioral change in organizations happens on a group level and a person's "resistance" is just the symptom of an "organizational allergy" to the loss of the previously set operational equilibrium. Most of the time, in fact even while advocating change, management are the custodians - indeed the strong defenders of - the status quo. Even while advocating (certain limited) change, the reins are held tight. Is it any wonder people are resistant?
Delivering a change management training to a large group of people increases the group's ability to get through the denial and resistance phases easier. People exposed to change undergo several psychological stages by which they come to terms with the new situation. Although the original model of transitions was based on five stages of grief, people exposed to change undergo similar stages. When faced with change, we all go through the phases - denial, resistance, exploration. and acceptance. So it is important to try to find ways to make people feel involved in the design and implementation of the change.Change requires the management of people’s anxiety and confusion or conversely their excitement and engagement. These are emotions most managers try to deal with or address. Managing the change process and transition emotions is fundamental to the success of a change-oriented project. Many people are inherently cynical about change, many doubt there are effective means to accomplish major organizational change.
The model has evolved into a change management tool with one popular version consisting of different phases of individual transition. Managing Transition. Identify who’s losing what, and discuss it openly. Organizational change often goes against the very values held dear by people. Resistance is a natural defense mechanism for those losing something. Accept the reality and importance of subjective losses; acknowledge the pain people will go through, openly and sympathetically. Don’t be surprised about overreaction take it in your step. Expect and accept the signs of grieving. Compensate for the losses by showing staff the benefits of the future. Give people information and do it again and again and again and again. Define what’s over and what isn’t. Mark the endings; make sure there are actions or activities that dramatize the processes, systems, cultures and that reflected the old ways. Let people take a piece of the old way with them; endings occur more easily if the people can take a bit of an old way with them. Show how endings consist of what really matters. What must end.
Applying visualization techniques for folks that resist change; That usually helps. if the person in question is resisting change you have to change his/her frame of vision. The sailboat analogy is a popular one: The ship is the company, the sea is the environment, the old world is the past, and the New World is the future. The ship or the company must get to the New World to grow. The only way to get there is to be a proponent of change. If you want the boat goes toward the right direction, you must adjust your sails with the direction of the wind get you to the New World. You don't have any choices but to change your sails to move forward; You cannot go back to the old world as it is the ship going to the New World and the only way to get there is by using change techniques. If the ship remains idle, then the boat or the company stagnates. If you stagnate you don't grow and your company don't grow. For this growth to happen the whole team must ALL be on board. Change has to be anchored in and set in movement by ALL parties. The only way out would be to jump off the ship because change is happening no matter what. The art of sailing depends on knowing how to manage the wind. When very fortunate the wind is blowing in the direction you want to go. For a longer voyage, the likelihood of this happening is 1/360 of the time. The worst condition is if the wind is blowing 180 degrees opposite your intended destination. In this and all other situations, navigational skill is required.
It takes courage, motivation, discipline and persistence to get out of comfort zone, so humanize change management and remind leaders that the people they are trying to change have hearts and minds, doubts and fears - you have to bring it back to the fact that resistance to change has root causes in fear driven by evolutions. When someone is resisting change, it is usually because one or more of the elements is missing for them. Look at the issues from their perspective. Gaining their buy-in to the change, switch the conversation to goals- innovation, excellence flexibility, responsiveness etc. and use analytics to support change and manage transformation.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Three “V’s in Running a Digital IT
Digital IT is becoming more visible and transforming from a back-office cost center to a front office innovation engine.
IT provides competitive leverage to business’ long term growth: Because more often, technology is the cause to innovation disruption and information is the lifeblood of business; How to run a digital IT which understands stakeholders’ expectations and propose a service/solution portfolio that correspond to both demand and cost drivers with a focus on business priority, and develops the professional competencies needed for successful business solution delivery? There is an “alphabetic soup” in running a digital IT which must lead in reaching high-level performance and maturity; besides triple “I”s - Information, Innovation, and Integration, triple “A”s - Automation, Analysis, and Agility, triple “C”s - Change, Collaboration, and Cloudification, triple “P”s - Principle, Process, and Performance, triple “E”s Enablement, Exploration, and Effectiveness & Efficiency. Here we introduce triple “V”s in running a high-performing and high mature digital IT:
Vision: Technological vision & problem-solving skills are about in-depth understanding both technology and business, and have genuine empathy with the users of technology. IT needs to have a clear vision and roadmap to which CIOs expect the IT department to deliver. To build and demonstrate IT success, IT leaders need to focus on the business -IT roadmap; that is how IT supports business objectives and processes leveraged by IT and an effective IT strategy as an integral component of business strategy. With clear vision, passion follows. In order to drastically change IT landscape, you must have passion and drive at the core along with these qualities--Genuinely curious about Information. A great CIO should be able to not just understand business objectives and priorities, but also be able to break these down and cascade them downstream to his/her team in an IT-comprehensive format. It’s about having problem-solving skills and technological understanding that give you the ability to invent new ways to create or manage information effectively to drive business growth. It is about determining what Information you need to make a difference, what data and what process is necessary to instrument that information and putting the data capture and information instrument processes in place. The common pitfall for IT leader is to fail to make the connection between IT and the business, lack the cognizance of how it will actually impact the company's top line and bottom line growth and, therefore, cannot be the enabler that companies need.
Value: Digital transformation starts with mind shift, business value has to be driven, indicated and understood at all levels of the organization. This is accomplished through establishing strong interdependent relationships, the shared vision and wisdom, the frictionless business culture, the re-framed processes to bridge silo, and the optimal sets of business capabilities to delight customers. IT value is multi-faceted and it’s interesting to see how IT value is in the eye of the beholder. IT value-based management needs to be driven by concepts like collaborative value or collective advantage and multi-layer ROIs. IT value is demonstrated through the rate of productivity increases, the rate of new product development, the rate of market share gains, the rate of customer approval and satisfaction gains, the rate of sales gains, etc. There’s inspiration from prior design patterns, no value chain possible without UX perspective (at least according to the UX person), risk management perspective has made its appearance, as it has sunk cost, and (IT has no value if there are no improvements. In reality, it's a combination of all of the above. What combination is important in a given organization depends on who is beholding that value. One can start with a standard set of these metrics, but ultimately, only metrics that are worthwhile to the stakeholders should be employed. Triangulate value from different value lens in building a more comprehensive IT value proposition. There are tangible (cost savings, efficiency, etc.) and intangible (brand equity, sales enablement, etc.) components of value. Each IT organization has a set of capabilities that enable it to achieve successful outcomes, whether financial, brand, or double bottom line. So it needs to create the alternative IT value index- comprising of value lenses such as strategic imperative, operational excellence, and business agility.
Variety: Digital IT is dynamic, with variety of teams to run the variety of IT portfolio. IT has to adapt to changes via managing a healthy portfolio via continuous consolidation, simplification, integration, modernization, cloudification, innovation, and optimization. Otherwise, the spread of applications can quickly get out of control. Often applications that once added significant value to the business remain in the portfolio, being supported and licenses being renewed, when they have been superseded by a 'better' alternative. Unused or under -utilized applications that consume a disproportionate amount of resource when compared to their value, need to be addressed. Once you start treating projects that way and measure success of business projects as a whole, rather than keeping technology ones separate with silo thinking, and ensure that all business units required for the success of the project have requirement clearly defined with engaged stakeholders and with senior business leaders on the steering committee, you will see success of all projects increase. It’s takes holistic thinking and planning. The variety of IT portfolio is to build a unique and varying set of business capabilities, to enforce agility, harness innovation, and improving IT maturity.
The bonus "V" is Visibility - at industrial age, IT is invisible when the light is on and everything is normal; however, digital IT is becoming more visible and transforming from a back-office cost center to a front office innovation engine. And digital IT has visibility to both influence corporate strategy and culture, and touch customer experience and employee engagement. Compared to traditional service- driven IT, a value driven and capability-based digital IT has clear VISION, laser focus on business goals, and multifaceted VALUE delivery, running a VARIETY of IT portfolio to build a unique set of business capabilities, and improve IT maturity from efficiency to effectiveness to agility; from functioning to firmness to delight.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
IT provides competitive leverage to business’ long term growth: Because more often, technology is the cause to innovation disruption and information is the lifeblood of business; How to run a digital IT which understands stakeholders’ expectations and propose a service/solution portfolio that correspond to both demand and cost drivers with a focus on business priority, and develops the professional competencies needed for successful business solution delivery? There is an “alphabetic soup” in running a digital IT which must lead in reaching high-level performance and maturity; besides triple “I”s - Information, Innovation, and Integration, triple “A”s - Automation, Analysis, and Agility, triple “C”s - Change, Collaboration, and Cloudification, triple “P”s - Principle, Process, and Performance, triple “E”s Enablement, Exploration, and Effectiveness & Efficiency. Here we introduce triple “V”s in running a high-performing and high mature digital IT:
Vision: Technological vision & problem-solving skills are about in-depth understanding both technology and business, and have genuine empathy with the users of technology. IT needs to have a clear vision and roadmap to which CIOs expect the IT department to deliver. To build and demonstrate IT success, IT leaders need to focus on the business -IT roadmap; that is how IT supports business objectives and processes leveraged by IT and an effective IT strategy as an integral component of business strategy. With clear vision, passion follows. In order to drastically change IT landscape, you must have passion and drive at the core along with these qualities--Genuinely curious about Information. A great CIO should be able to not just understand business objectives and priorities, but also be able to break these down and cascade them downstream to his/her team in an IT-comprehensive format. It’s about having problem-solving skills and technological understanding that give you the ability to invent new ways to create or manage information effectively to drive business growth. It is about determining what Information you need to make a difference, what data and what process is necessary to instrument that information and putting the data capture and information instrument processes in place. The common pitfall for IT leader is to fail to make the connection between IT and the business, lack the cognizance of how it will actually impact the company's top line and bottom line growth and, therefore, cannot be the enabler that companies need.
Value: Digital transformation starts with mind shift, business value has to be driven, indicated and understood at all levels of the organization. This is accomplished through establishing strong interdependent relationships, the shared vision and wisdom, the frictionless business culture, the re-framed processes to bridge silo, and the optimal sets of business capabilities to delight customers. IT value is multi-faceted and it’s interesting to see how IT value is in the eye of the beholder. IT value-based management needs to be driven by concepts like collaborative value or collective advantage and multi-layer ROIs. IT value is demonstrated through the rate of productivity increases, the rate of new product development, the rate of market share gains, the rate of customer approval and satisfaction gains, the rate of sales gains, etc. There’s inspiration from prior design patterns, no value chain possible without UX perspective (at least according to the UX person), risk management perspective has made its appearance, as it has sunk cost, and (IT has no value if there are no improvements. In reality, it's a combination of all of the above. What combination is important in a given organization depends on who is beholding that value. One can start with a standard set of these metrics, but ultimately, only metrics that are worthwhile to the stakeholders should be employed. Triangulate value from different value lens in building a more comprehensive IT value proposition. There are tangible (cost savings, efficiency, etc.) and intangible (brand equity, sales enablement, etc.) components of value. Each IT organization has a set of capabilities that enable it to achieve successful outcomes, whether financial, brand, or double bottom line. So it needs to create the alternative IT value index- comprising of value lenses such as strategic imperative, operational excellence, and business agility.
Variety: Digital IT is dynamic, with variety of teams to run the variety of IT portfolio. IT has to adapt to changes via managing a healthy portfolio via continuous consolidation, simplification, integration, modernization, cloudification, innovation, and optimization. Otherwise, the spread of applications can quickly get out of control. Often applications that once added significant value to the business remain in the portfolio, being supported and licenses being renewed, when they have been superseded by a 'better' alternative. Unused or under -utilized applications that consume a disproportionate amount of resource when compared to their value, need to be addressed. Once you start treating projects that way and measure success of business projects as a whole, rather than keeping technology ones separate with silo thinking, and ensure that all business units required for the success of the project have requirement clearly defined with engaged stakeholders and with senior business leaders on the steering committee, you will see success of all projects increase. It’s takes holistic thinking and planning. The variety of IT portfolio is to build a unique and varying set of business capabilities, to enforce agility, harness innovation, and improving IT maturity.The bonus "V" is Visibility - at industrial age, IT is invisible when the light is on and everything is normal; however, digital IT is becoming more visible and transforming from a back-office cost center to a front office innovation engine. And digital IT has visibility to both influence corporate strategy and culture, and touch customer experience and employee engagement. Compared to traditional service- driven IT, a value driven and capability-based digital IT has clear VISION, laser focus on business goals, and multifaceted VALUE delivery, running a VARIETY of IT portfolio to build a unique set of business capabilities, and improve IT maturity from efficiency to effectiveness to agility; from functioning to firmness to delight.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
October 25, 2015
The Talent Management Brief of the “Future of CIO” Oct. 2015
The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.1 million page views with about #2275th blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. blog posting. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom, to inspire critical thinking and spur healthy debates.
People are always the most invaluable asset in businesses. “Hiring the right person to the right position at the right time,” is the mantra of many forward-thinking organizations. The question is how would you define the right people? How do you define wrong, average, mediocre, good, great or extraordinary person? Or put simply, for what should they be right?
The Hot Debates of the“Future of CIO” Blog Oct. 2015How to Embed Leadership Development in Talent Management? Leadership development is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today because leadership is about change. Leadership is both nature and nurtured, some can be trained, some can not. Leadership is also about values and beliefs, future and direction; discovery and dedication, how can you embed leadership development in cultivating high potential talent to achieve career success and growing a business from built to last and good to great as well?
How do you take long term view for workforce performance? Performance Management is a significant management discipline in the business system. It’s the management practice that does not have hard coded programming like other business systems but directly drives corporate mindset, attitude, and behavior. How to drive workforce performance? Is it a one-time thing or continuous effort, how to reward strong performance consistently? Do you only measure performance quantitatively, or how to measure it qualitatively, in order to improve corporate culture and building a high-performing and high-mature organization?
Can your Culture Help People Become Who They Are? There are many different perspectives of culture presented along with diverse ways and means of dealing with it. At high-mature digital organizations, culture management, talent management and performance management have been integrated into a holistic people management approach. What's your culture readiness, how shall you assess culture? Is one of the goals behind building a great culture about whether your culture can help people become who they are, to create synergy and accomplish the business purpose?
Can HR Navigate Digital Disruption via Deploying Talent Management Analytics: Disruption is often defined as 'an event that results in a displacement or discontinuity,' 'disturbance or problems that interrupt an event, activity, or process,' and you easily see that events, activities, or processes have impact on other events, activities, or processes. It is a constant condition of change. Nothing stays the same. The rest is a matter of degree, not a question of whether it's changed or not. Does change beget change? Can HR lead organizational changes by navigating the digital disruptions and deploying talent management analytics?
What is Attitude? We all have been using this word ATTITUDE so frequently that we take it granted that we can define attitude perfectly, but when we have to put in writing, it appears to be quite difficult. The simplest definition of 'Attitude' would be one's "Settled Mode of Thinking": Attitude manifests itself through one's behavior. It can be changed for sure only if one is willing to accept and give 100 percent to changing oneself. It's a process one will have to go through and takes time. All this is at a time when it is difficult to understand between right and wrong, and thereafter from the choices one makes. Basic nature too plays a role. Perhaps we can add belief about oneself into the mix. How we feel inwardly about ourselves contributes to the overall way we handle our personal interactions with others. Our subconscious judgments about who we are in the sense of a personality and mindset.Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking and innovating the new ideas; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.
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Do you have Multi-disciplinary Talent & Team to Master Data?
The most important people in any organization are those who have a solid mix of technical skills and business acumen.
Big Data is at the top agenda of any forward-thinking organizations today. It is becoming such a driver that there is bound to be benefits in teaching your managers to better understand models, statistics, machine learning, data stores, etc ... some managers and decision makers are getting familiar with data analysis when they don't simply come from that background. Work interactions are more and more horizontal, it means you should feel comfortable not knowing everything you need and collaborate more with your colleagues. Data Science is multi-disciplinary, for business leaders or data scientist, which language (algorithm, analysis, statistics, or business, etc) should you master?
The most important people in any organization are those who have a solid mix of technical skills and business acumen. It does not matter where they sit but they need to be able to collaborate with others. Considering that most data scientists come from technical backgrounds and academia, how do they acquire the "business acumen" before being recruited ? Maybe companies should accept that this is something that a data scientist can learn on the job and as a matter of fact, no entity is better equipped to teach about business than the companies themselves that require the services. If there is one skill to put emphasis on recruiting a data scientist, it's the ability to learn new concept and techniques and put them in practice reasonably fast. Not everybody that works in data works in the business field. For data analysis is vital to understand the domain knowledge in order to understand the history your data is telling. As with any engineering or science related job you need to learn to think and be intelligent in order to be good at your job. A data scientist should be able to take any problem and translate it to the abstract domain of analytics and data science.
Data science is multi-disciplinary. The skills required include math, statistics, programming, data management, communication, visualization, domain knowledge and soft skills. Business knowledge is as important as data because if you are not able to interpret it in a business understandable way then there is no point projecting or predicting something for business. Data scientist must know the technical part, but business knowledge helps in communicating data to management and business owners which are very important as if most of the decisions are taken in account data then it must be communicated properly. Data knowledge is a waste until you know where and how to express and implement it, and business domain knowledge is equally as important as technical knowledge. Domain knowledge will help the data scientist know when the data doesn't make sense. There are times when the data looks right based on technical stuff, but events in the field are very much different. Very few individuals who even come close to embodying the range of skills and experience required. Effective data science results from close collaboration between technology and domain experts. The goal of a data scientist is to understand the business and the data and make a bridge between them, both by programming solutions which take advantage of the data. But equally important by making other people understand this understanding. Real data scientists do not sit in an ivory tower debating the best algorithm but understand the needs of normal people and find together with them a viable solution.
The language of visual communication. Communication is paramount. A data scientist should focus on core math/decision science/computation skills and collaborate with the business analyst for domain knowledge. Collaboration and communication are important. No matter how they are arrived at, the insights gained by data scientists must be implemented as actions and that takes convincing a group of non-data scientists that it is important and will show results. Communicating that is a skill in itself. It is not limited to data scientists, but all talent employees who are employed by businesses. If you are closely aligned to the business, you should be able to contribute more intelligently to the business problem you are being asked to solve. The key challenge is that management must integrate developers/data scientists to their business teams. Easier said than done, but this is the fundamental issue. Business people don't "get" tech, and Techies don't "get" business.... There are exceptions, of course, but the skills can be cross trained to a degree, the key is encouragement from both camps to get people to enjoy and benefit personally from the crossover. Companies that have issues with this are classic examples of IT/Business finger pointing and they will be fossils only remembered in history books if they do not embrace this necessity in the modern world to encourage cross-pollination.
Build a data-driven and high performing team to improve analytics maturity. Data Scientist will definitely contribute to the business growth from data mining, data analysis, and modeling. The data science community need to realize that they are there to support the decision makers in the organization - data scientists are not decision makers and don't set business strategy, they supply the ammunition for others. Unless the problems you are trying to solve are purely technical, you will want heterogeneous teams that combine business, technical skills, and theoretical knowledge. These interactions will then ensure the data scientist that come with a more technical or scientific background will learn about the business side of the problem. A company should be a team, that some people in that team must understand business, and some people are masters of other disciplines. How that team pans out, how big it is, will be a function of the size of the company.
Clearly if you can find someone with a business sense and is good at understanding data, then you are very lucky - but in general, those disciplines don't go together seamlessly; so the key is communication and how that team is able to use and put into practice and provide ROI to the company. So the team must be good at business, and the leaders of that team must be good at directing the communication to get the best. And there is always room for communication improvement. If organizations don't communicate well, they fail.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Big Data is at the top agenda of any forward-thinking organizations today. It is becoming such a driver that there is bound to be benefits in teaching your managers to better understand models, statistics, machine learning, data stores, etc ... some managers and decision makers are getting familiar with data analysis when they don't simply come from that background. Work interactions are more and more horizontal, it means you should feel comfortable not knowing everything you need and collaborate more with your colleagues. Data Science is multi-disciplinary, for business leaders or data scientist, which language (algorithm, analysis, statistics, or business, etc) should you master?
The most important people in any organization are those who have a solid mix of technical skills and business acumen. It does not matter where they sit but they need to be able to collaborate with others. Considering that most data scientists come from technical backgrounds and academia, how do they acquire the "business acumen" before being recruited ? Maybe companies should accept that this is something that a data scientist can learn on the job and as a matter of fact, no entity is better equipped to teach about business than the companies themselves that require the services. If there is one skill to put emphasis on recruiting a data scientist, it's the ability to learn new concept and techniques and put them in practice reasonably fast. Not everybody that works in data works in the business field. For data analysis is vital to understand the domain knowledge in order to understand the history your data is telling. As with any engineering or science related job you need to learn to think and be intelligent in order to be good at your job. A data scientist should be able to take any problem and translate it to the abstract domain of analytics and data science.
Data science is multi-disciplinary. The skills required include math, statistics, programming, data management, communication, visualization, domain knowledge and soft skills. Business knowledge is as important as data because if you are not able to interpret it in a business understandable way then there is no point projecting or predicting something for business. Data scientist must know the technical part, but business knowledge helps in communicating data to management and business owners which are very important as if most of the decisions are taken in account data then it must be communicated properly. Data knowledge is a waste until you know where and how to express and implement it, and business domain knowledge is equally as important as technical knowledge. Domain knowledge will help the data scientist know when the data doesn't make sense. There are times when the data looks right based on technical stuff, but events in the field are very much different. Very few individuals who even come close to embodying the range of skills and experience required. Effective data science results from close collaboration between technology and domain experts. The goal of a data scientist is to understand the business and the data and make a bridge between them, both by programming solutions which take advantage of the data. But equally important by making other people understand this understanding. Real data scientists do not sit in an ivory tower debating the best algorithm but understand the needs of normal people and find together with them a viable solution.
The language of visual communication. Communication is paramount. A data scientist should focus on core math/decision science/computation skills and collaborate with the business analyst for domain knowledge. Collaboration and communication are important. No matter how they are arrived at, the insights gained by data scientists must be implemented as actions and that takes convincing a group of non-data scientists that it is important and will show results. Communicating that is a skill in itself. It is not limited to data scientists, but all talent employees who are employed by businesses. If you are closely aligned to the business, you should be able to contribute more intelligently to the business problem you are being asked to solve. The key challenge is that management must integrate developers/data scientists to their business teams. Easier said than done, but this is the fundamental issue. Business people don't "get" tech, and Techies don't "get" business.... There are exceptions, of course, but the skills can be cross trained to a degree, the key is encouragement from both camps to get people to enjoy and benefit personally from the crossover. Companies that have issues with this are classic examples of IT/Business finger pointing and they will be fossils only remembered in history books if they do not embrace this necessity in the modern world to encourage cross-pollination.
Build a data-driven and high performing team to improve analytics maturity. Data Scientist will definitely contribute to the business growth from data mining, data analysis, and modeling. The data science community need to realize that they are there to support the decision makers in the organization - data scientists are not decision makers and don't set business strategy, they supply the ammunition for others. Unless the problems you are trying to solve are purely technical, you will want heterogeneous teams that combine business, technical skills, and theoretical knowledge. These interactions will then ensure the data scientist that come with a more technical or scientific background will learn about the business side of the problem. A company should be a team, that some people in that team must understand business, and some people are masters of other disciplines. How that team pans out, how big it is, will be a function of the size of the company.
Clearly if you can find someone with a business sense and is good at understanding data, then you are very lucky - but in general, those disciplines don't go together seamlessly; so the key is communication and how that team is able to use and put into practice and provide ROI to the company. So the team must be good at business, and the leaders of that team must be good at directing the communication to get the best. And there is always room for communication improvement. If organizations don't communicate well, they fail.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
How do YOU Measure Customer Experience?
Building a customer-centric organization requires consistently digging deeper and having both strategic and tactical level CX metrics in place.
Digital is the age of customers. Thus, Customer Experience Management is key to the success of every forward-looking business. It is not just important, it is vital for growth, development and to make sure you stay in business, Both retaining a customer and winning a new customer are very important to every business’s surviving and thriving. To quote Drucker, “You can only manage what you measure.” How do you measure Customer Experience effectively, though?
How do you measure success? This is what the Key Performance Indicator driver is supposed to measure. It begins and ends with what will satisfy the client. The unfortunate part is that a balance must take place between what the customer values (mostly intangible) and what executive leadership needs to see as an outcome (P&L). Customer Service function in most companies is a support function, running support functions and infrastructure can be very expensive (P&L). Support is a compromise between client perception (Psychology). Organizations must find ways to make a support center (Cost Center) look and run like a Profit Center (P&L), and this is where the focal point of measurement and how to define the best KPIs. Then C-levels (particularly, CFOs, CIOs, and CEOs) are a pretty unfashionable and explicitly non-trendy group - They want to see the numbers and make an informed decision on where to invest across the Customer Experience and how much to invest with what expected return. The key is to find metrics that really work.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the closest thing for leadership teams who want to see a link to the bottom line. Customer centric people don't need the numbers to convince them. The small group that is actually getting NPS to work well finds it helps them hone their approach really well. There are many examples of where, by using it properly (which most companies seem to find too hard to do), it has helped companies choose and then execute superbly successful strategies. But many of organizations still have not realized that their attempt to cut costs in that way is actually reducing their profit. NPS, if properly executed, can deliver valuable input. However, it's most useful for fixing the "as-is" - and it's the wrong tool for trying to define a game-changing "to be."
The actual indicators are very specific and depend on what their customers are looking for. At a high level though, for instance, if the value is determined to provide to their customers is significant improvement in their staff's ability to sell more products/services after a training course and then seeing that improvement sustained and improving over time, they will work out that they should be tracking/ ensuring that success right up to leadership level. The key thing is to work out what customers are really looking for. The impact they want from the product/ service that will make all the difference. What specific elements make a really enjoyable/ great experience for them.
Customer Equity is the right measure of Customer Experience success. Customer Equity looks at the lifetime value of customers, the cost to attract new customers and the cost to retain customer over a given outlook period. It maps the customer lifecycle (horizontal) across the company contacts (think of each contact as a sensor captured at some company system, phone, POS, web site, sales call). The view you saw would represent the number of customers that successfully move from stage to stage - so customers don't actually buy something until contract, nor pay for something until collection. They also do not show up in call center until repair or support. So key points include - a) each contact has a cost and potential revenue component b) a customer only generates revenue at one point unless they start other needs based experience - multiple needs roll up to an enterprise(customer). Customer Equity equates very closely to a company's market cap. or shareholder equity. NPS also measures success in terms of Customer Equity. At the end of the day, it is about the dollar value of customers and the financial benefit of your organization. Customer equity does this well.
Unless one defines a target customer experience, it’s difficult to measure it. How do you measure Customer Experience - attrition is part of the answer - but customer entrants, exits and customer flow across customer life stages is credible, measurable, and understandable; Effective measures span the enterprise and expose operational, product, service, marketing and brand gaps. The customer-related information provides insights to where customer flow (experiences) cease and provides a high level of drill down to specific stages in the customer experience. If you enhance the model with attributes about the contact's objectives, massage, treatments, etc. you provide more detail regarding why customers do not proceed to purchase or why customers call the call center, etc. You can apply expected lifetime value to customers for each cell, so it is designed to be analytically rigorous and suitable for modeling and reporting to finance, regulators, Board, etc.
Building a customer-centric organization requires consistently digging deeper and having both strategic and tactical level CX metrics in place that keep a pulse on the inner workings of the business. It is extremely challenging to strike the right balance between short-term profitability and long-term prosperity: While some companies could increase profit on the short term, to lose a customer-centric approach will impact the bottom line in the long run.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Digital is the age of customers. Thus, Customer Experience Management is key to the success of every forward-looking business. It is not just important, it is vital for growth, development and to make sure you stay in business, Both retaining a customer and winning a new customer are very important to every business’s surviving and thriving. To quote Drucker, “You can only manage what you measure.” How do you measure Customer Experience effectively, though?
How do you measure success? This is what the Key Performance Indicator driver is supposed to measure. It begins and ends with what will satisfy the client. The unfortunate part is that a balance must take place between what the customer values (mostly intangible) and what executive leadership needs to see as an outcome (P&L). Customer Service function in most companies is a support function, running support functions and infrastructure can be very expensive (P&L). Support is a compromise between client perception (Psychology). Organizations must find ways to make a support center (Cost Center) look and run like a Profit Center (P&L), and this is where the focal point of measurement and how to define the best KPIs. Then C-levels (particularly, CFOs, CIOs, and CEOs) are a pretty unfashionable and explicitly non-trendy group - They want to see the numbers and make an informed decision on where to invest across the Customer Experience and how much to invest with what expected return. The key is to find metrics that really work.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the closest thing for leadership teams who want to see a link to the bottom line. Customer centric people don't need the numbers to convince them. The small group that is actually getting NPS to work well finds it helps them hone their approach really well. There are many examples of where, by using it properly (which most companies seem to find too hard to do), it has helped companies choose and then execute superbly successful strategies. But many of organizations still have not realized that their attempt to cut costs in that way is actually reducing their profit. NPS, if properly executed, can deliver valuable input. However, it's most useful for fixing the "as-is" - and it's the wrong tool for trying to define a game-changing "to be."
The actual indicators are very specific and depend on what their customers are looking for. At a high level though, for instance, if the value is determined to provide to their customers is significant improvement in their staff's ability to sell more products/services after a training course and then seeing that improvement sustained and improving over time, they will work out that they should be tracking/ ensuring that success right up to leadership level. The key thing is to work out what customers are really looking for. The impact they want from the product/ service that will make all the difference. What specific elements make a really enjoyable/ great experience for them.
Customer Equity is the right measure of Customer Experience success. Customer Equity looks at the lifetime value of customers, the cost to attract new customers and the cost to retain customer over a given outlook period. It maps the customer lifecycle (horizontal) across the company contacts (think of each contact as a sensor captured at some company system, phone, POS, web site, sales call). The view you saw would represent the number of customers that successfully move from stage to stage - so customers don't actually buy something until contract, nor pay for something until collection. They also do not show up in call center until repair or support. So key points include - a) each contact has a cost and potential revenue component b) a customer only generates revenue at one point unless they start other needs based experience - multiple needs roll up to an enterprise(customer). Customer Equity equates very closely to a company's market cap. or shareholder equity. NPS also measures success in terms of Customer Equity. At the end of the day, it is about the dollar value of customers and the financial benefit of your organization. Customer equity does this well.
Unless one defines a target customer experience, it’s difficult to measure it. How do you measure Customer Experience - attrition is part of the answer - but customer entrants, exits and customer flow across customer life stages is credible, measurable, and understandable; Effective measures span the enterprise and expose operational, product, service, marketing and brand gaps. The customer-related information provides insights to where customer flow (experiences) cease and provides a high level of drill down to specific stages in the customer experience. If you enhance the model with attributes about the contact's objectives, massage, treatments, etc. you provide more detail regarding why customers do not proceed to purchase or why customers call the call center, etc. You can apply expected lifetime value to customers for each cell, so it is designed to be analytically rigorous and suitable for modeling and reporting to finance, regulators, Board, etc.
Building a customer-centric organization requires consistently digging deeper and having both strategic and tactical level CX metrics in place that keep a pulse on the inner workings of the business. It is extremely challenging to strike the right balance between short-term profitability and long-term prosperity: While some companies could increase profit on the short term, to lose a customer-centric approach will impact the bottom line in the long run.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
October 23, 2015
Does Leadership Really have Golden Rules?
A leader is one who adopts or discovers a purpose worth following with a vision and plan to achieve that purpose that others are inspired to adopt as well. Many people look so hard for a set of teachable skills and mimic-able characteristics to become a leader when it is much more simple. But leaders are both nature and nurtured. How can you imitate the leadership characteristics of vision, character, integrity, empathy, focus, consistency, endurance, and how do you encapsulate the leadership practices like inspiring, planning, coordinating, supporting, mentoring, coaching and counseling in one word? Or to put simply, does leadership really have golden rules or magic formulas?
If you only had one word to describe leadership what would it be? “Art.” a part of that "art" as a leader in the process of helping others grow and become leaders themselves is walking the fine line of giving someone enough rope to learn their own way of doing. Leadership is certainly a combination of being and having. "Being" equals the inside potential traits, character, behaviors, intensity and energy; "Having" means the outside accomplishments, it consists of the measurement of the impact on others. Being and doing are like parts of a virtuous circle, better actions improve our self-perception - self-esteem and congruence towards our core values -, the latter having an impact on our actions, etc.
The key in the area of leadership is purpose. To be a leader, one must be willing to follow their purpose with or without followers. They become a leader when others voluntarily choose to adopt that same purpose and expend their efforts under the guidance and direction of the leader. Faith in the leader's vision and the shared purpose are their drivers. The leader must have faith in themselves and the purpose...but they must "Do" to gain the faith and trust of those that follow. And they must continue to "Do" to maintain that faith and trust. People achieved a level of some form of leadership because they were aware of it. You achieved a level of awareness that lead you to become a leader or a chosen one. Awareness brings out courage, intuition, bravery, etc. When you say to yourself that "I am a leader," and follow through with it, that is when you become AWARE of your conviction to take on a leadership position.
There is no leadership where there is no responsibility. Responsibility is the burden of leadership. It doesn't matter at what level one is leading: home, work unit, team, department, small establishment, mega-corporation, nation. Leaders at these levels are decidedly different and are held to a different magnitude of expectations. But the common denominator to each and every one of them all is the responsibility they carry. They are always adjusted successfully where they carry out the responsibility well, and they are roundly condemned as failures where they fail to perform the responsibility.Vision: Inspiring people to want to go on the journey for change or transformation.Leadership is more visible (and, frankly, more necessary) in periods of change. Management takes over in stable and constant periods.-Guide: Help people to change and be an example to them. -Meaningfulness: Helping others to feel useful. -Guidance: Set direction to have others follow through.Change: Helping people to make the change journey!
To try to find a single word that communicates leadership philosophy impossible. Leadership is about Future and Change; Leadership is about Direction and Dedication; Leadership is about Influence and Innovation; If there are golden rules, here is a set of them-|Display excellent strategic vision | feel the passion for the thing is doing |Critical Thinking | Create great teams | accept other’s opinions to improve | | give the credit to the team or to each one, or both | evaluate and take correction actions | Reduce Ambiguity and uncertainty | Lead by example | Open to criticism | Asking right questions | Not stuck in corporate bureaucracy | Sense of Urgency | Part of the solution, not part of the problem | Not comfortable with the status quo | Empathetic engagement | Engaged | Mentor | Recognize and value differences | Be willing to give up power, knowledge, information, wisdom | | Encouragement | Discipline | Balance | proactive and reactive forces | Emotional Intelligence |Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Do Strong Processes Deliver Better Business Results
Business processes are a group of business activities undertaken by an organization in pursuit of a common goal. A business process usually depends on several business functions for support and focuses on "how" the business is run. Business processes underpin capability, so with the effective and efficient process, you stated in delivering better organizational results.This is a foundation for Operational Excellence initiatives.
“5W + 1H” Strategy Navigation: Normally, an organization does not start with business processes--rather, it starts with vision, goals, and objectives--then the capabilities required to meet those goals and objectives. Only when consensus is reached on the needed capabilities, is it time to fashion processes for executing those capabilities. So, you have the traditional “5W+1H” questionnaires: WHO (The organization, or future organization), WHAT (Capabilities needed), WHEN (The expected execution date), HOW (The business Processes), WHERE (The organizational structure by which the business processes are organized into manageable elements), and, of course WHY (What the customer is willing to buy)
Business capabilities are an abstraction of business outcomes. Having the alignment of business capabilities is key, then business processes. Using capabilities allows you to focus on "what" the business needs and not "how" the business run. Capabilities are implemented by People, Process, Information, and Technology. There is a logical flow to the thought processes that evolve (or preferably engineer) capability requirements into processes-Situation - requirements, expectations, competitors, capabilities, trends. -Strategy - purpose, value proposition, business model, implementation plan. -Deployment - business systems, business processes, tasks, knowledge, review. -Performance - customer experience, effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, compliance. -Outcomes - customer, business partner and employee loyalty, financial health, shareholder delight.
Important business processes reviewed regularly, refined regularly and is transparent across the business should help bring into alignment most of the key parts of the business. However, many organizations do not have alignment between strategic intentions and their ability to execute those intentions. Sales, Marketing, Operations, Customer Service, Purchasing, Warehouse all come into play. Reporting can be as simple as a range of visual tolls that highlight inventory days, customer satisfaction, supplier lead times, sales etc.Strong business processes have better chance to deliver a better result. Therefore, process management is not one-time project, but a tough journey that the senior executives should understand and navigate through, because processes underpin business capabilities, and capability underpin strategy execution, so it’s worth the effort to gain top-down buy-in and bottom up adoption.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Can Employees Sow Seeds for Transformation
Change is an ongoing capability for today’s organization. But what’s the best way to manage changes? Is change always driven from top-down? Can employees ignite a "case for change" and help sow the seeds for transformation especially If there is a lack of transformational leadership at the top?
Diagnose the change dilemma via asking a set of questions: What level transformation are we seeking here? Functional level or the entire company?Why is there lack of transformational leadership at the top? (Root Cause) Which of your stakeholders agree with you on the need for transformation? Why?Can a coalition be formed with those at the top that agree? Can you articulate "what's in it for them" with those who do not agree? Why does it not resonate with them? What do customers feel about the transformation (high level)? What impact will it have on them? Are any of the customers willing to assist in making a case for transformation? Is there anything that can be done to strengthen the case for the leaders? Perhaps share a high level end-to-end picture of the “to-be-state”? Do you have the stamina, courage, will, motivation to help move this forward and influence the leaders? That’s the set of question that requires some serious thought, as the ramifications are huge…
A visionary or transformational leader emerges. Visionary leaders spend the present preparing for what they believe they will be doing or needing in the future. Visionaries are good at making predictions by building accurate conceptual models that are based on their understanding of current affairs, coupled with their enhanced decision-making abilities, these predictions allow visionaries to create the future. Despite the fact that there is a clear line between influencing and predicting what is to come, having the ability to predict is important for, and helpful in, influencing the future. Either an existing leader or manager who supports the change and can socialize it at the right level or someone from the ranks steps up to be the focal point and take on that task. However, in a lot of organizations, particular well-established one become stagnant after wonderful growth stories, mostly in such organization the core team has been with the organization for a period of time, and as the company becomes stagnant so do the profiles of these multi-tasking go-getters. Mostly it happens NOT because of lack of visionary or transformational leadership, but more about leadership and the whole pack now gets into the "peaceful-comfort zone," and no one wants to take further risks anymore. Starting transformation at the grass-root level can be very daunting but may be the only option if there is a lack of transformational leadership at the top. Change doesn't happen overnight, but neither did the current situation. One can sit around and wait for so called 'leadership' to wake up and tell them change is necessary and what to change and when. Or, every employee can empower themselves to make one small change to make their daily work environment better, more productive, more pleasant, share that experience with others and trust that others will do the same. Sometimes all a person needs is to be reminded that they do in fact hold the power to change within themselves.
It is dependent on the company culture. If the company has an entrepreneurial spirit the change can be driven from any level as long as there is the ability to build a consensus to a large enough group. If the company is bureaucratic and political then change will not occur unless there is buy-in from the top leadership. A lot of ideas start at a functionally lower level in the organization, but practically speaking if there is no executive sponsorship then the Change will not be implemented. To get management to notice and move on a transformational change, you must show the clear improvement to the bottom line for the company. Since very few employees are aware of the true cost / benefit to the company, it is extremely difficult to prove the point to a leadership team. Another question worth asking is: Do enough organizations really encourage their employees to step up like this and propose bold transformational change initiatives and then ask them to follow through?. What do those organizations look like? Openness, transparency, collaboration, empowerment, respect for the value of people and adding value to the enterprises, is best for everyone. The key then is to concentrate on how you can get others to "buy in." Finding ways to overcome hubris/arrogance, egos, the nod-squad and not-invented-here syndrome.
It addresses a process first and foremost. This can eventually lead to cultural change, but attempt to address an entire culture or paradigm is the wrong way to address changes from the bottom up. Focus on one small process as in example and then leverage from there. Too many times change initiatives think too big and the change involves too many people and too many decisions necessary to effect that change and then nothing really happens. One process change leads to another and then another and before you know it the teams are all tied up in knots and at a stalemate. Start small, one person can change. Share the difference that change has made and before you know it another person is following. Collaborate, communicate, hold the difficult discussions on what isn't working and what you are willing to do to make it better. Make the commitment to yourself and your fellow team members and then hold yourself and others accountable. Before you know it, you are changing, the team is changing, bring more people into the circle of change over time. It must have win-win in that the majority benefit but so too does the organization.Understand the culture and its flexibility first. If the culture is high in change adaptability, in these companies with leaders who are predisposed to transformational change, people who present good ideas with a clear idea of how to turn it into profit dollars for their company are listened to and rewarded. Get support from those with influence and in the decision-making chain. Understand the burning platform that might be required to determine resistance for your change and what it will take (resources, time, money) before you start. Meanwhile initiate change and start implementing the same at a certain level so that when the leadership is mentally prepared to start thinking about changing "something," you can follow up your case with results.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
October 22, 2015
The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO” 10/23/2015
Leadership without influence, just like the air without oxygen!
The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.1+ million page views with about #2271th blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Here is the weekly insight of the “Future of CIO” blog 10/23/15.
The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO” Blog 10/23/2015How Capable is your Organization Handling Changes: Change becomes fundamentally difficult in most organizations because it is treated as something distinct from running the business, evolving performance and increasing results over time. Leaders and employees are stressed enough in getting done what is right in front of them that change is layered upon becomes disruptive. However, the accelerating speed of change, the volatile and uncertain business environment make a change as an ongoing capability organizations must master, so in which aspects the business should focus on to building its change ‘muscles’?
Is Innovation Management a Waste: Innovation is to transform the novel ideas to achieve its business value. Innovation is not just about ideas or exchanging ideas, based on most of innovation models, idea creation is only one step of the innovation process. Therefore, in a basic view, innovation is a process and every process needs to be managed. But what’s the best approach to managing innovation? And there is the deduced question: Can you transform an idea into sustainable benefit without IM?Strategy Planning vs. Strategy Management: Strategic planning is the process of determining the strategy and how it will be implemented. Strategic management is the continuous planning, analysis, monitoring, and assessment of all that is necessary for an organization to meet its visions, missions, goals, and objectives. Strategic management can include strategic planning but also includes the actual implementation, evaluation, and modification of the strategy. There is absolutely no doubt that many people use the terms very imprecisely and that often blurs the lines between the words and results in confusion. In more detail, what are the differences between strategic planning and strategic management?
Three “P”s in Running a Digital IT: IT organizations are facing the significant digital transformation, perhaps cross-roads is an appropriate word to articulate IT position since IT seems to fall into two camps. The first is in the reactive mode to keep the light on, and take command from business, but not on the "go to" list for implementing the strategy. The latter is the proactive mode to co-create business strategy and provide business solutions (not just IT initiatives) to achieve ultimate business goals. There is an “alphabetic soup” in running digital IT which must lead in reaching high-level performance and maturity; besides triple “I”s - Information, Innovation, and Integration, triple “A”s - Automation, Analysis, and Agility, triple “C”s - Change, Collaboration, and Cloudification. Here, we introduce the triple “P”s in digital IT.
The Digital Culture like “AGUA”: Every organization has a culture - defined or not. Organizational culture is the collective mindset, attitudes, and the set of behaviors, expectations, and assumptions that people have for "how things are around here." The culture of an organization is comprised of many intricate and interconnected parts, including corporate strategy and related strategic goals, job roles, business processes, core values, communications practices, corporate attitudes and business policies. Culture therefore is or ought to be very dynamic, changes constantly - like water with the following characteristics...
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 “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.1+ million page views with about #2271th blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Here is the weekly insight of the “Future of CIO” blog 10/23/15.The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO” Blog 10/23/2015How Capable is your Organization Handling Changes: Change becomes fundamentally difficult in most organizations because it is treated as something distinct from running the business, evolving performance and increasing results over time. Leaders and employees are stressed enough in getting done what is right in front of them that change is layered upon becomes disruptive. However, the accelerating speed of change, the volatile and uncertain business environment make a change as an ongoing capability organizations must master, so in which aspects the business should focus on to building its change ‘muscles’?
Is Innovation Management a Waste: Innovation is to transform the novel ideas to achieve its business value. Innovation is not just about ideas or exchanging ideas, based on most of innovation models, idea creation is only one step of the innovation process. Therefore, in a basic view, innovation is a process and every process needs to be managed. But what’s the best approach to managing innovation? And there is the deduced question: Can you transform an idea into sustainable benefit without IM?Strategy Planning vs. Strategy Management: Strategic planning is the process of determining the strategy and how it will be implemented. Strategic management is the continuous planning, analysis, monitoring, and assessment of all that is necessary for an organization to meet its visions, missions, goals, and objectives. Strategic management can include strategic planning but also includes the actual implementation, evaluation, and modification of the strategy. There is absolutely no doubt that many people use the terms very imprecisely and that often blurs the lines between the words and results in confusion. In more detail, what are the differences between strategic planning and strategic management?
Three “P”s in Running a Digital IT: IT organizations are facing the significant digital transformation, perhaps cross-roads is an appropriate word to articulate IT position since IT seems to fall into two camps. The first is in the reactive mode to keep the light on, and take command from business, but not on the "go to" list for implementing the strategy. The latter is the proactive mode to co-create business strategy and provide business solutions (not just IT initiatives) to achieve ultimate business goals. There is an “alphabetic soup” in running digital IT which must lead in reaching high-level performance and maturity; besides triple “I”s - Information, Innovation, and Integration, triple “A”s - Automation, Analysis, and Agility, triple “C”s - Change, Collaboration, and Cloudification. Here, we introduce the triple “P”s in digital IT.
The Digital Culture like “AGUA”: Every organization has a culture - defined or not. Organizational culture is the collective mindset, attitudes, and the set of behaviors, expectations, and assumptions that people have for "how things are around here." The culture of an organization is comprised of many intricate and interconnected parts, including corporate strategy and related strategic goals, job roles, business processes, core values, communications practices, corporate attitudes and business policies. Culture therefore is or ought to be very dynamic, changes constantly - like water with the following characteristics...
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
