Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1414

How to Manage Multi-Generational Workplace Effectively

There is poor communication between generations within many organizations, which is a growing problem. The mindsets and priorities of each generation are different. Career development means something different to each group segment and this becomes problematic when you have a company or organization with culture and values that do not reflect the more contemporary views. Companies that learn how to bridge this gap effectively, will have many advantages. You must not stereotype based on a generation. So what are the principles and practices to manage today’s multigenerational workplace effectively?
It's not a skills or education issue rather a mindset across the table which are root causes of many human problems. Judgement or a closed mindset is one of the biggest challenges of the human race. With the knowledge and the information on how to influence change --there can be change. Different generation groups don't all want the same thing. People's attitudes towards life, people, work, etc, are all influenced by what era they grew up in. Generations grow up with different beliefs and perspectives. The conditions of the economy, the state of the world, technology, and social trends all impact the overall behavior of the generation. A multi-generational team may have some challenges when it comes to agreeing from time to time due to the different generations they grew up in. Once you understand how they develop behaviours, unconscious biases, the role of childhood, early adulthood and early careers you are able to understand why certain behaviours (often clustered by age/generations) frustrate, annoy, confuse or stress you, you are then able to accurately interpret your observations of others, choose the most appropriate interaction or intervention and participate in the labour force, lead others, engage with people in the community with less stress and with much fewer resources. As employers, you need to recognized these differences, or people will not feel "heard." If they are not being valued for being unique or worthy at some level, you will lose them to someone else who does. Perhaps one of the best changes a company can make it to provide a space, where learning can go on between people to connect, problem solve and learn. This is what the youth want, more than anything. Once you have a blend of knowledge and wisdom, they can put that into action, where the mentor can observe or get feedback on the experience of the mentee.
Leaders need to stress that they need to have inter-generational collaboration. Getting different generations to work together is part of team building. This is important to any enterprise because their clients and customers will also come from diverse age groups. The main theme in business now is collaboration. Knowledge and experience from different perspectives is powerful if utilized in the right manner. All generations need to realize they can learn from each other, instead of assuming they each know everything they need to know to run a successful business. Collaboration is critical for team building and reaching organizational goals. However, the process must be taught to all members. In inter-generational organizations, the behaviours are so varied; unless they each understand the company's vision, mission, and values, and buy in to them, collaboration and higher performance is usually difficult or a challenge. Working together harmoniously by respecting what each brings, ideally of course works for the overall goals of the company as well as individuals.
Organizations, managers and team leaders that leverage generational diversity will be successful. Those that divide people into groups by age or try to apply a new set of boxes to the ever diversifying workforce will miss out!The biggest challenge for the team leader or manager is to understand each individual and recognize them for who they are and what they have to offer, and what they bring to the table. The individuals are shaped by so many other factors. Generalization is a slippery slope though multiple studies have shown that generational differences in values and behaviors do exist. For example, baby boomer generation needs to abandon their command and control approach to management and to make collaboration a priority. Changing your leadership style is not easy but necessary. Or the older generations believe they know best based on past experiences and technologies, so when the younger generations wish to try what could not be done in the past they are not given the support, even though the technology has gone from a full room computer, to the palm of your hand operation. In fact that different ages and worldviews learn differently and through different media and methods. All groups remain relatively intolerant of the other's way of communicating and learning.  If we are to be successful in the transition we all need to be more open to other's way of accomplishing common purposes. We all need a good dose of "both/and" instead of "either/or" if we are to learn and grow.
It is a major advantage when cross-generational and cross-cultural workforce comes to brainstorming for ideas, thoughts, and ways to get creative. Each team player comes from a different background and wants to see the same outcome for their team, the fun part of this all is figuring out how one person gets from point A to point B in comparison to their colleagues. The biggest challenge is understanding what's important to each of those generations, from an employment standpoint, and try to incorporate strategies that will keep each generation engaged. The Millennials are a generation that is concerned about flexibility and social media, so trying to find ways to keep them engaged while offering employment programs that will allow them to learn new things. All four generations have their values to contribute to any organization, and  they all have a positive attitude and the organization has a specific value based work culture. The oldest generation contribute to values, experience and practical exposure to all possible situations and all these attributes can be learn from by the other generations given more opportunities to pass them on. Their personalities are tall and their skills are unparalleled and they are the foundation and faith of organization. High is patience and low in enthusiasm. As such the older generations might not be drivers of innovation but they are the holders of institutional knowledge that can serve as the foundation for innovation. Finding how to keep them all motivated and on mission is the biggest challenge as they might see each other as antagonistic and simply not on the same page.
In order for change to be effective it must come from the top down and be implemented at that level. Then the leadership at all levels must be expected to follow suit all the way down to the front line employee. The key is to follow through accountability from all levels within the organization, including top management. Clear and effective communication regarding the change with the expectation it will be implemented. All employees respect management when they are consistent and will perform better under those conditions. Harnessing the different experiences, perspectives and ideas of people from across multiple generations has enormous potential. For instance, there are opportunities for the involvement of all generations in shaping both the employer brand and customer propositions in order to reach a much wider audience. Harness the strengths of each generation! It starts with respect. Together only we will succeed.











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Simplicity as a Principle

People are complex by nature, but to dwell on complexity is to complicate an implicate order that is naturally simple. Getting to simple is not easy for most people, because they rather follow the traditions and set rules and regulations in the society. They don't bother to remove the dust around them, or want to question the unknown, or challenge the status quo, out of fear. So how to address complexity, and shall you set simplicity as a principle and live with it?
Simplicity is a behavioral attitude to see things as and what and where they are and be content and cool as it is. Simplicity is the source of complication, and complications the source of simplicity. Often human cannot live the life with simplicity and keep making it complicated, and when it is complicated we make it more complicated instead of simplifying. Very rare case we find people with simple mind, simple thought and who gets on to simplifying everything being passionate for simplicity, be it thought, procedures, systems, life, nature......Logically, simplify the complicated thing is optimal, though we know every intelligence has certain complexity in it.  For most of the people it is other way round. They make simplicity as the source to make anything and everything complicated. It is not that they are not intelligent, it is just that they can't live with simplicity.
Systems thinking is a methodology for addressing complexity. Firstly Systems Thinking is not a methodology, it is underpinned by several fundamental concepts. Holism is just one. IN corporates too you will find the attitude of complicating things in systems and procedures and they love to hang on to the complications and express how they are experts in dealing with complications. Systems Thinking allows you to see the Whole, in terms of its inner processes, its interactions with external systems, its components, the specific interactions amongst them, etc. Framing context provides a coherent picture. Thus, context is requisite for leveraging Systems Thinking in problems solving and simplifying complexity.
Simplicity does make a peaceful mind, therefore, a peaceful life, and a peaceful world. Labels influence the mind to look at things their way which could be the root of all complications. Complication causes uncertainty, insecurity and a sense of incompetence. Without being simple, is it possible to be peace? Peace is a mental status but to achieve this, do we really need to be simple? Or for a peaceful person is it required to be simple.When you try to intellectualize every thought life becomes more confusing but simplicity welcomes peace because life is less complex and, therefore,easier. So it can harmonize, and create synergy to let positivity flow.  
Complexity arises not from nothing. Humans create, though unintentionally in most cases their own problem. Therefor, they have to untie the knots they made themselves, how could you shoot the tangle to see from the different angle, how could you leverage creative thinking to discover the alternative way for problem solving, and how could you apply Systems thinking in managing complexity via optimizing and integration, there are still layers of complexity in simplifying, but you know the elegant solution when you see it.
 
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What's the True Value of Analytics

The whole purpose of analytics is to make better decisions based on data (big/small).

The word analytics has become so broad it means anything from technology to data to predictive analytics to reporting, etc. Analytics in itself adds no value; it’s the decisions that analytics helps make and enable drive the actual business value. More specifically, what’s value proposition of data analytics, and how to fulfill its purpose?

Top-down support for analytics is crucial for analytics success: In order to make decision analysis more practical, data-driven analytics should be driven by top-down so that right patterns, right insights, and right decisions are made smoothly. Also, you need data-driven organizations across departments, business units and cross-functional. These needs to be started sooner than later and bring as part of organization culture. And that is why decision science or analytics should not be a function of its own in an organization. It needs to be integrated within the commercial or operational functions of a company. There needs some emphasis on the talent needed to sell the analytics up the ladder to those who can change the course of the ship. Otherwise, all you have is a pretty report coupled with conservative behavior.

Monetization of analytics efforts is very essential. The insights obtained by data mining needs to be converted into an actionable plan and results/ outcome validated in terms of financial figures. Historical data is always relevant and has potential value, but the analysis of the data has no value unless someone decides to act on it. Many information-savvy organizations have invested in tools and created analytic teams to make informed, real-time decisions. As more often big data analysis are near analysis & insight of individual or of the group be it internal or hired group! The whole point is to make a decision and to establish a course of action. Otherwise, it is futile to run any analysis at all. To deliver value from analytics, organizations must turn information into knowledge, insight, and wisdom, enabling making the right decisions at the right time.

Analytics is and never was a magic wand anyway, it is just another way to take an informed decision. Data is like raw diamond, raw diamonds get their use when becoming treated, processed into industrial diamonds. Only treatment makes them valuable, able to serve a purpose - help make more effective decisions to create better business values.
The whole purpose of analytics is to make better decisions based on data (big/small). You can call it with any name like decision management/theory/science/technology/engineering. Analytics has no value until they inform decisions, which further helps optimize various business management, directly or indirectly related to long-term revenue and organizational agility, ultimate build a high intelligent and high mature digital organization.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

Analytics has no Value until they Inform a Decision

The word analytics has become so broad it means anything from technology to data to predictive analytics to reporting, etc. Analytics in itself adds no value; it’s the decisions that analytics helps make and enable drive the actual business value. More specifically, what’s analytics value proposition, and how to fulfill its purpose?
Top-down support for analytics is crucial for analytics success: In order to make decision analysis more practical, data-driven analytics should be driven by top-down so that right patterns, right insights, and right decisions are made. Also, you need data-driven organizations across departments, business units and cross-functional. These needs to be started sooner than later and bring as part of organization culture. And that is why decision science or analytics should not be a function of its own in an organization. It needs to be integrated within the commercial or operational functions of a company. There needs some emphasis on the talent needed to sell the analytics up the ladder to those who can change the course of the ship. Otherwise, all you have is a pretty report coupled with conservative behavior.
Monetization of analytics efforts is very essential. The insights obtained by data mining needs to be converted into an actionable plan and results/ outcome validated in terms of financial figures. Historical data is always relevant and has potential value, but the analysis of the data has no value unless someone decides to act on it. Many information-savvy organizations have invested in tools and created analytic teams to make informed, real-time decisions. As more often big data analysis are near analysis & insight of individual or of the group be it internal or hired group!The whole point is to make a decision and to establish a course of action. Otherwise, it is futile to run any analysis at all. To deliver value from analytics, organizations must turn information into knowledge, insight, and wisdom.
Analytics is and never was a magic wand anyway, it is just another way to take an informed decision. Along with growth in top line and bottom line, there is growth or rather build up in it very intellectual capital in company or individuals so that leverage of growth & sustainable growth can be maintained at levels. Raw diamonds get their use when becoming treated, processed into industrial diamonds. Only treatment makes them valuable, able to serve a purpose - help make more effective decisions to create better business values.
The whole purpose of analytics is to make better decisions based on data (big/small). You can call it with any name like decision management/theory/science/technology/engineering. Analytics has no value until they inform decisions, which further helps optimize various business management, directly or indirectly related to long-term revenue and organizational agility, ultimate build a high intelligent and high mature digital organization.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

What do you think is the single most important attribute to being a great leader

Digitalization has raised the bar of leadership, due to the continuous change, the emergent trends of digitalization and globalization. A great leader is a great learner. Learning from those they lead and learning through self-development and self-enrichment. What do you think is the single most important attribute to being a great leader?


Vision: Great leaders have vision. They can see into the future. They have a clear, exciting idea of where they are going and what they are trying to accomplish. Leadership is all about pointing out a direction for self and others. The vision is like 'the guiding light,' so that people can see themselves and their work reflected in it. When a vision is realized, people live with change.
Trust: Others become inspired when they have someone in authority in whom they have absolute trust. That means an individual who has a strong moral compass, exhibiting integrity, empathy, thoughtfulness, respect, tolerance, determination, enthusiasm, confidence, understanding, optimism, patience and a sense of humour is a bonus. Those traits are found in the person in whom the workforce can have absolute faith.  Slow to speak and quick to listen, integrity, credibility and remembering you don't have to know everything! Be authentic and treat others like you want to be treated. The key is respect. If you respect others and inspire their respect in you - good communication, appreciation trust, etc., comes easier.
Deep engagement - with people and with problems, allied to the generosity of spirit. When a group has a problem - a leader "owns" the problem until resolution - when the group has success, a leader credits the whole team. Strong human relations seem to be the first attribute any leader should have. We are living in a digital ecosystem where everything is done for human by human. A person that can not connect and transmit thoughts is doomed to fail. The best leaders can create an emotional bond with their followers that are tied to the 'purpose' of their venture. This comes from creating authentic quality relationships based on trust and shared vulnerability. Win the hearts and all else will follow....
Creative leadership can be described as "Adaptability meets Agility.” Creative leadership is the unique combination of leadership behaviors that develops and achieves high quality and meaningful results over a sustained period of time. Creative leadership does this by challenging him/her self and staff to find optimal high-value solutions to provide clarity on high priority objectives, criteria, quality, and results. The more "creative leaders," we have, the better for the world. The proper function, the ultimate criterion of "creative leadership," is the ability to create more leaders, to spread leadership - or, more precisely, to groom "followers" (the people for whom one is responsible) into leaders.
Risk tolerance: As a leader you're taking risks, risks that sometimes you have no idea how it's going to be received publicly, financially or company wide. The ability to forgive yourself, grieve your losses and find a new solution, takes profound courage. Forgiveness is a skill to master that deeply impacts problem-solving.
Here are a list of important attributes to being a great leader:• Freedom – feeling, being and acting freely• Authenticity (access to trust)• Passion – creating the life you'd love to live • Energy – transforming anger into passion • Clarity – knowing your calling and acting from vision • Integrity – getting things done • Clarity • Awareness – perceiving reality from new levels • Authenticity – being real and incorruptible • Responsibility (ownership of the team, mission, business, etc.)A sense of humor is a nice touch, too.
In practice, there is NO one single attribute. There is just a delicate mix of management, leadership, and interpersonal skills, along with a lot of different attributes. Moreover, the use of these skills and attributes happen in different proportions for each major undertaking. It is hard to pick only one definitive attribute because all aspects of leadership work in unison and can't be viewed in isolation. They become the key components of a strong and successful leadership position. But necessary among the very most important attributes are integrity, empathy, character, creativity, and genuine humility. These are all things that make leaders great and "impactful" and, likewise make followers loyal, diligent, and committed when they possess the same traits. Leadership and "followership" are near parallels.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

How do you Define the Strategic Role of CIOs at Board Level

Due to the changing nature of technology, CIO role continues to be shaken up, refined, reinvented and reenergized; and many IT organizations are at cross road to either being transformed to be more value added digital IT, or being irrelevant as a cost center. How do you define the strategic role of CIOs at Board Level and what are important skills they need to cultivate?  


The board and top leadership team need to help define the CIO role in the same as the other CXO roles have been defined. The media needs to make it clear to CXOs and boards that for the moment, there are two sorts of CIOs and it's worth making the effort to reach out and find the ones that are strategic, board-level material; the other type is operation driven, 'keep the lights on' type of people, more tactical than strategic. There can be no ambiguity about what a CIO role is and it shouldn't be just 'keep the lights on' person, that should be given a different title IT Manager. A CIO can be as good as a leader as possible, nevertheless not achieve the set goals because of business or financial decisions that do not provide the basis to lead IT processes (internal and outsourced), documentation and cross-departmental communication. Until the corporation embed the power if information principle in its fiber, ensure it is part of its executive selection process and have a program to maintain the directories awareness if the organization systems remain as a challenge.

Sales and presentation skills are crucial if a CIO is significantly powerful.This is why so many CIO positions are filled by nontech people. So what tech person should do to have CIO required "sales" skills to succeed in this position? Or even to be considered for this position. Just develop those skills. It's necessary and inevitable. The faster you realize it, embrace it and start to act on it - the better for your leadership effectiveness. While it is conceptually required, educating IT uses and decision making by CIO is not guaranteed game changer. Unlike the process used in choosing the right CIO for the organization which tests the CIO skills against business competences, selecting corporate directors early test the candidate IT knowledge. This is why it is extremely important that, CIOs who want to, and can work at the strategic board level, need to get the message outside of their own circles so that they can make influence on organizational, industrial or even national scope and beyond.


Making the IT department a profit center is what the real challenge in most of the organizations. The cost part of the IT departments should be part of an overall corporate / company budget. Nevertheless, it surely is a political decision how to regard the CIO's position and what to expect getting back from it. Often the reality has changed the role of a CIO into a business and cost aware IT Manager that negotiates daily between new technologies, stable high-availability environments, provider stability and operational health - which requires a serious amount of positive communication whilst continuously looking for cost efficient replacement of unstable or "old" processes. That role requires a series of meetings based on trust relationships with colleagues and peers - and a healthy amount of time to validating received proposals and comments in order to creating a sound IT strategy and action plan for the near future. In many cases this is seen as a service provider - hence a cost center. IT can produce profits on its own, in certain areas. In others, it should at least become break-even, by charging out what it really costs. Therefore, making the IT department a profit center is what the real challenge in most of the organizations, because it requires some kind of rethinking and reorganizing the corporate processes and creating that changed sense of maintenance and support to services provisioning of many different kinds, such as consolidation and even insourcing) at a cost - putting on wheels a new profit center

CIO is a serious partner in the inner circle to creating added value strategies and enabling deeper insights into the opportunities IT can do. It's easy to say the onus rests on strategic CIOs to educate boards but, it can be difficult to just get the opportunity to inform them of the benefits of looking at technology (IT) from a strategic perspective. It’s important to have “mainstream” media conveying the updated information and insight, to inform CXOs and board members about the benefits of strategic CIOs.CIO needs to lead the department so that every level of the organization has great working relationships with the IT teams. With these in place, the CIO needs to transform from a technology manager into a business leader, and from a tactical manager to a strategy adviser.

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How can you tell if you're really Developing a Systemic Perspective?

Systems Thinkers shape a worldview based on the realization of interconnectedness.

Systems Thinking is a worldview that understands many experiences in terms of interconnected, interoperable events that produce identifiable results. Critical thinking is the critical and objective examination of your own thought processes to ensure you are constantly trying to observe events in terms of connectivity moving towards tangible ends. Many claim they are System Thinker, however, very small percentage of the population have in-depth understanding of the Systems Thinking discipline, how can you tell if you're really developing a systemic perspective? How can you tell the difference between Systems Thinking and self-deception?

Systems Thinkers shape a worldview based on the realization of interconnectedness. Simply a lot of us as humans can and really think systemically, even if we are not aware of this fact or don't use the specific terms by default. Everyone performs systems thinking to some degree, whether they're aware of it or not. Adept intent systems thinkers are typically more interested in understanding than being a legend in their own mind, and while they may fall into linear thought traps from time to time, they're continually investigating via any means possible to further understanding. Unfolding systemic relationships, telling stories to others, soliciting their feedback, and not arguing with their perspectives, is the best approach.

You could take a consciousness assessment. Analyzing anything is contrary to systems thinking. Russ Ackoff claimed that analysis is the scientific method that is taking things apart,  the term “analysis” does indeed mean a cognitive process that breaks things down into their parts. The emphasis, however, is “parts.”Systems thinking is attempting to understand the things and then attempting to understand the whole from an understanding of the parts. Both is generally far better than doing either one alone, though to do that one needs to understand each perspective. The best thing is to produce cause-and-effect models and predict outcomes. That might be anything from a mental experiment to a computer-based simulation. The discipline forces are getting clear about mechanisms. Put another way, it is very difficult to code "and then magic happens" in a simulation.

Guarding against self-deception is key to real innovation. Otherwise, you are always in danger of drinking your own wine. Digital leaders and professionals have to apply several different methods to keep you grounded in reality. Doing the reality checks are important. However, those reality checks are inherently limited. People-checks are prey to conventional wisdom. Data-checks are prey to noise and mistaking correlation for causation. That's not a criticism of those reality checks; it's just critical thinking about them, so you don't fall into another kind of self-deception. We all need to think just as we all need to breathe. Both are essential for survival. Neither process needs to be over-analyzed. There isn't a right way of thinking or breathing; both come naturally. That's not to say that Systems Thinking isn't an essential part of thinking, but so is sub-system analysis. They are complementary, not competing. Even we understand all different forms of thinking, the problems facing the planet don't seem to be reducing. Unless thinking is put into actions that result in positive outcomes, the subtleties of the definitions become academic. With greater understanding of the problems, the trick is to increase the influence and be part of the solutions So we shouldn't berate ourselves for our thought processes, but we should feel pleased when we leverage different thought processes to solve problems - systemically or analytically or both.

“To know, and not to act, is not to know." - Lao Tzu

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How Should You Structure, but Not Stifle Innovation?

Innovation per se is like composing a symphony, lot of planning, but the music will come from the musicians, not the director.

The gap is growing between the need for innovation and many organizations' capacities to learn how to do it. It's harder and much more painful to define your innovation constitution than to define the structures, and the formats used to make innovation happen. Although there’s no magic formula for innovation success, people, structure and process are all important factors. More specifically, how should you structure innovation, or what are the principles, processes, and practices to manage innovation more effectively and systematically?




Include. Democratize. If one of your employees came up with a new initiative to start an ideation process on a certain question, where would he or her take it? That's the problem of today's innovation programs. Many of them are organized the same way as the traditional staff idea and improvement box. Innovation is so much more. You need to know how to involve employees, and how to frame the question to get the best ideas. The business knows what good ideas are, what has been done before, and can evaluate the ideas. Also upfront (pre-ideation), you need to agree on next steps and who will be responsible for the follow-up. Fill the driving seat. Have designated staff to run, manage and curate your ideation processes. Try to include a diverse team of participants in your ideation processes as possible. Look out for curious people with a broad knowledge base, a hands-on attitude and good analytic and social skills. Make your creative processes available to everybody. Don’t let individual minds ruin your innovation setting. Promote ideation near to the customer frictions. Frontline workers, close to the market, usually have plenty of ideas.

Multi iterations, multi viewpoints: Ideation is not innovation. Keep idea generation processes separated from the rest of your innovation program. No process without a briefing, make sure no ideation process is conducted unless it is clear what creative challenge exactly you need ideas for. Ideation is not innovation. But it's still crucial. Without that constant source of ideas, innovation will not sustain. Make sure that your ideas are collected, and elaborated over at least two methodological iterations. Design your ideation processes in a way it allows you to consider multiple viewpoints in a creative challenge. Get rid of unnecessary hierarchy and politics. Politics is defined as a reflection of power balances when someone wants something, and someone else can help/block. Organizational politics can be helpful and can be a blockage, but it can't go away. It's part of relationships in human life, in and out of work. Make politics discussable and point out how people can use their power. The collaborative innovation teams are responsible that there are tools, processes and best-practices in place, that the business can use to innovate.

Senior leaders have power and influence, so use these productively. They must give visible support to the end to end innovation process, including any technology support. They can also coach and mentor team leaders and speak publicly about the need for innovation. Most organizations say they have no problem with idea generation, but they under-support idea testing and wider adoption. This is where senior leaders have a role. The problem is that too many leaders do too little! Top leaders need to build a culture of innovation with structured process in catalyzing, not stifling innovation, they have to think innovation as one of the most significant element in business strategy and manage it effectively. 

Team leaders have a key role because most innovation happens in teams doing the real work. And besides the C-level sponsorship for the program and the innovation focus areas, every ideation campaign also has a related middle manager sponsor to show the crowd there is actually someone behind the question in order to increase the trust the ideas will be picked up.Train these leaders to develop ideas from concept to implementation testing. What typically happens is that companies, after stating innovation as one of their core values, designate accountability to a Head of Innovation and feel they've done their duty. The same thing happens with knowledge management and diversity. Many Head of Innovations see themselves as the actual source of innovation. That's one group. Other Head of Innovations see their role to administrate the corporate ideas and suggestion box in a rather passive manner. Ideally, Head of Innovation need to find creative ways to tackle the innovation potential lying in an enterprise and to provide the necessary tools to unleash this creative force and to develop these tools further, with the goal to maintain the idea and innovation pipe of the company filed at any time.

The structure is one of the three levers, along with policies and programs, that managers can use to drive innovation. Remove any of the three, and you're liable to fail. Innovation is a culture more than anything, and it occurs of its own volition and often on its own time scale. A defined structure is essential to managing innovation in a corporation, but there's no single structure that will work in every organization. More precisely, you don't structure innovation. You apply principles of approach and vary the resource and tool mix by the ever changing environment, day to day through year to year. By default, trying to apply structure applies limits. If the structure is meant in a methodological sense, of course, the structure is needed. Many corporate innovation programs serve individual careers, not the content. Ideas are crucial to an innovation program. You need to make sure, that your company has a steady flow of fresh ideas floating in your innovation pipeline, and therefore you need a methodological mainframe that allows you to do that. The process to support the creation of sustainable, systematic innovation can be structured, but innovation per se is like composing a symphony, lot of planning, but the music will come from the musicians, not the director.
Some highly innovative organizations fail to capitalize on their great ideas because there was no structure in place to manage the ideas. Keep hierarchy as low as possible. Cut the politics. The rigorous innovation structures are supported by the right policies and programs. There are times fostering a culture where creativity thrives really helps drive innovation that can fit into an existing business or process. That's what innovation gurus would call routine, ongoing, or core innovation. The challenge comes with determining how to fund, commercialize, foster, protect, and focus investments in innovation that could require distinctly different business environments to prosper.




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How to “Harden” the Soft Business Element Like Culture

One of the formulas to build a successful business is to nurture an "adaptability trait" in an organization's culture. Culture is better defined by the "collective mindsets, attitudes, and behaviors of people in an organization. There is no question that culture can make or break an organization. However, many leaders fail to realize that culture will "happen" whether they understand it or not. So it's better to be deliberate about it. What are the principles your organization believes will make it successful? Where does one start with the importance of corporate culture? Who are the stewards of corporate culture, and how can you harden the soft element like culture to make it more visible and manage it more effectively?


Most companies have trouble seeing their own culture as they are so immersed in it. It's terribly important to step back and evaluate if you're where you want to be. Culturally strong organizations will survive the storm better and will be prepared to execute strategies and business plans effectively. However, such culture must evolve with times and change in business scenario. It is a continuously changing world, and no organization can afford to stick to its old ways of doing things. The fine principles of integrity, corporate governance, and other related good practices should never be thrown away on the cultural change. Increasing competition may also demand some cultural changes where rigid practices may have to give way to flexibility in the manner of carrying out business. Otherwise, business may be lost to competitors that have dynamic and more flexible business processes. A culture change will become imperative as the drive for revenue becomes a key factor in sustainability. Some of the old ways of doing things will give way to new behavioral tendencies that can create the right environment for business to thrive. The organization will lose out if old cultures of complacency do not give way to good business behavior that will attract potential customers. Change is the only constant. Corporate culture needs to be reviewed and fine tuned to remain agile and respond to the needs of the marketplace. When you're sailing in the sea, you are not in a position to control the winds or the waves, but you surely can adjust your sails and load balance to head in the right direction. It only increases your chances of success. If an organization's culture does not adapt to changing business environment around itself continuously, it's very unlikely it would sail towards its intended business objectives as a destination.


Top business executives should work closely with HR to drive company’s culture transformation: HR should own continual assessment on whether the culture is suitable to support achievement of corporate initiatives. If it isn't - then HR should counsel executives in the hurdles the culture is creating and obtain buy-in on strategies to enact cultural change via awareness, communication, monitoring, and ongoing assessment, What practices need to stop? What processes need to be enacted? What would the ideal culture be? By visioning and taking ownership of culture, HR can always be facilitating strategic plan success. Cultural change is a byproduct of how we as an organization interact. Often what we say and what we do are two different things, and that caused cultural dissonance. HR can assess, counsel, drive and sustain corporate culture yet rarely does so. Take a close look at your people and find out if they are at the same page. If yes, celebrate it. Maintain it. Do everything it takes to keep it. If not, then make a conscious effort to align it. It won't happen overnight, but it is worth the effort. Boundaries are breaking, and business is gaining a global perspective. Cross-cultural workforce is the new order of the day. Globalization has meant that organizations today are not just multi-national companies, but truly global businesses with strategic coherence and culture inclusiveness. It is not enough to align the culture to the employees alone. It is equally important to align the Market Culture as well. This varies from region to region. Certain key elements of any "culture" are basically unchangeable.
What gets measured, gets done. Organizations are created and exist to deliver and execute plans to meet customer needs. All changes in management processes and philosophy are to facilitating, executing and delivering products, projects, and services effectively. The Law of Entropy is just as true in the business world as it is in physics. In very simple terms, everything proceeds from a state of order to a state of disorder without intervention. Without a periodic review of any strategic pursuit including culture factor, it will come undone! The ownership structure of a company naturally affects and facilitates culture change. Of course, a culture change will become imperative as the drive for revenue becomes a key factor in sustainability. The organization will definitely lose out if old cultures of complacency do not give way to smart business ethic and behavior that will attract potential customers. Traditional culture assessments, unfortunately, are not very good in dealing with it: they generally describe the "Behavior" rather than an underlying, and in most cases unconscious value behind it. There are ways of finding it out, but since few practitioners are aware of it, they are rarely used. A next evolutionary step from an annual cultural assessment would be to identify KPIs for cultural health and bake measurement and reaction to them into the operating system. Not only does this increased visibility, but it removes the stigma of cultural considerations as "soft."


It is a continuously changing world, and no organization can afford to stick to its old ways of doing things. Increasing competition may also demand some cultural changes where rigid practices may have to give way to flexibility in the manner of carrying out business. Otherwise, customers may be lost to competitors that have dynamic and more flexible business cultures and processes. Truly speaking, one of the most important, yet open secret, of many successful organizations is to nurture an "adaptability trait" in an organization's culture. Without this, an organization may sail or drown, but surely not predict hitting the business objectives effectively. The fine principles of integrity, corporate governance, and other related good practices should never be thrown away on the cultural change.






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Faster, Better and Cheaper - Can Digital IT Achieve All

IT needs to be running in a more proactive digital mode, rather than in a reactive industrial mode.

Many traditional IT organizations still run in a reactive, "keeping the light on" mode, in pursuit of efficiency (doing more with less), but putting less effort on achieving agility (running with faster speed to adapt to the changes) and maturity (doing things better to delight customers, not just keeping IT functioning). However, with increasing speed of changes, IT has to be designed for change, but how? Can IT shift from a monolithic industrial mode to a nimble, adaptive and resilient style? Faster, better, cheaper, can IT achieve them all?

It's about people, process, and technology, well aligned with business strategy. When IT is viewed as expensive, it's often because there is a lack of a clear understanding of corresponding business value provided by IT. Aligning to business goals provides the context to invest technology dollars wisely. What really comes out is the need for the senior IT team to get close to the business and create the relationships that allow the proper conversations to happen. Focusing on the people, processes, and hearts & minds is not always easy for a technical team to do, but a real must in today's ever-evolving IT world. At traditional IT organizations, if you choose "cheap" and also choose "good," then expect "slow." Alternatively, if you choose "fast" to accompany "cheap," then expect poor quality. Cheap, fast and good - it seems you can have only two choices at a time. However, now with the emergent digital technologies such as Cloud, Mobile, Social, Analytics and IT consumerization trends, IT has better opportunity to run faster with digital speed; focus on doing more with innovation and achieve high quality result; and shifting from CapEx to OpEx does not always necessarily mean cheaper, but for enabling cash flow.


IT needs to be running in a more proactive digital mode, rather than in a reactive industrial mode. At industrial silo mode, IT plays as a controller, IT staff often takes heroic measures routinely to keep "their" IT systems working well for the business and their colleagues. The risk is that the IT team is overloaded and the business' expectations are raised to an unsustainable level as the workload increases. It is imperative that the IT leadership does not rely on this heroism of their team as it places the business at a very real peril when things change for the worse. IT leaders must find the ways and means to decrease the work pressure and obtain the permanent or temporary resource relief. To put another way, IT leaders must transform their organizations to be a business enabler, embrace the latest digital technology trends, also take proactive steps not only mitigating risks but performing risk intelligence.
IT leadership typically needs to come alongside business leadership with strategic decisions and remind them of the fundamental principle of business. Engage Board and executive team in strategic dialogs. Focus on communication about IT value add. Move towards a bimodal model: cutting cost on legacy side and investing in 'digital.' Benchmark IT spend versus competition. Highlight Operational Risks: shaky foundations in people, processes, technologies, tools, etc. and their related risks, are often ignored until the disaster strikes. In addition to the example of the extended outage, you may have a crisis caused by risks, a rapid change the scale of the business that cannot be properly supported by the IT capabilities of the company, turnover of key personnel, or obsolescence of key technologies. Often the business leadership views the claims for more investment is a self-servicing request. External and respected consultants or CXOs/Board members that have seen other businesses suffer from other investment or annual spending can provide a more objective measure. Benchmarks are useful if they are considered legitimate by the business leadership and are most effective when the entire business, the functions or the processes are benchmarked too.

Organizations rely more and more on information and technology; people tend to have a high expectation of digital flow, the IT department has more and more challenges to overcome for running at digital speed. IT leaders have to act beyond a technology manager, play multi-faceted roles: being a change agent to drive the changes, being an innovator to discover the new way to do things; being a customer champion to delight both internal and end customers; being a talent master to shape a high-performing IT team and being a governance champion to manage both risks and opportunities accordingly.
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