Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1425
July 3, 2015
How to Lead Through Constant Change
Traditional step-by-step change management as one time initiative approach might not work any longer for constant and multitude of change. Companies need to embed a change mindset in their culture and build change capabilities among all staff, not only managers.
Most people are quite willing to put effort in change. What they don't want is 'to be changed by others.' That calls out for resistance. So let them be part of the direction, speed and way you are heading. If people are used to take action of their own, and are also responsible for it, you can move mountains. Change is a challenge, and if you try to turn it into an obligation, you will cause an equal and opposite reaction. This is why command and control organizations struggle to change - first they need to let go of control. If you want to maintain management, then it needs to be a coaching and facilitation style of management - at every level. Dynamic and changing organizations cannot operate with unchanging people. Those who cannot learn change will get left behind. Indeed there should be some tools to implement the change, processes could be set depending on geographic location and taking into consideration the culture environment. Unless the persons whom you wish to change see the benefits of the change, no change is possible. So you have to demonstrate the intended change with results!
The vision for long term transformation is required for change to be effective and lasting: For change to be effective and lasting, transformation is required to provide the vision and focus for what the organization needs to look like alongside the impetus and sense of urgency. Unless of course the majority of resources and management in your organization are already there and are refining and continuing from a recent transformation. In a business sense, the speed of change in today’s business environment has shifted in pace beyond the capabilities of many businesses to change solely through continuous improvement and evolutionary change. Simple "Change" may involve dictated behavioral modification that is not natural and/or does not fit with the person's normal mode of behavior, values and beliefs. Being "unnatural" in this sense, it will be necessary to maintain a constant effort and vigilance to be confident that one is behaving properly and in accordance with the new rules.
Change becomes a dynamic business capability, not just a one time initiative or a static process. Continuous change has taken the form of rolling projects - or unfreeze-change- refreeze, often with several projects running simultaneously, and across several functional areas which often overlap. In that environment, change managers still work on a 'project of change.’ But do this often enough and well enough and the culture of the organization will adapt to be more receptive to change, and better prepared to execute changes successfully. Instead, they need to be working as high performing and creative teams, creating both internal and external beliefs around how the business is a movement for enablement and improvement. Building the expectation for the next step and commitment that will follow. Business can no longer work on the basis of static exploitation internally or externally; as it has been pursued in the past. Change becomes a dynamic business capability.
Change Management has a very wide scope and is a relatively new area of expertise. The change management focuses on coordination and facilitation, not bullying and forcing. Change Management is usually involved negotiating a way around all the roadblocks which people erect against the change. The speed of change is increasing, therefore, the change capability needs to be cultivated, not for its own sake, but for improve organizational efficiency, effectiveness and agility.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
July 1, 2015
Is your Business in the Driver’s Seat for Master Data Management?
The coordination and collaboration between business and IT team are the keys to any MDM implementation.
In today's market where analytics is becoming increasingly important, Master Data Management (MDM) increases the validity of data used to model customer behavior, cross-sell and up-sell. If your organization has multiple customer touch points or multiple service lines, then MDM will help ensure that you are able to assemble a complete picture of the relationship with customers. In order to manage and analyze data well, is your business in the driver’s seat for Master Data Management?
Undoubtedly Business Needs should be the driver. The business obviously has the understanding of the data and current processes. IT has an understanding of how to implement - and perhaps an instinctive concept of control of data. However, the business can sometimes be too close to the problem, too parochial perhaps, and see MDM as a way of replicating what they currently have with more quality, rather than an opportunity for business transformation. Hence, cross-functional collaborations are crucial to MDM success. Each of MDMs (Product, Material, Customer, Vendor) are owned by the most appropriate business area, BUT to the others' points - it is a very close partnership with IT. The business should own their data, since they are the ones using it, but IT plays an integral role in how the systems all work together, and impact analysis of any changes. This is particularly true if you are adding new enterprise apps or acquiring new businesses.
IT is driving solution: Business is driving the requirements to ensure the right data and right process in place. IT is driving the solution that enables and enforces business governance requirements and processes. Otherwise, no matter what solution IT is putting in place, the master data quality is still doomed to the overall project failure. The only time the business has assumed ownership of MDM is when the sponsorship for MDM comes from very senior management, and they understand the importance of business ownership. Otherwise, the typical corporate culture and dynamics force MDM to become an IT initiative dooming the program to failure.
Coordination between business and IT: The coordination and collaboration between business and IT team are the keys to any MDM implementation. No group can do MDM in isolation. The business experiences the problems on a daily basis and needs the help of IT to solve those problems. IT needs to understand the business issues so they implement the business rules accurately. But when companies try to approach it as an IT problem, IT doesn't have the clout to drive the business case and sustain the funding for the MDM program. Business should be the driver for Master Data Management and other IT initiatives, so there needs to be a collaborative partnership between the business and IT teams to effectively implement any technical solution. A project such as Master Data Management requires a person who understands data and can liaison between the business and technical team members to drive out the business requirements and help the technical team develop the best solution to meet those needs.
There are two words: Ownership and collaboration. Because Master Data are transversal all along the business processes, business face the difficulty of transversality. How to efficiently communicate on the need, availability or update of Master Data that is used by many users, but managed by one single owner, becomes a key question. In the real life, owners don't always know who uses the data, why, and which impact it causes to change it ; and users don't always know who owns the data, what constraints pilot the activity of the owner, and how their own constraints comply - or not - to the owner's ones. This is what makes shared KPI and notification process important in MDM implementation. The alignment of the business part of business and the IT part of business within master data management is for sure hard to crack without becoming an old chestnut.
Linking MDM to the multiple Business Domains within the enterprise and their business partners for product, location, promotion, and even chart of accounts will create a richer value return from the enterprise transaction data. The strong MDM can improve analytics project success rate, it means to discover more opportunities for future business growth and increasing customer satisfaction.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
In today's market where analytics is becoming increasingly important, Master Data Management (MDM) increases the validity of data used to model customer behavior, cross-sell and up-sell. If your organization has multiple customer touch points or multiple service lines, then MDM will help ensure that you are able to assemble a complete picture of the relationship with customers. In order to manage and analyze data well, is your business in the driver’s seat for Master Data Management?
Undoubtedly Business Needs should be the driver. The business obviously has the understanding of the data and current processes. IT has an understanding of how to implement - and perhaps an instinctive concept of control of data. However, the business can sometimes be too close to the problem, too parochial perhaps, and see MDM as a way of replicating what they currently have with more quality, rather than an opportunity for business transformation. Hence, cross-functional collaborations are crucial to MDM success. Each of MDMs (Product, Material, Customer, Vendor) are owned by the most appropriate business area, BUT to the others' points - it is a very close partnership with IT. The business should own their data, since they are the ones using it, but IT plays an integral role in how the systems all work together, and impact analysis of any changes. This is particularly true if you are adding new enterprise apps or acquiring new businesses.
IT is driving solution: Business is driving the requirements to ensure the right data and right process in place. IT is driving the solution that enables and enforces business governance requirements and processes. Otherwise, no matter what solution IT is putting in place, the master data quality is still doomed to the overall project failure. The only time the business has assumed ownership of MDM is when the sponsorship for MDM comes from very senior management, and they understand the importance of business ownership. Otherwise, the typical corporate culture and dynamics force MDM to become an IT initiative dooming the program to failure.
Coordination between business and IT: The coordination and collaboration between business and IT team are the keys to any MDM implementation. No group can do MDM in isolation. The business experiences the problems on a daily basis and needs the help of IT to solve those problems. IT needs to understand the business issues so they implement the business rules accurately. But when companies try to approach it as an IT problem, IT doesn't have the clout to drive the business case and sustain the funding for the MDM program. Business should be the driver for Master Data Management and other IT initiatives, so there needs to be a collaborative partnership between the business and IT teams to effectively implement any technical solution. A project such as Master Data Management requires a person who understands data and can liaison between the business and technical team members to drive out the business requirements and help the technical team develop the best solution to meet those needs.
There are two words: Ownership and collaboration. Because Master Data are transversal all along the business processes, business face the difficulty of transversality. How to efficiently communicate on the need, availability or update of Master Data that is used by many users, but managed by one single owner, becomes a key question. In the real life, owners don't always know who uses the data, why, and which impact it causes to change it ; and users don't always know who owns the data, what constraints pilot the activity of the owner, and how their own constraints comply - or not - to the owner's ones. This is what makes shared KPI and notification process important in MDM implementation. The alignment of the business part of business and the IT part of business within master data management is for sure hard to crack without becoming an old chestnut.
Linking MDM to the multiple Business Domains within the enterprise and their business partners for product, location, promotion, and even chart of accounts will create a richer value return from the enterprise transaction data. The strong MDM can improve analytics project success rate, it means to discover more opportunities for future business growth and increasing customer satisfaction.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Talent Management Tuning: What are Employees not Saying?
Figuring out what employees are not saying might be the start point to greater retention and a more engaged workforce.
Statistically, more than two thirds of employees today don’t feel engaged in the work, either due to the mediocre culture or lack of opportunity to grow and unleash their talent potentials. Many feel that they are outgrowing their positions and are interested in other opportunities. Hard to help develop and implement a professional development plan when they won't tell you what they truly desire. So from Talent Management and Change Management perspective, besides listening to what employees say, have you even tried to figure out what are employees not saying? Here are some things managers hardly ever hear from employees who are undoubtedly thinking it: *Understanding: You are making my job unnecessarily hard because you don't understand what I do all day.
* WIFM -What’s in It For Me: I want to be included in more decisions that affect me.* Respect: I want to be treated fairly and with respect.* Professionalism: Your temper tantrums frighten us. Your unprofessional actions are the root cause of mediocre culture.* Leadership: Your insensitive, self-centered behavior sometimes hurts us, and you always make poor judgement by looking at things at superficial way.* Do not micromanage: Show me the big picture, and specifically "what" is my role / contribution. Then leave the "how" to me. If I need guidance, I will ask.* Reward: Stop taking the credit for my work.* Fairness: When you play favorites, you are breaking the team, rather than building it. (In short evaluate performance & reward people based on results & not your personal likes & dislikes / perceptions)*Growth Mind: You need to have a growth mind yourself in order to inspire, develop and grow us.
There are so many things employees will not tell their managers what's in their mind, and unfortunately there are not so many things that are positives. It is an indication of a lack of true emphatic leadership, lack of culture of innovation and learning, lack of integral and effective talent management and performance management, it’s a real management challenge for all. All managers should proceed with the basic assumption and validate what’re in people’s mind, not just what they say, but what they do not say. The unfortunate truth is that while we all advocate transparency, but not so many managers will take this feedback in the right spirit. People need to be developed and grown so the positive energy can flow and collective human capabilities can really transformed into business strength and competitive advantage. Figuring out what employees are not saying might be the start point to greater retention and a more engaged workforce. Bosses are more likely than not to ignore the advice they receive. The good news is leaders seek feedback. The trick is to make more leaders!Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Statistically, more than two thirds of employees today don’t feel engaged in the work, either due to the mediocre culture or lack of opportunity to grow and unleash their talent potentials. Many feel that they are outgrowing their positions and are interested in other opportunities. Hard to help develop and implement a professional development plan when they won't tell you what they truly desire. So from Talent Management and Change Management perspective, besides listening to what employees say, have you even tried to figure out what are employees not saying? Here are some things managers hardly ever hear from employees who are undoubtedly thinking it: *Understanding: You are making my job unnecessarily hard because you don't understand what I do all day.* WIFM -What’s in It For Me: I want to be included in more decisions that affect me.* Respect: I want to be treated fairly and with respect.* Professionalism: Your temper tantrums frighten us. Your unprofessional actions are the root cause of mediocre culture.* Leadership: Your insensitive, self-centered behavior sometimes hurts us, and you always make poor judgement by looking at things at superficial way.* Do not micromanage: Show me the big picture, and specifically "what" is my role / contribution. Then leave the "how" to me. If I need guidance, I will ask.* Reward: Stop taking the credit for my work.* Fairness: When you play favorites, you are breaking the team, rather than building it. (In short evaluate performance & reward people based on results & not your personal likes & dislikes / perceptions)*Growth Mind: You need to have a growth mind yourself in order to inspire, develop and grow us.
There are so many things employees will not tell their managers what's in their mind, and unfortunately there are not so many things that are positives. It is an indication of a lack of true emphatic leadership, lack of culture of innovation and learning, lack of integral and effective talent management and performance management, it’s a real management challenge for all. All managers should proceed with the basic assumption and validate what’re in people’s mind, not just what they say, but what they do not say. The unfortunate truth is that while we all advocate transparency, but not so many managers will take this feedback in the right spirit. People need to be developed and grown so the positive energy can flow and collective human capabilities can really transformed into business strength and competitive advantage. Figuring out what employees are not saying might be the start point to greater retention and a more engaged workforce. Bosses are more likely than not to ignore the advice they receive. The good news is leaders seek feedback. The trick is to make more leaders!Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
A Balanced IT
The pervasive digitalization or IT consumerism require the balance of “old experience” and “new way to do things,” the “learning and doing.”
The emerging digital technologies such as Cloud, Mobile, Social and Analytics bring new opportunity to run IT organization faster and more agile. For many legacy organizations, how does IT support the existing environment while deploying innovative, "value generating" initiatives? Or to put simply, what are the effective ways to meet these challenge? And how to run a balanced IT to both keeping the light on and accelerating digital transformation?
Keep the balance of “on premise” and “on demand” IT applications to run IT with reliability and agility: Let's define cloud. The cloud is more or less a metaphor for clusters of compute and storage where you can run applications with scalability. Now, you can build virtual servers on top of these clusters that can be scaled up and down as needed. You can build a private cloud, or you can leverage the public cloud, or you can even use a hybrid approach. To a lot of people who aren't all that well versed in technology, the cloud is magical, ethereal body that contains a bunch of handy applications and more storage than they could ever need for all of their personal usage such as pictures, videos and emails. In reality, these are services running on top of a vendor's cloud. Now, there are no-brainers as far as "cloud" apps go. In each situation, consideration must be given to what the consequences of a data breach or downtime might be, and how easy it is to recover from the worst case scenario. If you're running the apps yourself, you are more in control of risk management, governance and compliance, and it’s better able to deal with an outage. If a third party is responsible, you're beholden to them (no matter what your contract may stipulate). So how do you weave "the cloud" into the digital IT picture, and keep the balance of “on premise” and “on demand” IT applications, to ensure IT is running with faster speed, reliability and agility. That is both the art and science of strategic planning, step-by-step execution and solid approach for governance and risk management.
Technology Enablement is always about planning, funding, designing, building, operating, securing, optimizing and balancing, but digital IT has faster speed. The impact of today’s technologies, and their integration with the other new technologies, and like in the past the integration with “older” technologies, seems to be more profound, especially given the concurrent ecosystem changes going on (digitalization, economical dynamic, globalization). To be successful, IT leaders must support the existing environment (provide a reliable secure infrastructure, maintain the application portfolio), while deploying innovative value generating (business cost reduction and revenue generating) initiatives that are leveraging SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud) technologies. Technology Enablement (regardless of the extent of digitization), is all about planning, funding, designing, building, operating, securing, optimizing and managing digitized data/documents/messages, and digitized business processes applies today, have become even more critical to today’s organizational successes.
The pervasive digitalization or IT consumerism require the balance of “old experience” and “new way to do things,” the “learning and doing.” We have more computing power, greater connectivity, more data, greater potential empowerment of the worker, etc. But more of something isn't always necessarily good. There are at least four things that are different from 'business as usual.' First, pervasive digitization requires both business and technology professionals to rethink how things are done in organizations. The 'reach and range' flexibility that now exists removes barriers that have existed in the past, if we can recognize the barriers. Second, business professionals are not infrequently 'ahead' of their organization's technology professionals when it comes to thinking about the opportunities made available by pervasive digitization (what some technology pundits refer to as 'IT consumerism.') Third, media and platform choices will matter more than ever with an increasing ease of translating content across media types and the ease of migrating across platforms. How, this cornucopia of design options is exploited and managed thus becomes a crucial factor in an organization's success in producing digitized products and services. Finally, the emergence of potential opportunities for exploiting digitization is likely to follow a nonlinear pattern or exponential speed, as the pervasiveness of an organization's digitization journey increases. How these ideas are recognized, filtered and dealt with will as well become a crucial factor in an organization's success in running a balanced IT and producing digitized products and services. Do not underestimates the perfect wave of combined integration of all of the exponential growth curves. The forward-looking organizations always continue to learn, and strike the right balance between “old” and “new” way to do things, IT-business alignment is moving into IT enablement and IT engagement. So, perhaps more importantly, whether one believes that the current experience is a transformation or just an extension of the past, what are the things that you can do as IT and non-IT leaders to leverage the experiences of the past, and what are some new lessons for you to consider through applying Cloud and other digital technologies? The ultimate goal is to build a balanced, high-performing and customer-centric IT organization.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
The emerging digital technologies such as Cloud, Mobile, Social and Analytics bring new opportunity to run IT organization faster and more agile. For many legacy organizations, how does IT support the existing environment while deploying innovative, "value generating" initiatives? Or to put simply, what are the effective ways to meet these challenge? And how to run a balanced IT to both keeping the light on and accelerating digital transformation?
Keep the balance of “on premise” and “on demand” IT applications to run IT with reliability and agility: Let's define cloud. The cloud is more or less a metaphor for clusters of compute and storage where you can run applications with scalability. Now, you can build virtual servers on top of these clusters that can be scaled up and down as needed. You can build a private cloud, or you can leverage the public cloud, or you can even use a hybrid approach. To a lot of people who aren't all that well versed in technology, the cloud is magical, ethereal body that contains a bunch of handy applications and more storage than they could ever need for all of their personal usage such as pictures, videos and emails. In reality, these are services running on top of a vendor's cloud. Now, there are no-brainers as far as "cloud" apps go. In each situation, consideration must be given to what the consequences of a data breach or downtime might be, and how easy it is to recover from the worst case scenario. If you're running the apps yourself, you are more in control of risk management, governance and compliance, and it’s better able to deal with an outage. If a third party is responsible, you're beholden to them (no matter what your contract may stipulate). So how do you weave "the cloud" into the digital IT picture, and keep the balance of “on premise” and “on demand” IT applications, to ensure IT is running with faster speed, reliability and agility. That is both the art and science of strategic planning, step-by-step execution and solid approach for governance and risk management.
Technology Enablement is always about planning, funding, designing, building, operating, securing, optimizing and balancing, but digital IT has faster speed. The impact of today’s technologies, and their integration with the other new technologies, and like in the past the integration with “older” technologies, seems to be more profound, especially given the concurrent ecosystem changes going on (digitalization, economical dynamic, globalization). To be successful, IT leaders must support the existing environment (provide a reliable secure infrastructure, maintain the application portfolio), while deploying innovative value generating (business cost reduction and revenue generating) initiatives that are leveraging SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud) technologies. Technology Enablement (regardless of the extent of digitization), is all about planning, funding, designing, building, operating, securing, optimizing and managing digitized data/documents/messages, and digitized business processes applies today, have become even more critical to today’s organizational successes.
The pervasive digitalization or IT consumerism require the balance of “old experience” and “new way to do things,” the “learning and doing.” We have more computing power, greater connectivity, more data, greater potential empowerment of the worker, etc. But more of something isn't always necessarily good. There are at least four things that are different from 'business as usual.' First, pervasive digitization requires both business and technology professionals to rethink how things are done in organizations. The 'reach and range' flexibility that now exists removes barriers that have existed in the past, if we can recognize the barriers. Second, business professionals are not infrequently 'ahead' of their organization's technology professionals when it comes to thinking about the opportunities made available by pervasive digitization (what some technology pundits refer to as 'IT consumerism.') Third, media and platform choices will matter more than ever with an increasing ease of translating content across media types and the ease of migrating across platforms. How, this cornucopia of design options is exploited and managed thus becomes a crucial factor in an organization's success in producing digitized products and services. Finally, the emergence of potential opportunities for exploiting digitization is likely to follow a nonlinear pattern or exponential speed, as the pervasiveness of an organization's digitization journey increases. How these ideas are recognized, filtered and dealt with will as well become a crucial factor in an organization's success in running a balanced IT and producing digitized products and services. Do not underestimates the perfect wave of combined integration of all of the exponential growth curves. The forward-looking organizations always continue to learn, and strike the right balance between “old” and “new” way to do things, IT-business alignment is moving into IT enablement and IT engagement. So, perhaps more importantly, whether one believes that the current experience is a transformation or just an extension of the past, what are the things that you can do as IT and non-IT leaders to leverage the experiences of the past, and what are some new lessons for you to consider through applying Cloud and other digital technologies? The ultimate goal is to build a balanced, high-performing and customer-centric IT organization. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
June 30, 2015
CIOs as Chief Insight Officer: How to Connecting the Dots via Pattern & Pattern Language
A Pattern Language is an attempt to express the deeper wisdom of what brings aliveness within a particular field of human endeavor.
Pattern has a few meanings, it’s usually about repeating artistic or decorative design: a paisley pattern; or a natural or accidental arrangement or sequence. A plan, diagram, or model to be followed in making things. A consistent, characteristic form, style, or method. Or a composite of traits or features characteristic of an individual or a group., etc. (freedictionary.com) When patterns work together to solve problems in a particular area, these patterns are called a pattern language. The people learn a set of languages, and then apply several synergistically to produce a solution.
A pattern language is "about" the relationships between patterns - particularly the way you can navigate from pattern to pattern to learn about a problem space and to apply different solutions in combination. In particular, the pattern language tells you how one pattern "leads to" another, in the same way that one clause in a natural language might lead to another. But the person who reads and understands the pattern language still needs to decide how to apply that language to describe a set of problems and solutions. There are two approaches to patterns that are suited to different people. - Learning a growing set of patterns so you can select one when it is useful.- Learning what makes a good pattern good so you can derive your own solutions in each new situation.
Pattern language is an extension of the notion of ubiquitous language. Pattern Language would apply to a set of patterns implemented in a framework that you don't have to leave when creating your project. In other words, if the framework implements a set of patterns well enough that you can stay in the framework and concentrate on your business logic. Pattern language is an extension of the notion of ubiquitous language. As much as developers and users need a common vocabulary for getting domain, solution architects, developers and SMEs need a common vocabulary in the solution domain. Patterns map that vocabulary to the corresponding technical design and implementation. A pattern language provides an even-more (not less) meta level of work. In a pattern language, patterns often reference each other and using one pattern may add or remove applicability to another - they may interoperate. The patterns are grouped and sometimes pathed within an area of expertise (multiprocessing, GUI design, organizing people in a company) so that people without extensive experience can pick up the language and sometimes solve problems in unsurprisingly wise ways.
While frameworks are useful, the existence of a framework is independent of patterns and pattern languages. You can often describe a well-designed framework in terms of the patterns that are embodied in its implementation, and the patterns that might help you understand how to use and adapt it. It's possible that a pattern language might help you understand the framework. Meanwhile, a framework might capture certain paths through a pattern language, but if the language is truly generative, then it should be capable of describing multiple possible frameworks that respond to the same domain. An implementation of a pattern is not the pattern, and a framework of pattern implementations is not a pattern language. Programming languages evolve towards handling business objects (customer data and order data) more directly than dealing with setting a property on the customer object or serializing it and sending to a process for storing. The frameworks are useful, because they tend to abstract towards dealing with business logic directly.
Each pattern is useful to address some specific problem around fault tolerance / resilience; but resilience is a pretty broad topic and there's plenty of room to get lost in the details. Patterns are good in practice and definitely intellectually stimulating, someone ties the patterns together so you can navigate among them. But keep an eye on getting too bogged down in the minutiae, especially if it starts to hinder delivering valuable working software. The completeness of the language would take multiple patterns and the introduction of a framework would be a way to accomplish this. Language is what being used when seeing a pattern frequently enough to assign it words.
The language is the system of rules that say how patterns can be combined in ways that "make sense" syntactically and add insight semantically. A pattern language is a set of patterns that work together to solve the conflicting forces within a system. A human language is a system of rules: syntax, semantics, grammar, that allows us to generate meaningful statements, such that multiple people can understand that meaning in ways that are sufficiently similar, that we have communicated with one another. More abstractly, a language is generative in the sense that we can use the language to generate meaningful sentences, paragraphs, and books. If we have a set of patterns that bear some relationship to one another - usually because they are in some common domain, then we can compose those patterns to generate a larger design or architecture, in much the same way that human languages can generate sentences or paragraphs.
A Pattern Language is an attempt to express the deeper wisdom of what brings aliveness within a particular field of human endeavor, through a set of interconnected expressions arising from that wisdom. A pattern language can generate different solutions, for a given solution is the combination of the inner forces acting on the system with the pattern language applied to solve that particular combination of forces. Aliveness is one placeholder term for the quality, a sense of wholeness, spirit, or grace, while of varying form, is precise and empirically verifiable.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Pattern has a few meanings, it’s usually about repeating artistic or decorative design: a paisley pattern; or a natural or accidental arrangement or sequence. A plan, diagram, or model to be followed in making things. A consistent, characteristic form, style, or method. Or a composite of traits or features characteristic of an individual or a group., etc. (freedictionary.com) When patterns work together to solve problems in a particular area, these patterns are called a pattern language. The people learn a set of languages, and then apply several synergistically to produce a solution.
A pattern language is "about" the relationships between patterns - particularly the way you can navigate from pattern to pattern to learn about a problem space and to apply different solutions in combination. In particular, the pattern language tells you how one pattern "leads to" another, in the same way that one clause in a natural language might lead to another. But the person who reads and understands the pattern language still needs to decide how to apply that language to describe a set of problems and solutions. There are two approaches to patterns that are suited to different people. - Learning a growing set of patterns so you can select one when it is useful.- Learning what makes a good pattern good so you can derive your own solutions in each new situation.
Pattern language is an extension of the notion of ubiquitous language. Pattern Language would apply to a set of patterns implemented in a framework that you don't have to leave when creating your project. In other words, if the framework implements a set of patterns well enough that you can stay in the framework and concentrate on your business logic. Pattern language is an extension of the notion of ubiquitous language. As much as developers and users need a common vocabulary for getting domain, solution architects, developers and SMEs need a common vocabulary in the solution domain. Patterns map that vocabulary to the corresponding technical design and implementation. A pattern language provides an even-more (not less) meta level of work. In a pattern language, patterns often reference each other and using one pattern may add or remove applicability to another - they may interoperate. The patterns are grouped and sometimes pathed within an area of expertise (multiprocessing, GUI design, organizing people in a company) so that people without extensive experience can pick up the language and sometimes solve problems in unsurprisingly wise ways.
While frameworks are useful, the existence of a framework is independent of patterns and pattern languages. You can often describe a well-designed framework in terms of the patterns that are embodied in its implementation, and the patterns that might help you understand how to use and adapt it. It's possible that a pattern language might help you understand the framework. Meanwhile, a framework might capture certain paths through a pattern language, but if the language is truly generative, then it should be capable of describing multiple possible frameworks that respond to the same domain. An implementation of a pattern is not the pattern, and a framework of pattern implementations is not a pattern language. Programming languages evolve towards handling business objects (customer data and order data) more directly than dealing with setting a property on the customer object or serializing it and sending to a process for storing. The frameworks are useful, because they tend to abstract towards dealing with business logic directly.
Each pattern is useful to address some specific problem around fault tolerance / resilience; but resilience is a pretty broad topic and there's plenty of room to get lost in the details. Patterns are good in practice and definitely intellectually stimulating, someone ties the patterns together so you can navigate among them. But keep an eye on getting too bogged down in the minutiae, especially if it starts to hinder delivering valuable working software. The completeness of the language would take multiple patterns and the introduction of a framework would be a way to accomplish this. Language is what being used when seeing a pattern frequently enough to assign it words.
The language is the system of rules that say how patterns can be combined in ways that "make sense" syntactically and add insight semantically. A pattern language is a set of patterns that work together to solve the conflicting forces within a system. A human language is a system of rules: syntax, semantics, grammar, that allows us to generate meaningful statements, such that multiple people can understand that meaning in ways that are sufficiently similar, that we have communicated with one another. More abstractly, a language is generative in the sense that we can use the language to generate meaningful sentences, paragraphs, and books. If we have a set of patterns that bear some relationship to one another - usually because they are in some common domain, then we can compose those patterns to generate a larger design or architecture, in much the same way that human languages can generate sentences or paragraphs.
A Pattern Language is an attempt to express the deeper wisdom of what brings aliveness within a particular field of human endeavor, through a set of interconnected expressions arising from that wisdom. A pattern language can generate different solutions, for a given solution is the combination of the inner forces acting on the system with the pattern language applied to solve that particular combination of forces. Aliveness is one placeholder term for the quality, a sense of wholeness, spirit, or grace, while of varying form, is precise and empirically verifiable.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Performance Management: Change the Name or Change the Mindset
There is a need to evaluate the performance of employees in more objective and continuous way.
People are always the most invaluable asset in the business, however, in most of organizations, HR is still playing as an administrative role, instead of a strategic player, handle talent management, performance management, and culture management in silos, lack of strategic vision and integral process to manage them holistically. Rightfully in most organizations, the term "performance management" has a negative connotations as it tends to label processes that the business sees as, at a minimum, administratively burdensome and at worst simply dreads. Many complain that the issue with the term ‘Performance Management’ is that it sounds too technical to use on humans. And it is actually intended to be technical. What are the real problems in today’s Performance Management, and shall you change the name or change the methodology?
Talent Development need to covers two sides. It allows the employee to feel they are important and the organization is committed to their development. It also can drive supervisors thoughts on the process. It is not a management check in the box. It is required developmental conversations and strategic plans that are conducted with valued team members. The whole concept is obviously more involved than just a name change. Talent Management includes such things as optimizing the talents of employees at all levels, building a culture that supports the objectives that the employees are to achieve, providing positive reinforcement and corrective feedback and linking behaviors to appropriate consequences, and aligning the organization for success; it is not just about a performance appraisal or focusing solely on an individual. It is about optimizing an organization's most important assets, its employees and that requires many different initiatives and actions.
There is a need to evaluate the performance of employees in more objective and continuous way. There is a danger of not having a process to "develop and nurture" performance, bias and favoritism are common in the workplace. Waiting until once per year or even every six months to evaluate workers is also not enough to know key performance nor should it be. There is more to an employee's performance than metrics on an assessment form or survey. We are talking about human beings who have feelings, and are affected by different scenarios that could impact their daily performance. Some things could be within their control and then, there may be times when their performance is based on the outcome of others providing them needed resources for them to complete their job effectively. So the performance evaluation method can be somewhat bias and subjective; especially if the manager has not been providing effective feedback on a continual basis with employee each week. Managers tend to manage their employees based on what they want or expect, instead of tapping on what skills an employee already has which they can develop to do the job. So it’s not about managing performance, but developing or enhancing one’s capabilities.
Change assessment has to ensure the change stays on track: HR isn't going to "change" anyone or anything when the stakeholders don't want it. It's a paradigm/culture shift and, thus, it has to be co-created by the whole ecosystem. Passionate employees, front line leaders, top-level leaders who truly want a better way of being and achieving at work need to be equally accountable, with HR holding up the mirror of accountability and, ultimately, change assessment to ensure the change stays on track (or adjusts, as learning occurs). Peers can also help keep up performance by exchanging views of how to do things well, debriefing after situations in which they think things could have gone better and work out ways to improve. Having an open mind, accepting failure as a means to learn and improve, all these are some ways to make sure performance is up to standards. It’s critical to have open communication and willingness to improve. Managers who communicate regularly with their employees are more likely to know how each one is performing, as long as they take the trouble to interact with them and see how they are doing, as well as offering help where needed. When employees' mistakes (reasonable ones) are taken as opportunities to learn, at the individual or group level, enduring trusting relationships are created so that open communication channels are more likely to remain open.
HR plays strategic partnership role in setting effective processes and building high-performing culture: The HR professional in this era plays an influential role in supporting leadership to create an 'engaged' workplace culture that is aligned with their leadership values. An inspiring and motivating culture resolves for the most part, 'performance' concerns and shifts the mentality from 'managing' performance to building performance partnerships. Of course there will always be a minority of employees who are under -performers and the need for a process deal with these. There's the process of continually aligning abilities, talents, aspirations, etc., to important work that an organization needs done and of providing feedback to employees on how well the organization feels they are delivering on their commitments. This needs to be a multi-directional dialogue around accountability, feedback and continual adjustment of expectations and future commitments. Ideally, it involves more than just the employee and the manager, with the employee ideally being the primary driver and the manager mentoring if the employee doesn't care enough or know how to drive it. Talent Management includes such things as optimizing the talents of employees at all levels, building a culture that supports the objectives the employees are to achieve, providing positive reinforcement and corrective feedback and linking behaviors to appropriate consequences, and aligning the organization for success-- it is not just about a performance appraisal or focusing solely on an individual. It is about optimizing an organization's most important resources, its employees and that requires many different initiatives and actions.
HR has to have a selling mindset. While changing language changes perspectives, simply changing the words isn't a solution in its own right. You need a paradigm shift -- from a view of the employee needing to be pushed to an "acceptable" level of performance to a scenario where the organization and the individual collaborate transparently in a dynamically changing environment to determine where the individual (including everything that makes them who they are) will be able to achieve their potential in terms of both organizational and personal strategies and aspirations. This process includes ongoing bi-directional dialogue and adjustment, recognizing that the organization is both the buyer and the seller in the equation -- buyer in that the organization is purchasing an individual's time, and seller in that they are "selling" experiences, opportunities and financial compensation.
Performance Management is an important process which underpins organization’s collective human capability to achieve high performance. Whatever you call the process, the manager and employee should share accountability for frequent dialogues around alignment, fulfillment, development, feedback, mutual value add. Engage in adult dialogue that makes the organization, team and role purpose clear and meaningful. Co create and coach around the plan of execution. Support, remove roadblock and above all - stay out of the way. Encourage the heart. Do managers add value to the employee's professional or personal goals, and objectives as well as the other way around? Such that both employer and employee are following through on stated commitments to each other.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
People are always the most invaluable asset in the business, however, in most of organizations, HR is still playing as an administrative role, instead of a strategic player, handle talent management, performance management, and culture management in silos, lack of strategic vision and integral process to manage them holistically. Rightfully in most organizations, the term "performance management" has a negative connotations as it tends to label processes that the business sees as, at a minimum, administratively burdensome and at worst simply dreads. Many complain that the issue with the term ‘Performance Management’ is that it sounds too technical to use on humans. And it is actually intended to be technical. What are the real problems in today’s Performance Management, and shall you change the name or change the methodology?
Talent Development need to covers two sides. It allows the employee to feel they are important and the organization is committed to their development. It also can drive supervisors thoughts on the process. It is not a management check in the box. It is required developmental conversations and strategic plans that are conducted with valued team members. The whole concept is obviously more involved than just a name change. Talent Management includes such things as optimizing the talents of employees at all levels, building a culture that supports the objectives that the employees are to achieve, providing positive reinforcement and corrective feedback and linking behaviors to appropriate consequences, and aligning the organization for success; it is not just about a performance appraisal or focusing solely on an individual. It is about optimizing an organization's most important assets, its employees and that requires many different initiatives and actions.
There is a need to evaluate the performance of employees in more objective and continuous way. There is a danger of not having a process to "develop and nurture" performance, bias and favoritism are common in the workplace. Waiting until once per year or even every six months to evaluate workers is also not enough to know key performance nor should it be. There is more to an employee's performance than metrics on an assessment form or survey. We are talking about human beings who have feelings, and are affected by different scenarios that could impact their daily performance. Some things could be within their control and then, there may be times when their performance is based on the outcome of others providing them needed resources for them to complete their job effectively. So the performance evaluation method can be somewhat bias and subjective; especially if the manager has not been providing effective feedback on a continual basis with employee each week. Managers tend to manage their employees based on what they want or expect, instead of tapping on what skills an employee already has which they can develop to do the job. So it’s not about managing performance, but developing or enhancing one’s capabilities.
Change assessment has to ensure the change stays on track: HR isn't going to "change" anyone or anything when the stakeholders don't want it. It's a paradigm/culture shift and, thus, it has to be co-created by the whole ecosystem. Passionate employees, front line leaders, top-level leaders who truly want a better way of being and achieving at work need to be equally accountable, with HR holding up the mirror of accountability and, ultimately, change assessment to ensure the change stays on track (or adjusts, as learning occurs). Peers can also help keep up performance by exchanging views of how to do things well, debriefing after situations in which they think things could have gone better and work out ways to improve. Having an open mind, accepting failure as a means to learn and improve, all these are some ways to make sure performance is up to standards. It’s critical to have open communication and willingness to improve. Managers who communicate regularly with their employees are more likely to know how each one is performing, as long as they take the trouble to interact with them and see how they are doing, as well as offering help where needed. When employees' mistakes (reasonable ones) are taken as opportunities to learn, at the individual or group level, enduring trusting relationships are created so that open communication channels are more likely to remain open.
HR plays strategic partnership role in setting effective processes and building high-performing culture: The HR professional in this era plays an influential role in supporting leadership to create an 'engaged' workplace culture that is aligned with their leadership values. An inspiring and motivating culture resolves for the most part, 'performance' concerns and shifts the mentality from 'managing' performance to building performance partnerships. Of course there will always be a minority of employees who are under -performers and the need for a process deal with these. There's the process of continually aligning abilities, talents, aspirations, etc., to important work that an organization needs done and of providing feedback to employees on how well the organization feels they are delivering on their commitments. This needs to be a multi-directional dialogue around accountability, feedback and continual adjustment of expectations and future commitments. Ideally, it involves more than just the employee and the manager, with the employee ideally being the primary driver and the manager mentoring if the employee doesn't care enough or know how to drive it. Talent Management includes such things as optimizing the talents of employees at all levels, building a culture that supports the objectives the employees are to achieve, providing positive reinforcement and corrective feedback and linking behaviors to appropriate consequences, and aligning the organization for success-- it is not just about a performance appraisal or focusing solely on an individual. It is about optimizing an organization's most important resources, its employees and that requires many different initiatives and actions.
HR has to have a selling mindset. While changing language changes perspectives, simply changing the words isn't a solution in its own right. You need a paradigm shift -- from a view of the employee needing to be pushed to an "acceptable" level of performance to a scenario where the organization and the individual collaborate transparently in a dynamically changing environment to determine where the individual (including everything that makes them who they are) will be able to achieve their potential in terms of both organizational and personal strategies and aspirations. This process includes ongoing bi-directional dialogue and adjustment, recognizing that the organization is both the buyer and the seller in the equation -- buyer in that the organization is purchasing an individual's time, and seller in that they are "selling" experiences, opportunities and financial compensation.
Performance Management is an important process which underpins organization’s collective human capability to achieve high performance. Whatever you call the process, the manager and employee should share accountability for frequent dialogues around alignment, fulfillment, development, feedback, mutual value add. Engage in adult dialogue that makes the organization, team and role purpose clear and meaningful. Co create and coach around the plan of execution. Support, remove roadblock and above all - stay out of the way. Encourage the heart. Do managers add value to the employee's professional or personal goals, and objectives as well as the other way around? Such that both employer and employee are following through on stated commitments to each other.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Digital Strategy Tuning: How to Make Good Business ‘Assumptions’
"Assumptions" should be thought of as qualified projections rather than a best guess.
Running a business is a thorny journey, with a lot of uncertainty, complexity and velocity on the way, what are basic business ‘assumptions’ mostly flawed or invalid when preparing business strategic planning? And how can organizational leaders make continuous adjustment to ensure the business is “doing the right things” before doing things right, framing the right questions before answering them right?
"Assumptions" should be thought of as qualified projections rather than a best guess: Business can be only done on facts and that too objectively assessed while business decision requires imagination power, but the same needs to be validated at repeated intervals. Particularly, in the business planning process, assumptions should be kept at the minimum. The defining document of your business should not be based on assumptions. Of course, if you’re entering a space where there is no historical record of standards and procedure, it is acceptable to draw conclusions to some degree. But, keep in mind that every unsubstantiated element of your business plan is a loose brick in the wall of success! In the case of your strategic planning, "assumptions" should be thought of as qualified projections rather than a best guess.
Define three “Changes” to get reasonable control: Business leaders must relate their current business environment continually to those assumptions made when the plan was first devised. If these are changes in the assumed conditions, you must ask how this affects the business currently and going forward. Business benefits arise when people act in new ways. Customers, staff, partners need to do something different to make business benefits to occur. Therefore, investing in business improvements often fail because you try to forecast the result only. The fact is, you need to define three "changes" to get reasonable control. When you define these 3 kinds of changes, you find the KPIs to measure for each of them, and the change owners for them, Not doing this is the mother of all wrong assumptions .1). Enabler 2). Process change enabled 3). Results from process change.
Everything has more than one side and you have to master them all. As far as for assumptions, sometimes it’s inevitable that you have to make them, because you will never have complete information, and if you try to only act on what you know by fact, you are more likely to go wrong. Also when trying to determine the macro environment, and how the factors there may influence your business strategic plan one way or another, it is difficult to move away entirely from assumptions. You can always put a semantic spin on the word and call them projections, but those "projections" are very often based on conjecture or assumptions. So you have to collect enough information, listen to different PoVs, and sometimes it can be very worthwhile to spend extra time to solve a problem excellently. You may find an insight you didn't find before. You may find a clearer way to think about the problem, which you can reuse next time you see a similar one.
Simplicity is crucial in both strategy and execution. It is so easy for us as human beings to over complicate the strategy and the execution. There are so many people that tie themselves up in the detail - is it a goal; is it an objective, they focus on the trees with ignorance of forest; so they lose sight of where they want to go. It’s important for staffs to understand strategy well in order to implement it; however, so often strategy can tie people up so much they lose sight of where they are heading, which is quite the paradox. At least if someone is in motion, it is easier to help them change direction or put framework (strategy) around where they are going and how they might get there. But if assuming resistance to change is not the issue, it will cause further issues later.
Digital strategy is no longer a static “shelfware,” but dynamic shareware. Strategy is a tool to multiple definitive goals. As goals are met strategies should be reevaluated to ensure that proper goals are established and prioritized. Execution is bringing a strategic vision into reality. Execution can start once goals are clearly defined, because there are two characteristics of digital age: the decreasing lifetime that a strategy is relevant in today’s world, and the tenuous link between developing a strategy and getting an organization to execute it with speed and excellence. Translating strategic intent into meaningful action and making the needed changes stick can be difficult – and doing it frequently and at a fast pace, even more so. Failures happen when strategies are not maintained and relevant with flawed assumption, or when the execution loses sight of the strategic goals.
Strategy is the vision of the future. Goals are measurable markers as we approach the vision. Execution is the road traveled from vision to reality. You have to adjust the assumptions, overcome the roadblocks. and execution requires consistency, correct and timely feeding, also cleaning up. When it is done well, you get the desired result.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Running a business is a thorny journey, with a lot of uncertainty, complexity and velocity on the way, what are basic business ‘assumptions’ mostly flawed or invalid when preparing business strategic planning? And how can organizational leaders make continuous adjustment to ensure the business is “doing the right things” before doing things right, framing the right questions before answering them right?
"Assumptions" should be thought of as qualified projections rather than a best guess: Business can be only done on facts and that too objectively assessed while business decision requires imagination power, but the same needs to be validated at repeated intervals. Particularly, in the business planning process, assumptions should be kept at the minimum. The defining document of your business should not be based on assumptions. Of course, if you’re entering a space where there is no historical record of standards and procedure, it is acceptable to draw conclusions to some degree. But, keep in mind that every unsubstantiated element of your business plan is a loose brick in the wall of success! In the case of your strategic planning, "assumptions" should be thought of as qualified projections rather than a best guess.
Define three “Changes” to get reasonable control: Business leaders must relate their current business environment continually to those assumptions made when the plan was first devised. If these are changes in the assumed conditions, you must ask how this affects the business currently and going forward. Business benefits arise when people act in new ways. Customers, staff, partners need to do something different to make business benefits to occur. Therefore, investing in business improvements often fail because you try to forecast the result only. The fact is, you need to define three "changes" to get reasonable control. When you define these 3 kinds of changes, you find the KPIs to measure for each of them, and the change owners for them, Not doing this is the mother of all wrong assumptions .1). Enabler 2). Process change enabled 3). Results from process change.
Everything has more than one side and you have to master them all. As far as for assumptions, sometimes it’s inevitable that you have to make them, because you will never have complete information, and if you try to only act on what you know by fact, you are more likely to go wrong. Also when trying to determine the macro environment, and how the factors there may influence your business strategic plan one way or another, it is difficult to move away entirely from assumptions. You can always put a semantic spin on the word and call them projections, but those "projections" are very often based on conjecture or assumptions. So you have to collect enough information, listen to different PoVs, and sometimes it can be very worthwhile to spend extra time to solve a problem excellently. You may find an insight you didn't find before. You may find a clearer way to think about the problem, which you can reuse next time you see a similar one.
Simplicity is crucial in both strategy and execution. It is so easy for us as human beings to over complicate the strategy and the execution. There are so many people that tie themselves up in the detail - is it a goal; is it an objective, they focus on the trees with ignorance of forest; so they lose sight of where they want to go. It’s important for staffs to understand strategy well in order to implement it; however, so often strategy can tie people up so much they lose sight of where they are heading, which is quite the paradox. At least if someone is in motion, it is easier to help them change direction or put framework (strategy) around where they are going and how they might get there. But if assuming resistance to change is not the issue, it will cause further issues later.
Digital strategy is no longer a static “shelfware,” but dynamic shareware. Strategy is a tool to multiple definitive goals. As goals are met strategies should be reevaluated to ensure that proper goals are established and prioritized. Execution is bringing a strategic vision into reality. Execution can start once goals are clearly defined, because there are two characteristics of digital age: the decreasing lifetime that a strategy is relevant in today’s world, and the tenuous link between developing a strategy and getting an organization to execute it with speed and excellence. Translating strategic intent into meaningful action and making the needed changes stick can be difficult – and doing it frequently and at a fast pace, even more so. Failures happen when strategies are not maintained and relevant with flawed assumption, or when the execution loses sight of the strategic goals.
Strategy is the vision of the future. Goals are measurable markers as we approach the vision. Execution is the road traveled from vision to reality. You have to adjust the assumptions, overcome the roadblocks. and execution requires consistency, correct and timely feeding, also cleaning up. When it is done well, you get the desired result.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Customer Experience beyond Customer Service
Look at customer service as ordinary and customer experience as extraordinary.
Being customer-centric means from strategic making to execution, customer is the focal point from cross-functional perspective, and customer delight moves from customer service to customer experience and customer success. More specifically, what’re the differentiation between Customer Service and Customer Experience?
Look at Customer Service as ordinary and Customer Experience as extraordinary: Customer service is what is provided when Customer Experience isn't integrated to a project from the beginning! Customer service is what you do as part of company operations - it's the ordinary. Delivering an optimum experience requires the extra. It’s where customer expectation is exceeded on purpose! Customer Service is what a company thinks it's providing. It's measured and reported internally. "Customer Experience" is how the customer perceives the service. It encompasses complex emotions that can be difficult to measure. The more channels a company has, the harder it becomes to maintain a consistent and efficient customer experience, typically widening the gap between what a company thinks it's providing and how the customer sees it. There is often talk of creating great service or wonderful experiences, without prioritizing the identification and targeting of pain-points to make it easier for customers to make the decision to purchase. It is a strategic level business decision to plan well and achieve optimal customer experience.
Customer experience is the sum of many parts to delight customers. It’s the way the customer experiences the brand of whole company, not just direct customer service interactions. Too many companies focus customer experience improvement efforts on just their direct customer service efforts, and sometimes only limited interactions in that service set, they forget all the other ways a customer is impacted and feels the effect of the company. The more customer contact points an organization has, the more difficult it is to meet and hopefully deliver on customers expectations. That said, extreme effort and resources have to be out towards doing so, otherwise failure is a real possible outcome. Customer Experience is the act of building a relationship between the customer-facing employees and the customer to create a bond with the company and enhance brand loyalty. Perfect customer experience would reduce a lot of spend on customer service.
It takes time, personal effort and resources to optimize customer experience, but it’s worth the effort. Being a leader in delivering an outstanding customer experience is not easy, but the return on investment is beyond any expectation any C-level could ever have, because that drive, has to come from the top, and the ongoing focus will summon his/her teams to endeavor to deliver an experience that will amaze each customer each and every time. Customer Service is the human and non-human instruments deployed by businesses to serve its customers. Customer Experience is the long lasting delight those services leaves in his/her heart. A customer delighted is a customer retained…
Either Customer Service or Customer Experience, the focus on customer success is the key, as it changes your way of thinking from reactive to proactive perspective - how do you make the customer successful, using the service, platform etc. Customer Experience says a lot more than just customer service, It’s the “WOW” factor to delight customers. There's an expectation of more than just service now, but for future as well.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Being customer-centric means from strategic making to execution, customer is the focal point from cross-functional perspective, and customer delight moves from customer service to customer experience and customer success. More specifically, what’re the differentiation between Customer Service and Customer Experience?
Look at Customer Service as ordinary and Customer Experience as extraordinary: Customer service is what is provided when Customer Experience isn't integrated to a project from the beginning! Customer service is what you do as part of company operations - it's the ordinary. Delivering an optimum experience requires the extra. It’s where customer expectation is exceeded on purpose! Customer Service is what a company thinks it's providing. It's measured and reported internally. "Customer Experience" is how the customer perceives the service. It encompasses complex emotions that can be difficult to measure. The more channels a company has, the harder it becomes to maintain a consistent and efficient customer experience, typically widening the gap between what a company thinks it's providing and how the customer sees it. There is often talk of creating great service or wonderful experiences, without prioritizing the identification and targeting of pain-points to make it easier for customers to make the decision to purchase. It is a strategic level business decision to plan well and achieve optimal customer experience.
Customer experience is the sum of many parts to delight customers. It’s the way the customer experiences the brand of whole company, not just direct customer service interactions. Too many companies focus customer experience improvement efforts on just their direct customer service efforts, and sometimes only limited interactions in that service set, they forget all the other ways a customer is impacted and feels the effect of the company. The more customer contact points an organization has, the more difficult it is to meet and hopefully deliver on customers expectations. That said, extreme effort and resources have to be out towards doing so, otherwise failure is a real possible outcome. Customer Experience is the act of building a relationship between the customer-facing employees and the customer to create a bond with the company and enhance brand loyalty. Perfect customer experience would reduce a lot of spend on customer service.
It takes time, personal effort and resources to optimize customer experience, but it’s worth the effort. Being a leader in delivering an outstanding customer experience is not easy, but the return on investment is beyond any expectation any C-level could ever have, because that drive, has to come from the top, and the ongoing focus will summon his/her teams to endeavor to deliver an experience that will amaze each customer each and every time. Customer Service is the human and non-human instruments deployed by businesses to serve its customers. Customer Experience is the long lasting delight those services leaves in his/her heart. A customer delighted is a customer retained…
Either Customer Service or Customer Experience, the focus on customer success is the key, as it changes your way of thinking from reactive to proactive perspective - how do you make the customer successful, using the service, platform etc. Customer Experience says a lot more than just customer service, It’s the “WOW” factor to delight customers. There's an expectation of more than just service now, but for future as well.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
June 28, 2015
What’s the Recipe for Digital Leadership
Digital leaders have multi-layer, multi-level quotients and skills.
Leadership is about future, the art of persuasion and the science of disciplines, it’s about the inspiration and motivation; innovation and progression. By choosing to lead, you must have a vision and intention for making that choice. But is there such a secret recipe for digital leadership?
Multi-layer, multi-level quotients and skills: The leadership skills required for professionals in any organization must be built on the foundation of the moral competencies –wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. The next skill level up is mental agility, adaptive capacity, then your EQ (Emotional Quotient), SQ (Strategy Quotient), CQ (Creativity Quotient), PQ (Paradox Quotient), or AQ (Adversity Quotient) skills. Then you can add on influence, such as persuasive skills, motivational skills, political skills, decision-making skills, interpersonal skills, conflict management skills, and finally conceptual skills.
Empowerment, encouragement and engagement: The effectiveness of the leadership, is sometimes undermined and limited by the inability to empower others and help them to develop, for reasons such as the desire to work safety, the fear of becoming replaceable, resistance to change, the loss of self-worth. But with these behaviors, the leader becomes a limit for his or her own team or organization: Weakens the members of his/her team and creates barriers that people of the team can not overcome. People will give up and become passive, or go elsewhere, where they can increase their potential. The effective digital leaders are both confident and humbled, they don’t care about others think about them to feel valued, but strongly believes in him/herself, they have no problem to lend empowerment, encouraging people to grow, improve and innovate. The veneration of your team workers need be complimented and appreciated in ideas, in views that are consistent, credible submissions, research orientations, conformity in operational effectiveness and within industry guidelines.
Authentication discovery and professional investment: The qualitative leaders must be very open to knowledge. It's important to keep the ingredients fresh by investing in personal and professional development regularly. You also need to know what ingredients matter to you to get the outcome that you want. Stop trying to be someone other than who you really are! By connecting with your true strengths and leveraging who you really are, and then, of course, doing the hard work that is required to build more strength you can create success. Many of us need guidance to get beyond years of conditioning to discover our true strengths, but it's a vital ingredient to building success. Once you escape from trying to be someone that you are not, you will be in the position to create positive situations for yourself and discover that luck is an outcome of doing courageous stuff as a result of knowing who you really are and building on your natural strengths. Also you have to learn the new ways to do the things, or the trends that may not known to you, the world is moving fast too; remember you can always change the tone of an old song, rearrange and make it better, that is wisdom and wise experience, that is adaptability.
Leadership is an influence and a practice, there is no magic recipe otherwise. Good leaders are continually practicing, experiencing, learning, adjusting, and they understand that ultimate mastery of leadership does not exist. The path to mastery is something that unfolds day by day. The future leadership should think that every minute of their time counts. There is no time to waste.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Leadership is about future, the art of persuasion and the science of disciplines, it’s about the inspiration and motivation; innovation and progression. By choosing to lead, you must have a vision and intention for making that choice. But is there such a secret recipe for digital leadership?
Multi-layer, multi-level quotients and skills: The leadership skills required for professionals in any organization must be built on the foundation of the moral competencies –wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. The next skill level up is mental agility, adaptive capacity, then your EQ (Emotional Quotient), SQ (Strategy Quotient), CQ (Creativity Quotient), PQ (Paradox Quotient), or AQ (Adversity Quotient) skills. Then you can add on influence, such as persuasive skills, motivational skills, political skills, decision-making skills, interpersonal skills, conflict management skills, and finally conceptual skills.
Empowerment, encouragement and engagement: The effectiveness of the leadership, is sometimes undermined and limited by the inability to empower others and help them to develop, for reasons such as the desire to work safety, the fear of becoming replaceable, resistance to change, the loss of self-worth. But with these behaviors, the leader becomes a limit for his or her own team or organization: Weakens the members of his/her team and creates barriers that people of the team can not overcome. People will give up and become passive, or go elsewhere, where they can increase their potential. The effective digital leaders are both confident and humbled, they don’t care about others think about them to feel valued, but strongly believes in him/herself, they have no problem to lend empowerment, encouraging people to grow, improve and innovate. The veneration of your team workers need be complimented and appreciated in ideas, in views that are consistent, credible submissions, research orientations, conformity in operational effectiveness and within industry guidelines.
Authentication discovery and professional investment: The qualitative leaders must be very open to knowledge. It's important to keep the ingredients fresh by investing in personal and professional development regularly. You also need to know what ingredients matter to you to get the outcome that you want. Stop trying to be someone other than who you really are! By connecting with your true strengths and leveraging who you really are, and then, of course, doing the hard work that is required to build more strength you can create success. Many of us need guidance to get beyond years of conditioning to discover our true strengths, but it's a vital ingredient to building success. Once you escape from trying to be someone that you are not, you will be in the position to create positive situations for yourself and discover that luck is an outcome of doing courageous stuff as a result of knowing who you really are and building on your natural strengths. Also you have to learn the new ways to do the things, or the trends that may not known to you, the world is moving fast too; remember you can always change the tone of an old song, rearrange and make it better, that is wisdom and wise experience, that is adaptability.
Leadership is an influence and a practice, there is no magic recipe otherwise. Good leaders are continually practicing, experiencing, learning, adjusting, and they understand that ultimate mastery of leadership does not exist. The path to mastery is something that unfolds day by day. The future leadership should think that every minute of their time counts. There is no time to waste.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Brain vs.Mind
Brain is the hardware and the mind is the software with the totality in action, so the brain with mind is the hardware plus software.
MIND is a coherent (internally self-consistent) abstract system which converts signals from some sort of sensors into meaningful symbols or concepts (implicitly quantizing them), reorganizes them in light of known historical symbol patterns from its own unique symbol field, and converts them back again into signals for some sort of actuators. “Thought” is the name commonly given to the symbol processing operations of such a mind, when it is believed to be “conscious,” but perhaps a more liberal view is justified. A conscious mind is precisely the ability to use its free will to develop and assign symbols to inputs and outputs so as to create a meaningful symbol system with which to interact with the rest of reality. (The glossary in Mind Made Real). The way we describe things like "thought," "mind," "brain," and relate them with each other can cause confusion or ambiguity. We could make things clearer if we say that brains perform a variety of actions, and one of those actions we call "thinking."
Minds are learning systems. A mind is the subjective and qualitative aspects of a self-organizing system of energy in which the system builds models of itself and its environment in order to predict future patterns of experience. The keys to the success of model-building are memory, abstraction and categorization, so a mind is an embodied system that uses memory and abstraction to categorize experience. This capacity for mind evolved because there is a distinct advantage to continuous (minute-to-minute) behavioral adaptability. In other words, an organism with a "mind" is able to "evolve" from moment to moment, rather than relying just on the slow multi-generational evolution. The mind is being the subjective and qualitative aspect of brain. Maybe part of the confusion here is that equating brain and mind, forgets that mental events are conscious processes. It might be more accurate to say that brain processes are identical to mind processes. A brain that does not process, is not functional or alive, cannot necessarily allow for mental events to occur.
"Brain" and "mind" are labels for things distinct, but interconnected. Each brain projects something similar, but perspective, experience, sensitivity vary from individual to individual. The brain is an apparatus, a tool is wired for collective sensation and awareness. The mind is something more personal. It is a label that individuals create for that collective sensation or awareness that is on their own. The collective sensation is one's perspective, experience, memory, imagination, the world is projected by the brain through the collection of sensations and ideas that we are sensitive to and intrigued by. One’s collective sensation (mind) is not metaphysical, it is complex and not accessible by other one’s mind, so one can understand how others may deny the distinction between mind and brain. Although the mind is inseparable from the brain (inseparable, but not identical). When the apparatus (brain) ceases to work, so too does the collective sensation, much like what happens when you turn off an electronic device.
The "mind" is traditionally referring to consciousness or awareness. That consciousness is a feature of brain processes, the conscious processes are identical to brain processes, and perhaps that non-conscious processes are identical to brain processes as well. So both conscious and non-conscious processes are identical to brain processes. Consciousness emerges / transforms. Brain states transform. There are particular kinds of brain states and processes: non-conscious brain states, possibly sub-conscious brain states and conscious brain states. There could be more if there is a continuum between non-conscious to conscious brain state activity, which would mean that we have simply, in an arbitrary fashion, punctuated points in this continuum to select and name different brain states as modes of conscious processes; and emergence is simply the transformation of non-conscious/sub-conscious brain states into conscious brain states; and dissipation of consciousness relies upon the reversal of this process. So, the transformations of conscious states are identical to the transformation of particular brain states.
Brain is the hardware and the mind is the software with the totality in action, so the brain with mind is the hardware plus software. Mind is probably not brain in action alone. It may also be a whole-body phenomenon, with inputs from environment as well. So mind is much more than an active brain.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
MIND is a coherent (internally self-consistent) abstract system which converts signals from some sort of sensors into meaningful symbols or concepts (implicitly quantizing them), reorganizes them in light of known historical symbol patterns from its own unique symbol field, and converts them back again into signals for some sort of actuators. “Thought” is the name commonly given to the symbol processing operations of such a mind, when it is believed to be “conscious,” but perhaps a more liberal view is justified. A conscious mind is precisely the ability to use its free will to develop and assign symbols to inputs and outputs so as to create a meaningful symbol system with which to interact with the rest of reality. (The glossary in Mind Made Real). The way we describe things like "thought," "mind," "brain," and relate them with each other can cause confusion or ambiguity. We could make things clearer if we say that brains perform a variety of actions, and one of those actions we call "thinking."
Minds are learning systems. A mind is the subjective and qualitative aspects of a self-organizing system of energy in which the system builds models of itself and its environment in order to predict future patterns of experience. The keys to the success of model-building are memory, abstraction and categorization, so a mind is an embodied system that uses memory and abstraction to categorize experience. This capacity for mind evolved because there is a distinct advantage to continuous (minute-to-minute) behavioral adaptability. In other words, an organism with a "mind" is able to "evolve" from moment to moment, rather than relying just on the slow multi-generational evolution. The mind is being the subjective and qualitative aspect of brain. Maybe part of the confusion here is that equating brain and mind, forgets that mental events are conscious processes. It might be more accurate to say that brain processes are identical to mind processes. A brain that does not process, is not functional or alive, cannot necessarily allow for mental events to occur.
"Brain" and "mind" are labels for things distinct, but interconnected. Each brain projects something similar, but perspective, experience, sensitivity vary from individual to individual. The brain is an apparatus, a tool is wired for collective sensation and awareness. The mind is something more personal. It is a label that individuals create for that collective sensation or awareness that is on their own. The collective sensation is one's perspective, experience, memory, imagination, the world is projected by the brain through the collection of sensations and ideas that we are sensitive to and intrigued by. One’s collective sensation (mind) is not metaphysical, it is complex and not accessible by other one’s mind, so one can understand how others may deny the distinction between mind and brain. Although the mind is inseparable from the brain (inseparable, but not identical). When the apparatus (brain) ceases to work, so too does the collective sensation, much like what happens when you turn off an electronic device.
The "mind" is traditionally referring to consciousness or awareness. That consciousness is a feature of brain processes, the conscious processes are identical to brain processes, and perhaps that non-conscious processes are identical to brain processes as well. So both conscious and non-conscious processes are identical to brain processes. Consciousness emerges / transforms. Brain states transform. There are particular kinds of brain states and processes: non-conscious brain states, possibly sub-conscious brain states and conscious brain states. There could be more if there is a continuum between non-conscious to conscious brain state activity, which would mean that we have simply, in an arbitrary fashion, punctuated points in this continuum to select and name different brain states as modes of conscious processes; and emergence is simply the transformation of non-conscious/sub-conscious brain states into conscious brain states; and dissipation of consciousness relies upon the reversal of this process. So, the transformations of conscious states are identical to the transformation of particular brain states.Brain is the hardware and the mind is the software with the totality in action, so the brain with mind is the hardware plus software. Mind is probably not brain in action alone. It may also be a whole-body phenomenon, with inputs from environment as well. So mind is much more than an active brain.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
