Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1426
June 28, 2015
Is Digital Management More Art or Science
Management is about coordination of the activities of a business in order to achieve defined objectives. Management is often included as a factor of production along with machines, materials and money. According to the management guru Peter Drucker (1909-2005), the basic task of management includes both marketing and innovation. Management consists of the interlocking function of creating corporate policy and organizing, planning, controlling, and directing an organization’s resources in order to achieve the objectives of that policy.(businessdictionary.com). The business world has shifted from industrial age to information age, now in the digital era, the fundamental of management concept is still the same. However, with the speed of change and advance of technology, the digital business is always on and hyperconnected, has digital management become less mechanical and more organic? Is management more art or science nowadays? Management has become an art out of necessity to address the current business relationship between the employee and organization. Now the workplace is not the place we go, but the tasks we accomplish, the employee has taken more responsibility in determining the parameters of the work relationship. Gone are the days where organizations can influence or dictate the parameters of the work relationship. If an organization is to retain and attract talent, the organization must adapt and create the environment that will meet the objectives of high performers and high potential request. Today, at people-centric organization, the primary focus of the employee is to ensure that the work relationship will be beneficial to the overall career goals of that individual. The needs of the organization become secondary, it means to help talent employees gain experience and exposure. It means that management must adapt to the individual's career goals and objectives. It does not mean that within that framework, the overall departmental or corporate objectives are to be ignored. Within the individual establishing work relationship parameters, the individual's KPI can still be tied to the business’s goals. What management must be aware of is that today, implementing general management styles and principles are not an effective way to retain or attract high performers
You need to better define "Science" and "Art" to make your case. Management Development focuses on the "soft stuff," more of the art and less scientific rules of managing. With more rapid change, the advent of computers, the greater value and contribution of employees who were engaged, what to do about building engagement, the increasing role of employee knowledge, and knowledge growth that would be most valuable if employees wanted to utilize and share it since often they knew things that were so new that their managers couldn't even tell them to work on it. A science is created whenever people start applying the Scientific Method of observing, creating hypotheses, and proving or disproving those hypotheses. This is exactly the process that disruptive innovators use - not to mention artists as they are learning / fine-tuning their craft.
Be people centric, well align the key business elements such as people, process and technology are the management principles. Organizations are shifting from silo industrial mode to holistic digital mode; from command-control management style to open and agile digital flavor. However, there is no set of universally applicable rules in management or that consultants should not follow a cookbook approach. From a technology perspective we have ample evidence that despite massive investments in governance, change management, project management,. risk management and other process technology, projects still fail at an alarming rate. Research indicates a success rate of no more than 20%, and the 80% of failures represent billions of dollars. It is not a matter of complexity, it is a matter of creating silos filled with "specialists" with very narrow views and application. And there are too many ignorant "flowerpots" involved at senior levels, in spite of all the procedures and scientific techniques, there are pitfalls and roadblocks on the way, and human management is the only variable that makes a success story. A middle way (well mix of top-down and bottom up approach) is the best approach and still we need to take the decision on a case to case basis.
Management is both science and art. The scientific part of management helps setting the policy, guidelines, structure, and methods to achieve business efficiency. However, in order to move up the organizational maturity from functioning to firmness to delight, from efficiency to effectiveness to agility, the art of management will take more crucial role in change management, innovation management, talent management and beyond in order to lead business’s digital transformation more seamlessly.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
June 26, 2015
How to Integrate the Art and Science of Creativity into Corporate Culture
Culture is HOW people think and do things there!
Culture is the beating heart of an organization. It determines what the place feels like, how people behave, whether people feel empowered or not etc. The ideal culture is one of vision driven leadership coupled with empathetic listening of valued employees. So the question is that, “How can you effectively integrate the art and science of creativity and innovation into your teams and organizations?”
Humans have three intertwined instincts: All humans (without exception) are bestowed with three basic instincts which are HUMILITY (Egoless awareness and acceptance), CURIOSITY (Restlessness with the status quo), and CREATIVITY (Urge to change or improve the status quo). Amazingly, these three basic instincts are intertwined. Humility energizes curiosity and curiosity ignites creativity. In simple words, without humility, curiosity is feeble and without curiosity, creativity is ineffectual. Therefore, it is important to create and nurture an environment in your organization where humility is appreciated, curiosity is encouraged, and creative thinking is rewarded. When people feel empowered to be creative at work, school and the community- amazing things do indeed happen. All of us have a creative/artistic side while also having a curious and scientific side to us.
The theme of the teams - is the theme of the organizational evolution as well. Team work occurs at a certain stage, when in an organization, it is a high level of trust. Teams are built on a high level of person’s motivation (self-motivation), which can not be bought. Through social learning and development, creativity is either cultivated through positive reinforcement or squelched through negative reinforcement. Organizations with a command type of organizational culture indifferent to external innovations. Most of innovative organizations are headed by strong leaders with original ideas, who can see, understand and appreciate the merits of people who can think differently. If there is no inspiring ideas – people’s motivation is reduced. We are all born to be creative - isn't that wonderful! Given the nature of most companies, integration of the art and science of creativity is proportional to the need to maintain or increase the bottom line. Change for "some/most" is typically reactionary rather than proactive or innovative. If this were not the case, they would likely be more competitive and culturally healthier.
A healthy corporate culture is very important as a determinant of business performance. Among other considerations, it stands as a key factor not only in attaining organizational goals, but also in the attraction and retention of desirable employees, creating a public image that is positive, and building respectful relationships with stakeholders and within the organization itself. On the flip side, if the corporate culture is poison, expect high employee turnovers, an organization faced with ethical issues that detract from a positive public image, and a total disregard of stakeholders, and probably chronic bullying within the organization. There has been much resistance to change or problems arise when it comes embracing and integrating the art and science of creativity and innovation; but if integrate well, companies would indeed become more competitive and culturally healthier- to name just a few areas they would improve.
Culture should be based on what gives collective confidence. Corporate culture SHOULD be a business 'app,' in that if you can rally an entire organization around operationalized brand positioning, everyone can apply it each day as part of business performance. Culture should not be seen superficially as, "is everyone happy we have a fuseball table and wear jeans to work" but rather, what are the ideas within our walls that derive profitable action and collective confidence and wisdom. Corporate culture is obviously very important in a world class organization. How does one find a corporate culture that attunes to theirs? Massive research? Asking peers? When culture is "working," it can unlock powerful synergies that drive performance, especially in today's world that relies so much on collaboration and teamwork. Naturally the culture is hugely important in attracting the right employees. Creative types recognize repressive cultures and stay away in droves…
An culture of innovation isn't built in a day; it takes innovative leadership and long term strategy. Change the culture is the mindset, though you can’t impose the desired culture to your organization, surely you can follow the principles and practices to transform your culture, and view resistance or problems as opportunities with endless possibilities and exponential value to be discovered, make continuous improvement as the right attitude, cultivated habit and your organizational brand.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Culture is the beating heart of an organization. It determines what the place feels like, how people behave, whether people feel empowered or not etc. The ideal culture is one of vision driven leadership coupled with empathetic listening of valued employees. So the question is that, “How can you effectively integrate the art and science of creativity and innovation into your teams and organizations?”
Humans have three intertwined instincts: All humans (without exception) are bestowed with three basic instincts which are HUMILITY (Egoless awareness and acceptance), CURIOSITY (Restlessness with the status quo), and CREATIVITY (Urge to change or improve the status quo). Amazingly, these three basic instincts are intertwined. Humility energizes curiosity and curiosity ignites creativity. In simple words, without humility, curiosity is feeble and without curiosity, creativity is ineffectual. Therefore, it is important to create and nurture an environment in your organization where humility is appreciated, curiosity is encouraged, and creative thinking is rewarded. When people feel empowered to be creative at work, school and the community- amazing things do indeed happen. All of us have a creative/artistic side while also having a curious and scientific side to us.
The theme of the teams - is the theme of the organizational evolution as well. Team work occurs at a certain stage, when in an organization, it is a high level of trust. Teams are built on a high level of person’s motivation (self-motivation), which can not be bought. Through social learning and development, creativity is either cultivated through positive reinforcement or squelched through negative reinforcement. Organizations with a command type of organizational culture indifferent to external innovations. Most of innovative organizations are headed by strong leaders with original ideas, who can see, understand and appreciate the merits of people who can think differently. If there is no inspiring ideas – people’s motivation is reduced. We are all born to be creative - isn't that wonderful! Given the nature of most companies, integration of the art and science of creativity is proportional to the need to maintain or increase the bottom line. Change for "some/most" is typically reactionary rather than proactive or innovative. If this were not the case, they would likely be more competitive and culturally healthier.
A healthy corporate culture is very important as a determinant of business performance. Among other considerations, it stands as a key factor not only in attaining organizational goals, but also in the attraction and retention of desirable employees, creating a public image that is positive, and building respectful relationships with stakeholders and within the organization itself. On the flip side, if the corporate culture is poison, expect high employee turnovers, an organization faced with ethical issues that detract from a positive public image, and a total disregard of stakeholders, and probably chronic bullying within the organization. There has been much resistance to change or problems arise when it comes embracing and integrating the art and science of creativity and innovation; but if integrate well, companies would indeed become more competitive and culturally healthier- to name just a few areas they would improve.
Culture should be based on what gives collective confidence. Corporate culture SHOULD be a business 'app,' in that if you can rally an entire organization around operationalized brand positioning, everyone can apply it each day as part of business performance. Culture should not be seen superficially as, "is everyone happy we have a fuseball table and wear jeans to work" but rather, what are the ideas within our walls that derive profitable action and collective confidence and wisdom. Corporate culture is obviously very important in a world class organization. How does one find a corporate culture that attunes to theirs? Massive research? Asking peers? When culture is "working," it can unlock powerful synergies that drive performance, especially in today's world that relies so much on collaboration and teamwork. Naturally the culture is hugely important in attracting the right employees. Creative types recognize repressive cultures and stay away in droves…
An culture of innovation isn't built in a day; it takes innovative leadership and long term strategy. Change the culture is the mindset, though you can’t impose the desired culture to your organization, surely you can follow the principles and practices to transform your culture, and view resistance or problems as opportunities with endless possibilities and exponential value to be discovered, make continuous improvement as the right attitude, cultivated habit and your organizational brand.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
How to Leverage Systems Thinking in Persuasion rather than Reasoning?
Persuasion' is related to the form of reasoning - the form of selectivity in the presentation of data.
Systems Thinking is to see the interconnected relationship between parts and the whole, it’s the ability to study the forest for understanding the context of trees. It’s an important reasoning tools for strategy crafting and decision making. From communication perspective, what is the role of tools such as Systems Thinking in persuasion rather than reasoning?
Persuasion is the process of applying knowledge to effect a change in somebody else's mind. ‘Knowledge' is the way a person represents the world in the mind. 'Data' are just bits of recordings or messages that remain rather inert and useless until they act to change ('in-form') somebody's knowledge, and at that moment become 'information.' Understand the process of connecting several data items (argument premises) to effect a change in knowledge as 'reasoning'-- whether the change is occurring in your own mind or intended to change somebody else's mind -- 'persuasion.' If done in a careful manner, paying attention to the truth and plausibility of the premises, their support by additional 'evidence' data, and the 'validity' of the argument patterns, it can qualify as 'critical thinking.' Further steps include connecting the proposed connections of single arguments into a larger picture where they begin to form networks and loops, and morph this into 'Systems Thinking.' It's a continuity of mental representations rather than clean dichotomies.
‘Persuasion' is a form of reasoning that some call 'planning argument' -- a proposal (to do, accept, support something) by pointing out that doing so will have a consequence that also should be accepted, adopted, aimed for. That probably is not usually called 'persuasion' even though it follows the same reasoning structure as when you try to induce somebody else to accept the proposal. The reasoning then lists the premises that if accepted, will support the proposal. These premises could be 'new' information to the other person, but such that you have confidence that the person will accept it as true or plausible. Or it could appeal to knowledge that the person already knows, supports, but just hasn't seen the connection between them. The pejorative sense of 'persuasion' stems from the possibility of insidious use of this pattern: either omitting mention or downplaying of consequences that would lead to rejection of the proposal (because the negative consequences 'outweigh' the positives), or providing information (for example visual images) that suggest consequences whose pursuit, even subconsciously, are not 'proper' -- appealing to hidden, perhaps even illicit desires, or fears, but of course not overtly mentioned by the explicit argument.
The focus of logic and related disciplines aiming at finding 'good': A reliable ways to reason has mainly been that of understanding the world as it IS. In this aim, the criterion of objectivity is essential: recognizing the truth about what IS the case, how things do work, and in this, avoiding 'wishful thinking as much as possible: the reasonable person should be able to accept an insight about what IS on the basis of evidence regardless of whether the person likes or dislikes the state of affairs. This is the aim of scientific investigation: gathering evidence, data, to confirm or refute hypotheses about the world. Without thinking systemically, "rational" decisions can have unintended consequences. The assumption is that having considered these has led to a 'better' solution -- specifically, one that has a smaller risk of later encountering unexpected consequences. But systems history itself is full of examples of system models that proved insufficient because they did not include or consider -- some aspects that were introduced as significant later on. So Systems Thinking in itself is no guarantee that all factors that might lead to unanticipated consequences will be identified -- anticipated -- and properly considered. As any discussion of the concept of 'system' itself will sooner or later mention: any system model is necessarily limited, has boundaries excluding factors not expected (anticipated) to make a great difference in the system's behavior. So the question or argument must focus on the issue whether Systems Thinking is the only approach, or just a 'better' (the best available) tool to identify pertinent system factors. What evidence can be marshaled to support such claims? And finally: will that evidence be sufficient to allow the systems thinker to use the mere fact of having used systems thinking to convince or persuade the opponent of the superiority of the solution on this grounds alone? Question: would this make the opponent a systems thinker (even as the fellow might refuse the label)?
The other kind of reasoning is the reasoning we use in argumentation about design, planning, decision-making. Therefore, human purpose and motivation is of course essential. Arguments about a proposed plan or action, which is a claim not about something as it IS, but as proponent feels ought to be, and wish to persuade themselves and others of this as well. The confusion arises because the typical planning argument, when fully spelled out, consists of very different types of premises. This creates two kinds of pontificators about reasoning: one emphasizing or prioritizing the concern is or will be premises, and therefore the scientific / logical form of reasoning in dealing with such arguments as well. The other emphasizes the OUGHT-premise and its justification, and plausibly will perceive the reasoning involved as mainly one worrying about these human aims and motivations. The 'persuasion' aspect here becomes quite legitimate in that people will try to get others to accept a proposal by showing how it will achieve OUGHT-consequences the others will also accept once these effects have been pointed out to them.
Systems Thinking does not 'play a role' in anything - any more than a telescope plays a role in 'discovering' a new star. That 'discovery' is a mental model. The use of collaboration (not persuasion) or just rational reasoning comes through in "the choice of Systems Inquiry methodology that you use". Through involvement and collaboration, one can gain stakeholder commitment, in this manner they are "persuaded" to accept a change. We humans reason and persuade because we are habituated to generating our own mental models, we assume that things that seem to be evident to us ought to be the same to everyone else. Persuasion can be made with systems thinking through the choice of Systems Inquiry methodology that you use. That is, the way you go about a systems based change. For example, is it "top down" or participative? People are not "rational" beings, but emotional too. Conflict and beliefs are not just "rational," but also embedded into their feelings and emotions.
'Persuasion' is related to the form of reasoning - the form of selectivity in the presentation of data. It is an important step to get stakeholders’ buy-in either for strategy execution, change management, or almost any kind of business initiatives. By leveraging Systems Thinking, such persuasion will better connect the dots to gain empathy; broaden the horizon to convey a clear vision; and deepen into the big WHY upon the purpose and goals of what you are planning to do. It helps visualize the Big Picture to inspire and motivate; engage and participate, in order to achieve the expected business result.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Systems Thinking is to see the interconnected relationship between parts and the whole, it’s the ability to study the forest for understanding the context of trees. It’s an important reasoning tools for strategy crafting and decision making. From communication perspective, what is the role of tools such as Systems Thinking in persuasion rather than reasoning?
Persuasion is the process of applying knowledge to effect a change in somebody else's mind. ‘Knowledge' is the way a person represents the world in the mind. 'Data' are just bits of recordings or messages that remain rather inert and useless until they act to change ('in-form') somebody's knowledge, and at that moment become 'information.' Understand the process of connecting several data items (argument premises) to effect a change in knowledge as 'reasoning'-- whether the change is occurring in your own mind or intended to change somebody else's mind -- 'persuasion.' If done in a careful manner, paying attention to the truth and plausibility of the premises, their support by additional 'evidence' data, and the 'validity' of the argument patterns, it can qualify as 'critical thinking.' Further steps include connecting the proposed connections of single arguments into a larger picture where they begin to form networks and loops, and morph this into 'Systems Thinking.' It's a continuity of mental representations rather than clean dichotomies.
‘Persuasion' is a form of reasoning that some call 'planning argument' -- a proposal (to do, accept, support something) by pointing out that doing so will have a consequence that also should be accepted, adopted, aimed for. That probably is not usually called 'persuasion' even though it follows the same reasoning structure as when you try to induce somebody else to accept the proposal. The reasoning then lists the premises that if accepted, will support the proposal. These premises could be 'new' information to the other person, but such that you have confidence that the person will accept it as true or plausible. Or it could appeal to knowledge that the person already knows, supports, but just hasn't seen the connection between them. The pejorative sense of 'persuasion' stems from the possibility of insidious use of this pattern: either omitting mention or downplaying of consequences that would lead to rejection of the proposal (because the negative consequences 'outweigh' the positives), or providing information (for example visual images) that suggest consequences whose pursuit, even subconsciously, are not 'proper' -- appealing to hidden, perhaps even illicit desires, or fears, but of course not overtly mentioned by the explicit argument.
The focus of logic and related disciplines aiming at finding 'good': A reliable ways to reason has mainly been that of understanding the world as it IS. In this aim, the criterion of objectivity is essential: recognizing the truth about what IS the case, how things do work, and in this, avoiding 'wishful thinking as much as possible: the reasonable person should be able to accept an insight about what IS on the basis of evidence regardless of whether the person likes or dislikes the state of affairs. This is the aim of scientific investigation: gathering evidence, data, to confirm or refute hypotheses about the world. Without thinking systemically, "rational" decisions can have unintended consequences. The assumption is that having considered these has led to a 'better' solution -- specifically, one that has a smaller risk of later encountering unexpected consequences. But systems history itself is full of examples of system models that proved insufficient because they did not include or consider -- some aspects that were introduced as significant later on. So Systems Thinking in itself is no guarantee that all factors that might lead to unanticipated consequences will be identified -- anticipated -- and properly considered. As any discussion of the concept of 'system' itself will sooner or later mention: any system model is necessarily limited, has boundaries excluding factors not expected (anticipated) to make a great difference in the system's behavior. So the question or argument must focus on the issue whether Systems Thinking is the only approach, or just a 'better' (the best available) tool to identify pertinent system factors. What evidence can be marshaled to support such claims? And finally: will that evidence be sufficient to allow the systems thinker to use the mere fact of having used systems thinking to convince or persuade the opponent of the superiority of the solution on this grounds alone? Question: would this make the opponent a systems thinker (even as the fellow might refuse the label)?
The other kind of reasoning is the reasoning we use in argumentation about design, planning, decision-making. Therefore, human purpose and motivation is of course essential. Arguments about a proposed plan or action, which is a claim not about something as it IS, but as proponent feels ought to be, and wish to persuade themselves and others of this as well. The confusion arises because the typical planning argument, when fully spelled out, consists of very different types of premises. This creates two kinds of pontificators about reasoning: one emphasizing or prioritizing the concern is or will be premises, and therefore the scientific / logical form of reasoning in dealing with such arguments as well. The other emphasizes the OUGHT-premise and its justification, and plausibly will perceive the reasoning involved as mainly one worrying about these human aims and motivations. The 'persuasion' aspect here becomes quite legitimate in that people will try to get others to accept a proposal by showing how it will achieve OUGHT-consequences the others will also accept once these effects have been pointed out to them.
Systems Thinking does not 'play a role' in anything - any more than a telescope plays a role in 'discovering' a new star. That 'discovery' is a mental model. The use of collaboration (not persuasion) or just rational reasoning comes through in "the choice of Systems Inquiry methodology that you use". Through involvement and collaboration, one can gain stakeholder commitment, in this manner they are "persuaded" to accept a change. We humans reason and persuade because we are habituated to generating our own mental models, we assume that things that seem to be evident to us ought to be the same to everyone else. Persuasion can be made with systems thinking through the choice of Systems Inquiry methodology that you use. That is, the way you go about a systems based change. For example, is it "top down" or participative? People are not "rational" beings, but emotional too. Conflict and beliefs are not just "rational," but also embedded into their feelings and emotions.
'Persuasion' is related to the form of reasoning - the form of selectivity in the presentation of data. It is an important step to get stakeholders’ buy-in either for strategy execution, change management, or almost any kind of business initiatives. By leveraging Systems Thinking, such persuasion will better connect the dots to gain empathy; broaden the horizon to convey a clear vision; and deepen into the big WHY upon the purpose and goals of what you are planning to do. It helps visualize the Big Picture to inspire and motivate; engage and participate, in order to achieve the expected business result.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Leadership is a Mindset
Leadership is first as an advanced mindset, then as an exemplary behavior.
Leadership is about CHANGE. It is a basic human ability to inspire self and others to look beyond limitations and make continuous improvement. This ability becomes a capability if we constantly nurture our basic human instincts of HUMILITY, CURIOSITY and CREATIVITY. Fundamentally, is leadership an action or a mindset? Is it more about today or the future? What are you and your organization doing to learn and improve leadership capabilities?
It is imperative that the elements of leadership be valued. Far too often the term "leadership" is thrown around loosely and without any regard of true meaning. Leadership is about developing people not managing them. It is a mindset that requires commitment from the very top of an organization all the way to the bottom without exception. Therefore, it is imperative that "leadership" be re-imagined, explored, understood and embraced for it to be of any value. The substances of leadership is about vision, positive influence and progression. There is no single leadership style, but rather many that can be used and in many instances, several can be morphed to fit the style required to accomplish the organizational mission. The key is finding the right people to apply the correct style when needed. A good leader can adjust on the fly in any given circumstance and apply as needed.
The elements of leadership must evolve with the needs of the organization as well as the people. No two people are alike just as no one person remains the same. Leadership must meet those requirements and adjust accordingly. It is leadership quality that top management needs to understand in order to allow leadership to flourish when developing people within an organization. They cannot hide in the C-suite and hope that all turns out for the best. They have to believe in leadership, be a part of leadership and drive leadership. Leaders have to make a conscious choice to continuously learn, practice and improve upon the leadership quality and influence. Remember, leadership isn't a job title; leadership really is character and personal development, you must continue to learn and improve upon the leadership capabilities. All organizations have a duty to develop leadership qualities, with all individuals who are holding positions if they are asked to manage others. So many organizations wait until the people are put into "leadership" positions to be introduced to the elements of leadership. These organizations set themselves up for failure by following this mindset.
TO DEVELOP LEADERS, YOU HAVE TO LET THEM LEAD. In other words, you can do all of the training you want to do, but if you don't let them get some practical experience at leading, they don't get to apply what they learned. Specifically identify the right minds and personalities, and provide leadership training to those folks. Look for character with a service to others attitude. Leadership training is not management training. Leaders are both nature and nurtured. They are taught specific skill sets that build teams, create depth in future replacements, effect change, strengthen cohesiveness, strategize effective action plans that materialize the vision. They learn to serve.
Leadership training has to be tailored to be value-added and inspiring: All specific development programs which have a direct impact on the area’s growth and effectiveness are initiated, managed, and refined by the area leadership. All training/ development initiatives which have a major impact on the culture of the organization are steered by the top leadership via leading by example, ensuring resources, demanding compliance through formal systems, and providing feedback along the way. Initiatives like strength-based training and deployment are of major cultural transformation implications, and the top leadership can’t walk away just after initial sermonizing. They are there for the long haul. This is the discipline that all leaders at the top and at other levels of the organizations need to embrace and display to make training/development programs not only value-added, but also inspiring.
Leadership is first as a mindset, then as an exemplary behavior. Leadership is more about future, but start at today. "Leadership" is something that needs to be believed in and embraced at every level of an organization. To implement results based leadership within the organization, using internal tools to develop leadership champions at different levels, utilize cultural psychometrics to highlight strengths and weaknesses, use big and small data that has passed through multi- levels of evaluation, to constantly evolve and develop a virtuous hybrid spiral of results based leadership evaluation. You can become an effective leaders if you put constant effort to nourish these three human instincts that are innate: humility, curiosity and creativity, and inspire the positive changes in the organization and our society.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Leadership is about CHANGE. It is a basic human ability to inspire self and others to look beyond limitations and make continuous improvement. This ability becomes a capability if we constantly nurture our basic human instincts of HUMILITY, CURIOSITY and CREATIVITY. Fundamentally, is leadership an action or a mindset? Is it more about today or the future? What are you and your organization doing to learn and improve leadership capabilities?
It is imperative that the elements of leadership be valued. Far too often the term "leadership" is thrown around loosely and without any regard of true meaning. Leadership is about developing people not managing them. It is a mindset that requires commitment from the very top of an organization all the way to the bottom without exception. Therefore, it is imperative that "leadership" be re-imagined, explored, understood and embraced for it to be of any value. The substances of leadership is about vision, positive influence and progression. There is no single leadership style, but rather many that can be used and in many instances, several can be morphed to fit the style required to accomplish the organizational mission. The key is finding the right people to apply the correct style when needed. A good leader can adjust on the fly in any given circumstance and apply as needed.
The elements of leadership must evolve with the needs of the organization as well as the people. No two people are alike just as no one person remains the same. Leadership must meet those requirements and adjust accordingly. It is leadership quality that top management needs to understand in order to allow leadership to flourish when developing people within an organization. They cannot hide in the C-suite and hope that all turns out for the best. They have to believe in leadership, be a part of leadership and drive leadership. Leaders have to make a conscious choice to continuously learn, practice and improve upon the leadership quality and influence. Remember, leadership isn't a job title; leadership really is character and personal development, you must continue to learn and improve upon the leadership capabilities. All organizations have a duty to develop leadership qualities, with all individuals who are holding positions if they are asked to manage others. So many organizations wait until the people are put into "leadership" positions to be introduced to the elements of leadership. These organizations set themselves up for failure by following this mindset.
TO DEVELOP LEADERS, YOU HAVE TO LET THEM LEAD. In other words, you can do all of the training you want to do, but if you don't let them get some practical experience at leading, they don't get to apply what they learned. Specifically identify the right minds and personalities, and provide leadership training to those folks. Look for character with a service to others attitude. Leadership training is not management training. Leaders are both nature and nurtured. They are taught specific skill sets that build teams, create depth in future replacements, effect change, strengthen cohesiveness, strategize effective action plans that materialize the vision. They learn to serve.
Leadership training has to be tailored to be value-added and inspiring: All specific development programs which have a direct impact on the area’s growth and effectiveness are initiated, managed, and refined by the area leadership. All training/ development initiatives which have a major impact on the culture of the organization are steered by the top leadership via leading by example, ensuring resources, demanding compliance through formal systems, and providing feedback along the way. Initiatives like strength-based training and deployment are of major cultural transformation implications, and the top leadership can’t walk away just after initial sermonizing. They are there for the long haul. This is the discipline that all leaders at the top and at other levels of the organizations need to embrace and display to make training/development programs not only value-added, but also inspiring.
Leadership is first as a mindset, then as an exemplary behavior. Leadership is more about future, but start at today. "Leadership" is something that needs to be believed in and embraced at every level of an organization. To implement results based leadership within the organization, using internal tools to develop leadership champions at different levels, utilize cultural psychometrics to highlight strengths and weaknesses, use big and small data that has passed through multi- levels of evaluation, to constantly evolve and develop a virtuous hybrid spiral of results based leadership evaluation. You can become an effective leaders if you put constant effort to nourish these three human instincts that are innate: humility, curiosity and creativity, and inspire the positive changes in the organization and our society.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
June 25, 2015
Mind vs. Mind: Is Thinking Differently Fit or Misfit?
The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. -Dee Hock
People are different, not because we look differently, but more crucially, we think differently. The variety of thought makes the world diversified, innovative and sophisticated. The complementary thoughts can overcome the common challenges facing in humankind, but misunderstanding with each other cause the chaos and even disaster. The brain is only an organic computer that creates an energy or operating system called the mind. The mind creates programs called our thoughts. We can change our thoughts just as we can change applications on a computer. Still, what’s the best way to get old thoughts at industrial age (such as silo, stereotypical, command-control, bias, extreme thinking, etc), and equip the brain with the new types of thinking (such as holism, balance, creativity, growth, paradox, systems thinking, etc.)
To know the power, you have to know your thoughts. Once you know them, then you know if they are useful or harmful. If something is harmful, why would you hold it, you will let it go and embrace only that which adds value and make you feel good. Our minds are conditioned based on our own belief systems and past happenings. We get innumerable thoughts every moment, they pass unconsciously. We act based on these unconscious thoughts. Choosing thoughts consciously would be arduous. It would be difficult to be conscious all the time to keep choosing thoughts, because it’s the very thoughts decide who you are, the quality of your thinking decides your professionalism and leadership influence.
A wise mind has something to do with sound judgement: The truth is that each of us is a 'complex blend of contrasts - positive and negative,' with imperfect judgement. We all want to believe that our judgement is perfect, yet none of us can claim to be a perfect character. If we are not perfect people, recruiters and candidates alike, the chance of bias doubles with each encounter. More people in assessing each others, the risk increases exponentially. With all these imperfection, it is true that we must use our judgement in everything we do - including the selection of a candidate, making better decisions, discovering the alternative solutions to problems., etc. Some say, the meditative mind is "unconsciously" conscious. It is a re-programmed mind. You start choosing positive thoughts by default, to know the power of your thoughts, you must be able to balance between positive and negative.
Digital fit is less about thinking alike, more about thinking differently: Fit in an organizational context simply means 'like us' or 'different from us.' And, it can be good or bad. The key lies in integrating both the good and the bad. You need to think about fit differently than you do now. For example, put emphasis on organizational cultural fit. That is a concern because the tendency is to hire people who are like minded and with similar backgrounds. It's a good question about whose fit - you need to discuss the types of talent needed to stretch your thinking and who have diverse backgrounds in multiple dimensions - cognitive difference, character, education, life experience, work experience, interests, etc. In this way, you get new perspective from outside your own disciplines, as if you let the ‘out of box’ thought coming in to your thinking box. It's about creating a diverse gene pool, if you will, so you avoid organizational incest. If you think of culture as an expression of values in practice (which is incomplete, but at least measurable), you can have alignment of values, but diverse perspectives. One's values emerge from personal and national culture, so people may express their values differently and have a different understanding of what's important. This is particularly important when working globally.Although there's a tendency to want like minded colleagues, which is more comfortable, organizations need diversity of character, thought, personality, talent, and experience to be innovative. You need to cultivate a willingness to learn to be comfortable with and value difference and hire people who seems “misfit”, but fit differently.
It is hard to say we can make ‘apple to apple’ comparison of mind vs. mind. But the point is that we could alway intend to approach the problems at mindset level, mind assessment goes beyond the conventional IQ testing, but about evaluating multidimensional intelligence and cross-disciplinary transcendence. It is the mind keeps us grow and mature! “Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word 'understanding.” ― Werner Heisenberg
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
People are different, not because we look differently, but more crucially, we think differently. The variety of thought makes the world diversified, innovative and sophisticated. The complementary thoughts can overcome the common challenges facing in humankind, but misunderstanding with each other cause the chaos and even disaster. The brain is only an organic computer that creates an energy or operating system called the mind. The mind creates programs called our thoughts. We can change our thoughts just as we can change applications on a computer. Still, what’s the best way to get old thoughts at industrial age (such as silo, stereotypical, command-control, bias, extreme thinking, etc), and equip the brain with the new types of thinking (such as holism, balance, creativity, growth, paradox, systems thinking, etc.) To know the power, you have to know your thoughts. Once you know them, then you know if they are useful or harmful. If something is harmful, why would you hold it, you will let it go and embrace only that which adds value and make you feel good. Our minds are conditioned based on our own belief systems and past happenings. We get innumerable thoughts every moment, they pass unconsciously. We act based on these unconscious thoughts. Choosing thoughts consciously would be arduous. It would be difficult to be conscious all the time to keep choosing thoughts, because it’s the very thoughts decide who you are, the quality of your thinking decides your professionalism and leadership influence.
A wise mind has something to do with sound judgement: The truth is that each of us is a 'complex blend of contrasts - positive and negative,' with imperfect judgement. We all want to believe that our judgement is perfect, yet none of us can claim to be a perfect character. If we are not perfect people, recruiters and candidates alike, the chance of bias doubles with each encounter. More people in assessing each others, the risk increases exponentially. With all these imperfection, it is true that we must use our judgement in everything we do - including the selection of a candidate, making better decisions, discovering the alternative solutions to problems., etc. Some say, the meditative mind is "unconsciously" conscious. It is a re-programmed mind. You start choosing positive thoughts by default, to know the power of your thoughts, you must be able to balance between positive and negative.
Digital fit is less about thinking alike, more about thinking differently: Fit in an organizational context simply means 'like us' or 'different from us.' And, it can be good or bad. The key lies in integrating both the good and the bad. You need to think about fit differently than you do now. For example, put emphasis on organizational cultural fit. That is a concern because the tendency is to hire people who are like minded and with similar backgrounds. It's a good question about whose fit - you need to discuss the types of talent needed to stretch your thinking and who have diverse backgrounds in multiple dimensions - cognitive difference, character, education, life experience, work experience, interests, etc. In this way, you get new perspective from outside your own disciplines, as if you let the ‘out of box’ thought coming in to your thinking box. It's about creating a diverse gene pool, if you will, so you avoid organizational incest. If you think of culture as an expression of values in practice (which is incomplete, but at least measurable), you can have alignment of values, but diverse perspectives. One's values emerge from personal and national culture, so people may express their values differently and have a different understanding of what's important. This is particularly important when working globally.Although there's a tendency to want like minded colleagues, which is more comfortable, organizations need diversity of character, thought, personality, talent, and experience to be innovative. You need to cultivate a willingness to learn to be comfortable with and value difference and hire people who seems “misfit”, but fit differently.
It is hard to say we can make ‘apple to apple’ comparison of mind vs. mind. But the point is that we could alway intend to approach the problems at mindset level, mind assessment goes beyond the conventional IQ testing, but about evaluating multidimensional intelligence and cross-disciplinary transcendence. It is the mind keeps us grow and mature! “Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word 'understanding.” ― Werner Heisenberg
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Business Value of Achieving Organizational Agility
Many forward-thinking organizations are scaling their Agile practices from doing Agile to being Agile, what’s the business value in being agile though? tIs it to prove out some new technology? Is it to showcase a capability or prototype to a customer? Is it the stepping stone to an order? Is it for faster product delivery? Or is it to better delight customers?
Business Value must be qualified and quantifiable: What is valuable to the business? It certainly isn't the technology only that keeps business running, unless that technology (including agile/scrum processes, tools, HW/SW, and IT competence) can support the goals of the business. "Quality Attributes" (QAs) help the business identify and prioritize business value. Discussions with the organization's users and management will identify what is important to the organization and should focus on: Reliability, Usability, Scalability, Extensibility, Modifiability, Sell-ability (Profitability), Marketability, Secure-ability, Performability, etc.etc. All must all be identified and PRIORITIZED. The next step is for the business values to be identified by the organization, be quantified by management and worked into the architecture of the system. For instance, how important is time-to-market? How much per week do you lose as a company, if you take a more maintainable (and time consuming) approach to designing and coding the software, versus getting something out into the market quickly? Every organization fluctuates between prioritizing business values based on revenue/cost versus risk.
Business value is an informal term and could mean different to different people. According to the 80:20 principle, 20% of the task log will carry 80% of the value. In instances where most of the tasks share the same priority, the business value plays a bigger role in determining which task needs to be addressed first. While opportunity value propositions are often expressed in dollar convertible terms, other dimensions of strategic intent may improve positioning and strategic intent and produce useful measured outcomes related to a business competitiveness, management predictability, process improvement, engineering trustworthiness, and operations dependability. Only time can tell how much business value a product will deliver. However, isolated feature values ultimately do not matter. The business has to decide which features it believes will deliver value relative to other features in order to drive development. It really does not matter how accurate that decision is, because the decision needs to be made in order to deliver and then find out if the resulting package delivers sufficient value or not.
Prioritization is key. Business Value works in conjunction with Priority - so if you have some capacity in an iteration, and are looking to pull from the backlog, you can grab that high value, lower priority item that delivers a lot for hopefully a small amount of effort. Sometimes it’s great to have a strategy to define business value, when you have competing priorities, but truly the backlog should be full of generally agreed upon top priorities for the end users. In the end "successful" metrics are a result building a customer or consumer focused product. Now when you start shift from doing Agile to being agile, you must be aware of the business values identified to be incorporated into the system, and depending on the priorities of these values, the Agile technique should most certainly form around the goals that align with the values. But many times, the tech teams doing agile don't align with the business values, and miss their target. Maybe because it is not well communicated, or the programmers don't know how to modify their processes to address the business values. The system may work, but response time is horrendous, or risk management is an after-thought.
Many experts try hard to figure out the ‘magic formula’ to calculate business value: We always need to adapt to context. For example one needs to be very innovative when defining "Happy Customer." Would you measure the value of a project required to meet new regulations by how much the fines would be if the regulations were violated? While, for example, you could measure employee retention before and after a project that improved the working environment, you can not say that retention was the only value of improving the working environment nor can you always safely say that nothing else could have also contributed to the retention rate. And can you really translate employee retention into a monetary amount? Perhaps there’s no magic formula to calculate the exact value Agile brings in; or the formula can be changed depending on the organization and on the current strategy to express the direction an organization wants to develop itself. Still, many experts try hard to quantify, for example, some think Business Value can be calculated as BV = 2 * (S * 0.3 + AT * 0.3 + CS * 0.2 + CB * 0.2) + DV + RM with S = strategy alignment AT = potential for additional turnover CS = potential for cost savings CB = potential for competitive advantage DV = decline in value over time (if I do not implement today) RM = potential for risk reductionAll these create business value, the key is agreement in the end goal and deliverable
Agile needs to be the philosophy to perceive multidimensional business values. Making the effort at the leadership and portfolio level to qualify and quantify value in terms of both strategic value and tactical value; direct revenue and indirect (mission/vision/values) terms is the first step to crafting high level strategic intents. And at tactical level, follow Agile principles to deliver customer value is the core in Agile management and methodology.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
How to Frame the Right Questions for Decision Making
One of the most important tasks for management is to make decisions, however, across the sectors, many business leaders fail to make effective decisions, or part of problems is that they frame the wrong question; which means they intend to do things right before doing the right things’ or they try to figure out the ‘HOW,” instead of digging through “WHY” first. So first things first, how to frame the right questions for decision making?
The company's leadership plays a major role in framing the right questions for decision making. The role as leaders needs to incorporate process before its reflection on how people are thinking about what they're trying to accomplish. The role as leaders is to put people in a position to succeed, and success is doing the best that is capable. An outcome may not occur to one's liking, however, a process that provides insight can help one do the best that is capable. The approach is to offer people a consistent process that enables them to access relevant information to inform the decision, weigh up the alternatives, and develop the insights that guide their final decision. It may not always be the decision they hoped for, but it aligns with the capabilities and is clearly reasoned. The leader as overall specialist is more likely to fail because they frame the decision just from their own perspective, instead of encouraging engagement and involvement of key players who hold relevant knowledge. So the great leaders are surrounding themselves with specialists, and seeing their own specialism as that of 'leading', which critically involves identifying the people who can contribute to framing the decision, and then procuring the resources for that decision to be enacted.
Technology is the means to the end, not the end. It is important to have a process that provides useful - relevant and reliable - information. The act of providing is tied to the act of accessing. Getting back to process, technology is very important in organizing data within transactions.The technology does not ever 'make the decision,' but provides decision makers with perspectives and concurrent comparative assessment way better than they could ever do in the previous more 'manual' approach. This still requires insightful thinking, and challenging the status quo, but it is so much more effective being able to visualize all perspectives and trade-offs prior to making decisions.
Part of the problem has to do with how you frame the question. Inappropriate framing is being the root cause of most bad decisions. It’s also due to the lack of inquisitive minds. People need to ask questions. The thinking approach being used is informed at some level on subjective, intuitive sources of information, but it was calibrated and employed in the structured guiding process that got everyone to slow down and think through the implications of their intuitive, subjective assumptions. Regarding not having time to stop and think in a crisis, this is one place where different styles of thinking make a difference. Some people think best when they can jump into a situation and sort it out when they are in there. That kind of situation is well served with a pragmatic intuitive kind of thinking. Those who are more systemic thinkers, however, often either freeze in that kind of situation or make an impulsively off-base decision, mainly because they need to match the situation against what they expect and their expectations are usually violated in those chaotic or crisis situations. So sharing ideas, questioning, ‘what if's are all good tools, that will help frame the right problem.
Tune organizational structure to enable better decision making scenario: Imagine creating a matrix with the RAEW categories on the horizontal axis and key processes or decision points on the vertical. It provides a simple and quick tool for identifying potential misalignments in the organization structure. One nifty technique to audit the organizational structure (how it organizes its resources to do work) is the RAEW analysis: R=Roles and Responsibilities A=Authority (to make decisions/allocate resources) E=Expertise, knowledge and skills to do work W=Work tasks
So the proper framing, probabilistic reasoning, sensitivity analysis, and value of information and value of control are integrated techniques: They are very powerful tools to help managers think more critically about the decisions they make. Asking managers "What decisions do you make?" But rephrasing the question, try asking them what steps in the process they have to approve, or how they decide which product to invent/fund/support/ market. Ask them how they choose their vendors. Ask them how what was a difficult decision in the past. Keep mixing up the questions until you get one that seems to "trigger" the kind of answer you're looking for. Decision making attitude should be incorporated into the company’s culture (by letting know the employees that they have every right to take decisions that would improve the business process.). Another element to the process of framing a strategic decision is measurement. Having measurements can provide feedback on tactical as well as key decisions. The feedback can also provide opportunities to change tactics or even strategy.Decision making takes multidisciplinary approach, frame the right questions before answer them. It has a combination of analytical/logical thinking up front, that is, to make sure you're including the right information and looking at all the possible options, then, to select the best decision.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
June 24, 2015
Positivity vs. Optimism
Both positivity and optimism are about "looking on the bright side” of the things.
Optimism comes from the Latin word optimus, meaning "best," which describes how an optimistic person is always looking for the best in any situation and expecting good things to happen. Optimism is the tendency to believe, expect or hope that things will turn out well. A positive mental attitude is focused on strength, opportunities and inspired actions. It is about being your best, not beating another in the negative way.
Optimism is an outward view to see the bright side of the things; while positive is an internal mental attitude to achieve better result. Being optimistic is the view look for the best, come with “never give up" attitude. Your behaviour, the way you showcase your attitude and mould others to put on their thinking cap. Being positive is within yourself, reflects your personality, thought process put into action. They both can be defined as "looking on the bright side." Optimism is looking on the bright side of a situation (external), whereas, being positive is looking on the bright side of all (internal) and reflecting that positivity outwards for others to benefit from and add to.
A good positive chain of thoughts followed by positive actions brought good results. Incidentally, a single unexpected success suddenly triggers of a chain of positive thought process. A person comes inbuilt with all the attributes, attitudes in his/her personal package. What matters is his/her ability to harness and leverage them and gain from it for the greater good. Ultimately, it depends on the person who faces a situation, how he/she understands it, how he/she understands him/herself, harnesses/leverages the right attributes within him/herself and moves forward. Also he/she recognizes that failure, pessimism, negative thoughts are also very valuable, as long as he/she deals, learns and improves in the process by it.
Optimism is good but not in extreme levels. Everything should be at the right dose. Optimism and pessimism are outlooks or states of mind/heart and they may affect the approach one takes to accomplish a task, but these are not exclusive. A practical approach can be taken independent of a person's positivity or negativity towards the situation or life, in general, likewise, a purely impractical approach can be taken, just the same. Additionally, practical or impractical is a viewpoint that is retained by the individual and while there may be things that are thought of as 'generally practical,' such as taking the shortest distance to get somewhere when you are in a hurry, practicality may be a matter of preference.
Positive attitude is unbeatable; and optimistic view is delightful, and they are the forces to push the world forward. Although everything should be at the right dose, keep the balanced viewpoint in order to make objective judgement and manage both opportunity and risk effectively.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Optimism comes from the Latin word optimus, meaning "best," which describes how an optimistic person is always looking for the best in any situation and expecting good things to happen. Optimism is the tendency to believe, expect or hope that things will turn out well. A positive mental attitude is focused on strength, opportunities and inspired actions. It is about being your best, not beating another in the negative way.
Optimism is an outward view to see the bright side of the things; while positive is an internal mental attitude to achieve better result. Being optimistic is the view look for the best, come with “never give up" attitude. Your behaviour, the way you showcase your attitude and mould others to put on their thinking cap. Being positive is within yourself, reflects your personality, thought process put into action. They both can be defined as "looking on the bright side." Optimism is looking on the bright side of a situation (external), whereas, being positive is looking on the bright side of all (internal) and reflecting that positivity outwards for others to benefit from and add to.
A good positive chain of thoughts followed by positive actions brought good results. Incidentally, a single unexpected success suddenly triggers of a chain of positive thought process. A person comes inbuilt with all the attributes, attitudes in his/her personal package. What matters is his/her ability to harness and leverage them and gain from it for the greater good. Ultimately, it depends on the person who faces a situation, how he/she understands it, how he/she understands him/herself, harnesses/leverages the right attributes within him/herself and moves forward. Also he/she recognizes that failure, pessimism, negative thoughts are also very valuable, as long as he/she deals, learns and improves in the process by it.
Optimism is good but not in extreme levels. Everything should be at the right dose. Optimism and pessimism are outlooks or states of mind/heart and they may affect the approach one takes to accomplish a task, but these are not exclusive. A practical approach can be taken independent of a person's positivity or negativity towards the situation or life, in general, likewise, a purely impractical approach can be taken, just the same. Additionally, practical or impractical is a viewpoint that is retained by the individual and while there may be things that are thought of as 'generally practical,' such as taking the shortest distance to get somewhere when you are in a hurry, practicality may be a matter of preference.Positive attitude is unbeatable; and optimistic view is delightful, and they are the forces to push the world forward. Although everything should be at the right dose, keep the balanced viewpoint in order to make objective judgement and manage both opportunity and risk effectively.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
How to Improve IT Agility, Flexibility, and Overall Manageability
Most of IT Organizations have to Run the Bi-Modal Mode with Two-Speed: The Industrial Speed to Keep the Light on; and the Digital Speed to Innovate and Transform.
With the exponential flow of information and accelerating disruption of technology, IT plays more significant role in organization than ever. However, most of IT organizations get stuck at reactive mode as an order taker, running at lower level of maturity. From leadership, structure, management perspective, how to improve IT agility, flexibility and overall IT manageability?
A CIO is not a chief officer unless they are part of the senior leadership team. If a company doesn't place the CIO as an equal partner at the Sr. Leadership table, it sends the message that they don't recognize technology as strategic assets in achieving their goals, and those companies will likely find it much harder to run a high-performing IT in building a high mature organization. How effective IT is depends solely on two major issues: firstly, the company's strategy, and secondly, on the company's culture. If the two issues above are treated on an advanced managerial basis, then the CIO has the seat at big table, and with the voice to co-create business strategy. This happens when the strategy of the company is based on the fact that information flow is one of the two key resources. Then information management is truly a strategic matter. Secondly, if management has figured out the another key input factor is, people or human resources, and that in order to unlock the various intellectual capital capabilities of these workers, you have to establish an open communication system and a culture of cooperation throughout business units, then this cultural approach supports a CIO who is part of the Executive Committee.
The hybrid of centralized and decentralized IT structure with the goals to improve manageability, agility and flexibility: There is no "one size (or method) fits all," no right or wrong. There are measurable benefits to centralization. However, it requires a significant foundation. There are always going to be some services which are latency sensitive and unable to be optimized. Before finalizing any organizational layout for an IT function, careful consideration to the capabilities required is first and foremost - what is the role of IT? What Enterprise Apps do you support? All these things and more will drive what capabilities you need. Second, understand the cultural, political and geographic nature of the company you are supporting - a centralized IT function in a highly decentralized company will require a lot more care than a decentralized IT function. Pay attention to how people are managed, budgets are planned and strategy is developed...these will play a significant role in your decision. Third, skill sets. Do you have bright spots in your organization that create unique opportunities? Finally, consider management style and message. Trying to create a monolithic IT that works as one team? - centralized supports this goal best. Go more decentralized for improving flexibility and business agility. There is no single right answer to this. Centralized, De-centralized and hybrid models can all work given the proper planning and management focus to keep them well-tuned.
Bridge the gap is more and more a question of trust. This trust concept must be backed by Corporate Governance mandates. Everyone must be accountable to a process, audits, activity and impact on the organization. Delegation is good, but processes and documentation must be in place in order for "trust" to be accountable. Any changes you make will put your organization back into "storming, forming and norming" mode and some shakeout will occur as a result. You should prepare yourself, your organization and your key stakeholders to adjust to the inevitable rough spots you will create as a by-product of this activity. The higher the degree of change, the more pronounced the adjustment.
There are following three main criteria in any decision - quality, cost, and time. We unfortunately don't operate in a world with unlimited quantities of each, and it all boils down to what best supports the needs of the business. The business can typically pick one of the three which will have a direct impact on the other two. If cost is most important, it's highly likely that time and quality will suffer as a byproduct. After that decision is made, everyone else's thoughts on governance, leadership and accountability come next. The best way is to work with a strong rules from the headquarter, centralized model, but with local implementation for these rules, managed by local staff and maybe with a shortcuts or local modifications, to achieve efficiency.
Most of IT organizations today have to run bi-modal modes: IT at industrial speed --keeps the light on; and digital IT with faster speed focuses on innovation and continuous improvement. The digital world is so data-driven and so information-intensive, technology needs will only expand, and most likely expand hyperbolically; IT should play even more crucial roles as service broker, value-creator, digital orchestrator and governance champion, via improving its agility, flexibility and overall manageability.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
With the exponential flow of information and accelerating disruption of technology, IT plays more significant role in organization than ever. However, most of IT organizations get stuck at reactive mode as an order taker, running at lower level of maturity. From leadership, structure, management perspective, how to improve IT agility, flexibility and overall IT manageability?
A CIO is not a chief officer unless they are part of the senior leadership team. If a company doesn't place the CIO as an equal partner at the Sr. Leadership table, it sends the message that they don't recognize technology as strategic assets in achieving their goals, and those companies will likely find it much harder to run a high-performing IT in building a high mature organization. How effective IT is depends solely on two major issues: firstly, the company's strategy, and secondly, on the company's culture. If the two issues above are treated on an advanced managerial basis, then the CIO has the seat at big table, and with the voice to co-create business strategy. This happens when the strategy of the company is based on the fact that information flow is one of the two key resources. Then information management is truly a strategic matter. Secondly, if management has figured out the another key input factor is, people or human resources, and that in order to unlock the various intellectual capital capabilities of these workers, you have to establish an open communication system and a culture of cooperation throughout business units, then this cultural approach supports a CIO who is part of the Executive Committee.
The hybrid of centralized and decentralized IT structure with the goals to improve manageability, agility and flexibility: There is no "one size (or method) fits all," no right or wrong. There are measurable benefits to centralization. However, it requires a significant foundation. There are always going to be some services which are latency sensitive and unable to be optimized. Before finalizing any organizational layout for an IT function, careful consideration to the capabilities required is first and foremost - what is the role of IT? What Enterprise Apps do you support? All these things and more will drive what capabilities you need. Second, understand the cultural, political and geographic nature of the company you are supporting - a centralized IT function in a highly decentralized company will require a lot more care than a decentralized IT function. Pay attention to how people are managed, budgets are planned and strategy is developed...these will play a significant role in your decision. Third, skill sets. Do you have bright spots in your organization that create unique opportunities? Finally, consider management style and message. Trying to create a monolithic IT that works as one team? - centralized supports this goal best. Go more decentralized for improving flexibility and business agility. There is no single right answer to this. Centralized, De-centralized and hybrid models can all work given the proper planning and management focus to keep them well-tuned.
Bridge the gap is more and more a question of trust. This trust concept must be backed by Corporate Governance mandates. Everyone must be accountable to a process, audits, activity and impact on the organization. Delegation is good, but processes and documentation must be in place in order for "trust" to be accountable. Any changes you make will put your organization back into "storming, forming and norming" mode and some shakeout will occur as a result. You should prepare yourself, your organization and your key stakeholders to adjust to the inevitable rough spots you will create as a by-product of this activity. The higher the degree of change, the more pronounced the adjustment.
There are following three main criteria in any decision - quality, cost, and time. We unfortunately don't operate in a world with unlimited quantities of each, and it all boils down to what best supports the needs of the business. The business can typically pick one of the three which will have a direct impact on the other two. If cost is most important, it's highly likely that time and quality will suffer as a byproduct. After that decision is made, everyone else's thoughts on governance, leadership and accountability come next. The best way is to work with a strong rules from the headquarter, centralized model, but with local implementation for these rules, managed by local staff and maybe with a shortcuts or local modifications, to achieve efficiency.
Most of IT organizations today have to run bi-modal modes: IT at industrial speed --keeps the light on; and digital IT with faster speed focuses on innovation and continuous improvement. The digital world is so data-driven and so information-intensive, technology needs will only expand, and most likely expand hyperbolically; IT should play even more crucial roles as service broker, value-creator, digital orchestrator and governance champion, via improving its agility, flexibility and overall manageability.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Strategy Execution: How Difficult Could it Be
The super execution is the result of synchronization of all key business factors; organizational agility, intelligence, strong disciplines and management practices.
Nowadays, with increasing speed of change and fierce competition, business strategy execution is no longer linear steps, but dynamic continuum. If strategy formulation is more important for leading business toward the right direction, then strategy execution is perhaps more difficult due to the business complexity, uncertainty, time/resource consuming, etc. The strategic themes are essentially the pillars of the organization. They include business growth, operational excellence, customer experience excellence, product development, innovation and sustainability. Strategic perspectives include financial aspect, customers and stakeholders' aspect, internal processes, organizational capability and engaged leadership. Strategy execution: How difficult could it be?
Organization leaders will allocate the resources (time, money, and people) that enable execution. However, resources are only part of the formula. What gets measured, gets done. Leaders need to examine execution progress against the strategy on a regular basis to ensure successful execution, and how flexibility has to be structured and resonates towards the importance of accountability. Giving people clear responsibilities and holding them accountable is indeed very important for successful strategy execution. Commitment begins from the top! If the top Management takes out time for the formulation, then not only the employees but also the Stakeholders and suppliers will have a clear understanding of what is to be done. Which itself is a motivating factor. Leaders need to own the execution process of strategy and follow up to ensure success plus building internal capabilities. Buy-in is required across the organization, but leader ownership is critical to be accountable for result delivery.
Neither strategy formulation nor strategy implementation are difficult if you know what you're doing. It’s rare that a strategy's business case will be sufficient to win the support needed through a document or presentation by itself. Many organizations are inherently political. This is often a cultural trait of the organization often caused by fear, bureaucracy, and the threat of losing authority and status as a cultural characteristic as well as a result of certain types of strategies. Also the advent of digital technologies will change the way firms approach their execution of strategic process management initiatives. For example, the effective application tools can be quite useful in cascading the strategy down into the organization, translate the strategy into KPIs and monitor their performance. And the great value in collaborative technologies allow for more democratic decision-making and increased collaboration and information sharing across functional departments. Digital technologies can also be very helpful in strategic analysis as well.
Don’t underestimate the power and dysfunctional influence of culture of inertia. Strategy execution means to take action, it’s about changes. If people resist to change, then, execution won’t go too far. Therefore, in order to minimize the impacts of this issue, it’s recommended that you:-Communication: take the time and effort to meet with all important members of your various audiences, to talk through what is proposed, what is the likely impact on them, and what is expected of them before the strategy is implemented, during implementation and after implementation.-Empathy: Capture and record their questions, issues and their concerns. Ensure that their concerns are identified (anonymously if possible) in the business case, and discuss the manner you propose to satisfy those concerns. If you can 'live with' their solution to important issues and problems within the strategy, it will be harder for them to withhold approval or cooperation.
-Clarity: Ensure that you spend time explaining the benefits of the strategy to them and their area of responsibility. If they don’t know or aren't convinced of the benefits, then why would they support the strategy?-Commitment: Don’t leave the meeting without knowing what it will take to get their support for the strategy.You may also encounter 'gate-keepers' through whom you need to navigate the strategy, and who don’t have a real direct interest in the strategy or who are not directly affected by it. You still need to meet with them and secure their approval too. This is usually done by explaining the benefits to them or their responsibility area from the successful implementation of the strategy.
Another interesting link to explore is the driver for identifying key strategic processes and PPM. It is usually the parameters that affect customer experience the most which are key. In essence - customer experience is fundamental to how processes should be managed. This is an important issue to understand that the processes in your business will create and deliver the result. Many times you don't consider the processes as the main driver to deliver the desired result, and then you will not get the result you hoped for. The processes are the tool to get the result you formulate in the strategy. Also it’s important to highlight the real value of the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) can bring to support strategic planning and execution. If projects are the principles vehicles being used to deliver the strategy, then executives need to have just enough visibility about this project execution layer and how the projects and programmes are performing in order to monitor progress and make the right decisions to ensure that the strategy potential is achieved.
Balanced scorecard helps translate strategy into key performance indicators. In strategy based balanced scorecard, organizations try to align its strategies to corporate goals and objectives and cascade strategic intent to all departments of the organizations. Like the balanced scorecard approach. It helps organizations translate their strategy into key performance indicators that can be cascaded down to department, teams and even individuals. This is a great way to set objectives and monitor them. However, it is not easy to develop sound KPIs. As Drucker is supposed to have said: what gets measured gets managed. Costs, profit are easy to measure, but even more important ones such as quality, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and environmental impact are much more difficult to measure. As a result they are often left out of balanced scorecards and therefore not managed. Furthermore, developing, managing and monitoring objectives is crucial for successful strategy execution. However, soft aspects such as leadership, empowering employees, motivating employees, explaining the strategy etc are as important, if not more important. Such key practices are not part of the balanced scorecard.
Strategy execution is difficult, there are many roadblocks on the way, however, it can be managed well: From effective leadership to execution culture; from proactive planning to rigorous processes; from measures to balanced scorecards; the super execution is the result of synchronization of all key business factors; organizational agility, intelligence, strong disciplines and management practices.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Nowadays, with increasing speed of change and fierce competition, business strategy execution is no longer linear steps, but dynamic continuum. If strategy formulation is more important for leading business toward the right direction, then strategy execution is perhaps more difficult due to the business complexity, uncertainty, time/resource consuming, etc. The strategic themes are essentially the pillars of the organization. They include business growth, operational excellence, customer experience excellence, product development, innovation and sustainability. Strategic perspectives include financial aspect, customers and stakeholders' aspect, internal processes, organizational capability and engaged leadership. Strategy execution: How difficult could it be?Organization leaders will allocate the resources (time, money, and people) that enable execution. However, resources are only part of the formula. What gets measured, gets done. Leaders need to examine execution progress against the strategy on a regular basis to ensure successful execution, and how flexibility has to be structured and resonates towards the importance of accountability. Giving people clear responsibilities and holding them accountable is indeed very important for successful strategy execution. Commitment begins from the top! If the top Management takes out time for the formulation, then not only the employees but also the Stakeholders and suppliers will have a clear understanding of what is to be done. Which itself is a motivating factor. Leaders need to own the execution process of strategy and follow up to ensure success plus building internal capabilities. Buy-in is required across the organization, but leader ownership is critical to be accountable for result delivery.
Neither strategy formulation nor strategy implementation are difficult if you know what you're doing. It’s rare that a strategy's business case will be sufficient to win the support needed through a document or presentation by itself. Many organizations are inherently political. This is often a cultural trait of the organization often caused by fear, bureaucracy, and the threat of losing authority and status as a cultural characteristic as well as a result of certain types of strategies. Also the advent of digital technologies will change the way firms approach their execution of strategic process management initiatives. For example, the effective application tools can be quite useful in cascading the strategy down into the organization, translate the strategy into KPIs and monitor their performance. And the great value in collaborative technologies allow for more democratic decision-making and increased collaboration and information sharing across functional departments. Digital technologies can also be very helpful in strategic analysis as well.
Don’t underestimate the power and dysfunctional influence of culture of inertia. Strategy execution means to take action, it’s about changes. If people resist to change, then, execution won’t go too far. Therefore, in order to minimize the impacts of this issue, it’s recommended that you:-Communication: take the time and effort to meet with all important members of your various audiences, to talk through what is proposed, what is the likely impact on them, and what is expected of them before the strategy is implemented, during implementation and after implementation.-Empathy: Capture and record their questions, issues and their concerns. Ensure that their concerns are identified (anonymously if possible) in the business case, and discuss the manner you propose to satisfy those concerns. If you can 'live with' their solution to important issues and problems within the strategy, it will be harder for them to withhold approval or cooperation.
-Clarity: Ensure that you spend time explaining the benefits of the strategy to them and their area of responsibility. If they don’t know or aren't convinced of the benefits, then why would they support the strategy?-Commitment: Don’t leave the meeting without knowing what it will take to get their support for the strategy.You may also encounter 'gate-keepers' through whom you need to navigate the strategy, and who don’t have a real direct interest in the strategy or who are not directly affected by it. You still need to meet with them and secure their approval too. This is usually done by explaining the benefits to them or their responsibility area from the successful implementation of the strategy.
Another interesting link to explore is the driver for identifying key strategic processes and PPM. It is usually the parameters that affect customer experience the most which are key. In essence - customer experience is fundamental to how processes should be managed. This is an important issue to understand that the processes in your business will create and deliver the result. Many times you don't consider the processes as the main driver to deliver the desired result, and then you will not get the result you hoped for. The processes are the tool to get the result you formulate in the strategy. Also it’s important to highlight the real value of the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) can bring to support strategic planning and execution. If projects are the principles vehicles being used to deliver the strategy, then executives need to have just enough visibility about this project execution layer and how the projects and programmes are performing in order to monitor progress and make the right decisions to ensure that the strategy potential is achieved.
Balanced scorecard helps translate strategy into key performance indicators. In strategy based balanced scorecard, organizations try to align its strategies to corporate goals and objectives and cascade strategic intent to all departments of the organizations. Like the balanced scorecard approach. It helps organizations translate their strategy into key performance indicators that can be cascaded down to department, teams and even individuals. This is a great way to set objectives and monitor them. However, it is not easy to develop sound KPIs. As Drucker is supposed to have said: what gets measured gets managed. Costs, profit are easy to measure, but even more important ones such as quality, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and environmental impact are much more difficult to measure. As a result they are often left out of balanced scorecards and therefore not managed. Furthermore, developing, managing and monitoring objectives is crucial for successful strategy execution. However, soft aspects such as leadership, empowering employees, motivating employees, explaining the strategy etc are as important, if not more important. Such key practices are not part of the balanced scorecard.
Strategy execution is difficult, there are many roadblocks on the way, however, it can be managed well: From effective leadership to execution culture; from proactive planning to rigorous processes; from measures to balanced scorecards; the super execution is the result of synchronization of all key business factors; organizational agility, intelligence, strong disciplines and management practices.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
