Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1428
June 20, 2015
Three Perceptions about Digital Leadership
Leadership is about FUTURE! The pace of change has increased and sometimes it can be linked to the corporations for short-term results, or the constant development of technology, but the later is only a tool to be used. Given that the corners of the earth can be reached more quickly, the mountains, the seas, the desert and any physical obstacle can not isolate us now, communication happens faster, allowing the interaction between differing cultures and experiences, maybe this is what fuels change? So how has your perception of leadership changed, and what are the traits of digital leadership?
Digital leadership is about empathy: Leaders that truly understand change and know how to lead people transition through complex transformations is critical! With the increasing level of uncertainty and complexity, the expectation is for a "leader" to listen, have empathy and involve the team to make decisions and ensuring the personal development of all, so they maximize their potential. And, the continuity of change that we've seen develop has reduced the whole concept of steady state to something meaningless. We need to find agile ways to make leadership, management and some emerging disciplines that combines strategy management, change management, and portfolio management into an integral management approach and next practices.
Digital leadership is about influence. Digital leadership is more about influencing, rather about exercising power over others. Both leadership and change have altered and will continue to do so, as the influences we come under vary. Leadership is once aligned with and often still is sought for the leader to have power. It seems that more people today are willing to be leaders for the ability to influence rather than control others. As for change, every generation "redefines" the norms; our planet has had many generations! Leadership is not about exercising power over others, but inspiring them to become leaders and to reach self-efficacy; to continually strive for what serves the most people in the most positive way.
Digital leadership is about the balance: Digital leadership is about balance of "Yin and Yang," to avoid the pitfall of “extreme thinking” or group thinking. If an executive leader has the right amount of humility, he or she will embrace diversity of thoughts and pursue the ‘outliner’ viewpoint, and strike the right balance in order to make effective decisions. Digital accelerates the information flow and knowledge flow. Many leaders who have been with the same organization for decades, lack of “out of box” thinking, from outside the company or industry, that can improve creativity. People get trapped in "That's the way we've always done it mentality" and that slows progress.
Leadership is both nature and nurtured. By the time the leadership profile used to change, it must be a great mix between an active thinking mind with multidimensional intelligence, having strong capacity to make the people accept and adopt the change. High creativity and intelligence make leadership more inspirational and progressive to create an environment of trust and accountability.
in driving radical digital transformation.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
“Thinking Habit”: Do you Have One?
As humans we can not Not think! Our mind is always operating either in the foreground, or the background. Since we don't always "feel pain," then thinking in general is not necessarily painful. However, we need to distinguish amongst the different types of thinking in order to evaluate the thought processes, in order to improve thinking qualities: criticality, profundity, creativity, consciousness and superconsciousness., etc. So how do you ingrain the thinking habits?
Thinking in general, is manifested in ritualistic lifestyle, it is a habit, rather than a preference. Thinking habits are formed even when you were young, and then mastered in adulthood, so if one hasn’t grown up in a “thinking” environment, he/ she should plan acquiring the habit of thinking, like any other positive habit, it takes time, effort and perseverance. If we ask the question with Critical Thinking specifically as the focus, then we might say it is sometimes ‘painful.’ We all agree that part of critical thinking is uncovering assumptions. Depending on what topic we are considering thinking critically about, we all hold many assumptions near and dear to our hearts. As we uncover these assumptions, and begin to understand that some of them are not valid, then we may in fact experience some emotional pain as we discover our thinking has been flawed and we are challenged to shift our thinking. This is not easy! Another type of pain that people experience when applying critical thinking, or trying to apply, is that unless we have developed the skills to a point of some comfort and expertise, the mere discipline of focus that is necessary is certainly difficult for many people to achieve.
Building the working environment to encourage “Thinking” is critical in building the culture of innovation: In a corporate setting with dysfunctional management, having quiet time to just think could be uncomfortable for somebody who recognizes the hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance that bad management creates. Situations like this can foster learned helplessness and apathy, scenarios in which people may prefer to avoid introspection if it only increases awareness of the problem. That would cause the chain of other problems such as change inertia, bureaucracy, poor strategy execution, low rate of employee engagement, which leads to mediocre or poor performance as well.
Make thinking a habit to compare, contrast, connect, create, choose with confidence! The skills associated with critical thinking (exploring a problem from multiple perspectives) seem to trainable--in other words, we can give trainees repeated learning activities to develop the skills. But the mindset to use these skills habitually seems to occur more slowly. In a sense, a leap of faith is needed to believe that the additional effort is beneficial rather than a waste of time. Critical thinking has more to do with how you process information, which is a complex mental activity that encompasses all aspects of one's styles. And it's also influenced by the personality, style and relationships you have with other people. This comes out in a big way when it comes to critical thinking on teams and groups - where one's own critical thinking ability to understand and evaluate information of all types and draw logical, accurate conclusions is influenced by those around you and the environment.
Critical Thinking is a skill that has to be developed through a process; and continuous practices will shape it as a “Thinking Habit”: We all take short cuts, make assumptions, and repeat erroneous generalizations. Therefore, critical thinking is important. Analyzing the possibilities and projected outcomes provides an opportunity to apply critical thinking to the situation, and highlight the tendency for some people to believe that criticizing is the same as critical thinking. It appears that many people who are in the habit of criticizing others, often base their arguments on false premises that are hidden from view. Applying critical thinking tools to their own arguments may cause people to begin to question their own beliefs, which in itself can be a very painful process. Some people find that critical thinking to be painful has to do with both the effort involved and the requirement of self-reflection. Critical thinking involves, among other things, examining your own arguments in an effort to uncover any false premises. In addition to that effort, one would also at times need to admit that a particular underlying belief is incorrect.
Some study shows it takes 21 days to shape a good habit, perhaps it takes much longer to cultivate a “Thinking Habit,” even it causes headache, but the pain is only temporary, like in physical exercise, it hurts when you are not used to it. We are “What we are thinking of!” When the neurons in the brain start clicking and connecting, the thought is created; the thoughts piled upon the thought form into your mind; and when the mind keeps wondering and growing, it becomes who you are; so your brain is part of your body, but your mind strengthens you as a being...
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Digital Master Tuning: How to Harness Cross-functional Collaboration
The dynamic capabilities underpinned by cross-functional collaboration are key to delight customers and engage employees.
Most of organizations at industrial era runs in the functional silos. Typical silos value domain or skill specialization. Such silos introduce lots of delays, waste, queues, bottlenecks and loop-backs in the flow of customer value. Consider the challenge of executive awareness: Are the people doing the actual work aware of some ways in which they could improve the flow of customer value? Do they have the time, resources and support to run improvements? Does everyone have a clear understanding of their individual contribution to the flow of customer value? Does everyone feel safe to optimize away or simplify their former role, trusting that the organization will apply their skills and ingenuity elsewhere rather than eliminating them? Are the executives at the helm of the organization or in charge of silos or divisions aware of the true implications of the existing structure in terms of adverse impact on the flow of customer value? Do they have a clear grasp of all the sources of waste, delays, quality variance, etc.? What proportion of their time is devoted to sharpening the saw rather than just fighting fires or keeping the lights running? Do they understand to what extent their people are engaged in joyful work? And how to improve organizational agility by enabling cross-functional collaboration?
Cross-silo or cross-divisional collaboration is crucial to build dynamic digital capabilities: Silos are a typical pattern used in complex systems in an attempt to keep complexity under some semblance of control. It's only natural to seek some form of organizational structure to manage large numbers of people. The key question is "what values should inspire the structural patterns?” The current silos also are home to many hard-won fiefdoms. The radical focus on customer delight and joy in work threatens to disrupt these pocket empires. The fundamental challenge in transforming organizations towards valuing customer delight and joy in work over personal influence on a given silo is both cultural and political. Fortunately, leaders that manage to overcome this challenge faster will see their organizations thrive, disrupt their competition and win. Perhaps patience also needs to be one of the key things. Once the teams are self actualizing, they start to come up with their own suggestions and ideas to evolve, which is fantastic to watch. Try to build teams around business capabilities rather than functions, which is an interesting model to create joint directorial responsibilities.
Agile philosophy, principles and methodology, are important to empower the team and Individual contributors as well: If the move to Agile is not accompanied by a mind-shift, the chances that it would successful are very slim. Is this a fun place to work? What can you do to motivate the employees to work as a team? Give each group the same set of problems and amount of time to complete as many as possible. You can observe these events to see which people naturally aggregate into what groups and perhaps set up the teams that way. If you have a good team, they will perform these things together. When you find problems, delve into the root causes. If shortage of collaboration is a root cause for a real problem that the team can understand and can agree needs addressing, and can see that shortfall of collaboration is a root cause, then you have a good reason for improving collaboration in that respect, and a fair chance that the team will want to work to ensure the improvement succeeds, rather than falling back to their old ways at the first sign of difficulty. It becomes a really nice model when people realize that different organizations want to spend more time on different plateaus of stability - a production organization may favor most time in the specialization phase and aim for a broad plateau there; a development organization might favor having most time in the innovation phase and aim for a broad plateau there instead.
Alternative organizational structures exist. Imagine an organization in which the core competencies are explicitly visualized, people are usually associated with a particular business capability, and are charged with improving the flow of work in building it. They strive to reduce cycle time, lower waste, improve quality and consistency, etc. You will need multi-disciplinary, cross-functional teams in building each value-added capability. They need to be able to handle all the value-adding steps in the whole flow of work, start-to-finish, idea-to-cash. At the same time, there is still value in a domain or skill focus. This can inspire communities of practice that serve the natural aspiration toward skill mastery. People can chose to participate in one or more Communities of Practice while focused on a particular value stream. One of the primary impediments to collaboration is a dissonance between upper and middle management and a similar dissonance between middle management and the "boots on the ground." It traces to both culture and communication, but rarely gets the focus, methods and practices are being more at hand, even as they do not address the core issue. Ultimately, most of these issues occur simply because there is never truly an effort toward enterprise cohesion. At the end of the unit of effort, there is the work to synthesize the results of the many stove-pipes, but this work is done with good quality knowledge on each of them. Basically, if something similar results from more than one stove-pipe, the people that worked on those get together, and discuss and agree which parts are meant to be actually the same and choose names, and which differences are true specific features. Basically, you enrich vocabulary, services and their signatures, and entity structure with the contributions from the multiple feeds.
Forward-thinking organizations across verticals intend to build a customer-centric business, shift focus from inside-out operation driven to outside-in customer oriented, with the increasing realization that the flow of customer value and joyful work matter most for sustainable business. If you don't delight the customer today, someone else will. If you don't invest in learning what will continue to delight customers tomorrow, someone else will. If you don't treat your people with enough respect and make their work joyful, someone else will. Hence, cross-functional collaboration to delight customers and engage employees are critical for digital transformation and businesses’ long term prosperity.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Most of organizations at industrial era runs in the functional silos. Typical silos value domain or skill specialization. Such silos introduce lots of delays, waste, queues, bottlenecks and loop-backs in the flow of customer value. Consider the challenge of executive awareness: Are the people doing the actual work aware of some ways in which they could improve the flow of customer value? Do they have the time, resources and support to run improvements? Does everyone have a clear understanding of their individual contribution to the flow of customer value? Does everyone feel safe to optimize away or simplify their former role, trusting that the organization will apply their skills and ingenuity elsewhere rather than eliminating them? Are the executives at the helm of the organization or in charge of silos or divisions aware of the true implications of the existing structure in terms of adverse impact on the flow of customer value? Do they have a clear grasp of all the sources of waste, delays, quality variance, etc.? What proportion of their time is devoted to sharpening the saw rather than just fighting fires or keeping the lights running? Do they understand to what extent their people are engaged in joyful work? And how to improve organizational agility by enabling cross-functional collaboration?
Cross-silo or cross-divisional collaboration is crucial to build dynamic digital capabilities: Silos are a typical pattern used in complex systems in an attempt to keep complexity under some semblance of control. It's only natural to seek some form of organizational structure to manage large numbers of people. The key question is "what values should inspire the structural patterns?” The current silos also are home to many hard-won fiefdoms. The radical focus on customer delight and joy in work threatens to disrupt these pocket empires. The fundamental challenge in transforming organizations towards valuing customer delight and joy in work over personal influence on a given silo is both cultural and political. Fortunately, leaders that manage to overcome this challenge faster will see their organizations thrive, disrupt their competition and win. Perhaps patience also needs to be one of the key things. Once the teams are self actualizing, they start to come up with their own suggestions and ideas to evolve, which is fantastic to watch. Try to build teams around business capabilities rather than functions, which is an interesting model to create joint directorial responsibilities.
Agile philosophy, principles and methodology, are important to empower the team and Individual contributors as well: If the move to Agile is not accompanied by a mind-shift, the chances that it would successful are very slim. Is this a fun place to work? What can you do to motivate the employees to work as a team? Give each group the same set of problems and amount of time to complete as many as possible. You can observe these events to see which people naturally aggregate into what groups and perhaps set up the teams that way. If you have a good team, they will perform these things together. When you find problems, delve into the root causes. If shortage of collaboration is a root cause for a real problem that the team can understand and can agree needs addressing, and can see that shortfall of collaboration is a root cause, then you have a good reason for improving collaboration in that respect, and a fair chance that the team will want to work to ensure the improvement succeeds, rather than falling back to their old ways at the first sign of difficulty. It becomes a really nice model when people realize that different organizations want to spend more time on different plateaus of stability - a production organization may favor most time in the specialization phase and aim for a broad plateau there; a development organization might favor having most time in the innovation phase and aim for a broad plateau there instead.
Alternative organizational structures exist. Imagine an organization in which the core competencies are explicitly visualized, people are usually associated with a particular business capability, and are charged with improving the flow of work in building it. They strive to reduce cycle time, lower waste, improve quality and consistency, etc. You will need multi-disciplinary, cross-functional teams in building each value-added capability. They need to be able to handle all the value-adding steps in the whole flow of work, start-to-finish, idea-to-cash. At the same time, there is still value in a domain or skill focus. This can inspire communities of practice that serve the natural aspiration toward skill mastery. People can chose to participate in one or more Communities of Practice while focused on a particular value stream. One of the primary impediments to collaboration is a dissonance between upper and middle management and a similar dissonance between middle management and the "boots on the ground." It traces to both culture and communication, but rarely gets the focus, methods and practices are being more at hand, even as they do not address the core issue. Ultimately, most of these issues occur simply because there is never truly an effort toward enterprise cohesion. At the end of the unit of effort, there is the work to synthesize the results of the many stove-pipes, but this work is done with good quality knowledge on each of them. Basically, if something similar results from more than one stove-pipe, the people that worked on those get together, and discuss and agree which parts are meant to be actually the same and choose names, and which differences are true specific features. Basically, you enrich vocabulary, services and their signatures, and entity structure with the contributions from the multiple feeds.Forward-thinking organizations across verticals intend to build a customer-centric business, shift focus from inside-out operation driven to outside-in customer oriented, with the increasing realization that the flow of customer value and joyful work matter most for sustainable business. If you don't delight the customer today, someone else will. If you don't invest in learning what will continue to delight customers tomorrow, someone else will. If you don't treat your people with enough respect and make their work joyful, someone else will. Hence, cross-functional collaboration to delight customers and engage employees are critical for digital transformation and businesses’ long term prosperity.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
June 19, 2015
The inextricable Relationship between Strategy, Culture and Execution
A strategy is very important but will only be successful if it is embedded into a company’s culture and if the culture is designed to implement the strategy successfully.
Change is everywhere and it happens every moment in the workplace, but unfortunately people are rarely recognize that. Business culture is the most critical “soft” key factor to decide business’s success for long term. But it’s invisible and untouchable. The culture of an organization is comprised of many intricate and interconnected parts, including corporate strategy and related strategic goals, job roles, business processes, core values, communications practices, corporate attitudes and business policies. More specifically, what are the inextricable relationship between strategy, culture and execution?
Culture is about the natural response and behaviors that an organization demonstrate. A Strategy Map that strikes a chord with the majority of people with high influence in an organization can influence culture. Add a layer to your strategy map describes the behaviors that are valued and encouraged, and that is critical to enabling the intent of the strategy, and you make it easier for people to understand how they can change or contribute. You might kick the map up another notch by adding a layer describing the capabilities that can be shed; the ones that the organization needs to build, and the ones that the organization needs to preserve to be capable of executing the strategy. These two layers take the "capture of hearts" to the "leverage of heads and hands" without requirement for complex projects and process. "Doing" the bottom layers enables the upper layers.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Today companies work more on the execution, and many said business is 30% planning, and 70% execution. But culture is really the leader. A great culture can support a weak strategy, but a weak culture cannot support a great strategy. Culture is one of the main factors that affect implementation of strategies. While successful strategy should also take account culture into enterprise even around the enterprise. Strategy is driven by culture, for culture is the framework in which strategy is held for effect benefit and growth. Planning is generating ideas and finalizing the idea and shaping up the idea, then execution comes into picture. Both are equally important and focused. But first focus should be on foundation which is strategic planning, and then the pillar of strategy execution such as culture can directly make impact on how effective the execution would be, as many of us like Drucker’s quote: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Execution is the next step of idea practitioning. It is all about: Plan - Do - Check -Act. The execution also should be emphasized, but on the later stage. Execution is perhaps more challenging, but planning is more critical, if it fails, the organization will go towards the wrong direction. And culture is like an “invisible hand,” which can either make execution go smoothly, or fail it.
Culture of innovation is the key to the long term success and survival of a company. Societal culture is that the tribes and peoples keep their “thoughts and behaviors” alive through oral histories. So does in a company. And innovation is the only way to leapfrog a business and push human world forward. Culture of innovation is the foundation to make evolutionary or revolutionary change either in a business scope, or a societal environment. Ideas help in innovation, innovation helps in creating product and market (market can come first or product can come first), planning gives a road-map for execution also shows clear warnings where can the problem come, and then the business practitioners execute and go-getters market, and market gives feedback, and feedback helps in generating ideas. Taking the ideas to their logical conclusion, all of these happen with strong culture foundation.
A strategy is very important but will only be successful if it is embedded into a company’s culture and if the culture is designed to implement the strategy successfully. Conclusion: a company must have a strategy that is focused on serving its markets segments with the defined services, and a strategy to mold the needed culture accordingly; while culture is certainly part of the environment in which an organization operates, it represents the 'box' in which actions and decisions occur. Culture can be changed, just like breakdown the older box and shape the new box in order for organizations to reach the new horizons.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Change is everywhere and it happens every moment in the workplace, but unfortunately people are rarely recognize that. Business culture is the most critical “soft” key factor to decide business’s success for long term. But it’s invisible and untouchable. The culture of an organization is comprised of many intricate and interconnected parts, including corporate strategy and related strategic goals, job roles, business processes, core values, communications practices, corporate attitudes and business policies. More specifically, what are the inextricable relationship between strategy, culture and execution?Culture is about the natural response and behaviors that an organization demonstrate. A Strategy Map that strikes a chord with the majority of people with high influence in an organization can influence culture. Add a layer to your strategy map describes the behaviors that are valued and encouraged, and that is critical to enabling the intent of the strategy, and you make it easier for people to understand how they can change or contribute. You might kick the map up another notch by adding a layer describing the capabilities that can be shed; the ones that the organization needs to build, and the ones that the organization needs to preserve to be capable of executing the strategy. These two layers take the "capture of hearts" to the "leverage of heads and hands" without requirement for complex projects and process. "Doing" the bottom layers enables the upper layers.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Today companies work more on the execution, and many said business is 30% planning, and 70% execution. But culture is really the leader. A great culture can support a weak strategy, but a weak culture cannot support a great strategy. Culture is one of the main factors that affect implementation of strategies. While successful strategy should also take account culture into enterprise even around the enterprise. Strategy is driven by culture, for culture is the framework in which strategy is held for effect benefit and growth. Planning is generating ideas and finalizing the idea and shaping up the idea, then execution comes into picture. Both are equally important and focused. But first focus should be on foundation which is strategic planning, and then the pillar of strategy execution such as culture can directly make impact on how effective the execution would be, as many of us like Drucker’s quote: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Execution is the next step of idea practitioning. It is all about: Plan - Do - Check -Act. The execution also should be emphasized, but on the later stage. Execution is perhaps more challenging, but planning is more critical, if it fails, the organization will go towards the wrong direction. And culture is like an “invisible hand,” which can either make execution go smoothly, or fail it.
Culture of innovation is the key to the long term success and survival of a company. Societal culture is that the tribes and peoples keep their “thoughts and behaviors” alive through oral histories. So does in a company. And innovation is the only way to leapfrog a business and push human world forward. Culture of innovation is the foundation to make evolutionary or revolutionary change either in a business scope, or a societal environment. Ideas help in innovation, innovation helps in creating product and market (market can come first or product can come first), planning gives a road-map for execution also shows clear warnings where can the problem come, and then the business practitioners execute and go-getters market, and market gives feedback, and feedback helps in generating ideas. Taking the ideas to their logical conclusion, all of these happen with strong culture foundation.
A strategy is very important but will only be successful if it is embedded into a company’s culture and if the culture is designed to implement the strategy successfully. Conclusion: a company must have a strategy that is focused on serving its markets segments with the defined services, and a strategy to mold the needed culture accordingly; while culture is certainly part of the environment in which an organization operates, it represents the 'box' in which actions and decisions occur. Culture can be changed, just like breakdown the older box and shape the new box in order for organizations to reach the new horizons.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
A High - "AQ" Mind
“If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.“ - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is a journey, sometimes you yourself make a choice on which trail you take in order to see the different views or scenes; in other times, the challenge is given to you by nature, and you have no choice but face it and overcome the challenges. People succumb due to an array of things and their level of resilience (or lack thereof) is a big part of it. This is why one's adversity quotient (AQ) level is extremely important in overcoming challenges and adversities. For one to overcome certain challenges in life, they must first have the characteristic traits and attributes that will enable them to overcome those challenges they face. What are further aspects to deploy 'AQ' more deeply:
Trial and suffering expose one’s character for who you really are: Many people say that trial and suffering builds character. It does not build character as much as it exposes one's character for who you really are. That is why if a person is able to change their victim mentality to one of a survivor's mentality, or even thriver’s mindset, then and ONLY then can the strength be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. People have different characters (perception + personality). Some are more resilient, they face the difficulty, and stand again, with survival's mentality; others live with a victim mentality. They are unable to accept it mentally, though would still survive. Few might face difficulties, bounce back with resilience and transform it into a rock solid character.
Adversity Quotient is rooted in three sciences: cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, and psychoneuroimmunology (Stolz): According to Stolz (1997), people need the C.O.R.E. dimensions of Adversity Quotient (AQ). Those dimensions include: Control, Ownership, Reach, and Endurance. The understanding and character development is tested during periods of difficulty. The person then shows how strong his/her character, and the cognitive understanding of circumstances. Through both intellectual cognition and refinement from direct or indirect life experience, he or she could fully master the aspect of growing consciousness. Strength of character is a virtue. Such people would stand by their principles, are focused and live with a attitude.
Climbers, Campers, or Quitters/losers: Stolz further asserted how he puts people into three different categories: Climbers, Campers, or Quitters/losers. Climbers find a way of getting through their 'adversity' no matter what it takes, and in the process lead others through their minuscule challenges in comparison. Those type of people make up roughly 10% of the population. Campers are ordinary folks that face their adversity complaining about their situation, but find a way just good enough to get through it without helping anyone along the way. Those type of people make up roughly 70% . Then lastly are the Quitters quit at the first sight of any challenge or adverse situation, and they make up roughly 20% of the population.
Life is a learning experience and an adventurous journey. As saying goes: Anything you resist -- persists. This is also mirrored in physics, any action will create an equal and opposing reaction. This is why war does not solve problems long term. But this philosophy also applies to personal attitudes and how we approach life. If you don't resist problems (resistance creates stress), but instead try to understand why the problem is there in the first place, and at a deeper level -- then it can be resolved more easily. There is a deeper purpose underlying what we see in the everyday world. There is also purpose in adversity and we all experience it, for life is about learning, and we all are going to get tested at various times in our lives. Acceptance of the situation allows us to see it from a broader and deeper perspective, and empowers us. Character needs to be built. Adversity may test what you are made of -- at that particular moment only. But we improve our character from these experiences and learn to be more resilient. Humans are great at improving their skills. We can learn through our own process, or learn from the examples of others. Once one has formed and 'built' their character through their own cognition and experiences, those experiences define who you are.
AQ deals with one's ability to be: Resilient, health, and have tenacity. It brings ownership and determines one's accountability, responsibility, action, and engagement. AQ exposes one's extent to which someone perceives an adversity will “reach into” and affect other aspects of the situation or beyond. This in turn determines burden, stress, energy, and effort; it tends to have cumulative effect. AQ also provides one with the endurance or the length of time the individual perceives the situation / adversity will last, or endure. Which would determine one's ability to have hope, optimism, and willingness to persevere. It does more accurately reflect of being who you are. If one has the "traits" necessary to be resilient and has the CORE dimensions of AQ than at least you have a fighting chance (if not better) than others.
When we open ourselves up to the full richness of life, we enable curious and unforeseen opportunities in which we might grow. Rather than the narrow alleyway our image of a perfect life drives us down, we are alive and awake to all that there is and we become whole. Being high on AQ would also mean to develop more empathy as you yourself have pass through lot of trials. It would also make one more wise, deep and understanding. Acceptance of a situation allows to see it from a broader and deeper perspective. “There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain of incidents, each link of which hangs upon the former. The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace. Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.” Joseph AddisonFollow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Life is a journey, sometimes you yourself make a choice on which trail you take in order to see the different views or scenes; in other times, the challenge is given to you by nature, and you have no choice but face it and overcome the challenges. People succumb due to an array of things and their level of resilience (or lack thereof) is a big part of it. This is why one's adversity quotient (AQ) level is extremely important in overcoming challenges and adversities. For one to overcome certain challenges in life, they must first have the characteristic traits and attributes that will enable them to overcome those challenges they face. What are further aspects to deploy 'AQ' more deeply:
Trial and suffering expose one’s character for who you really are: Many people say that trial and suffering builds character. It does not build character as much as it exposes one's character for who you really are. That is why if a person is able to change their victim mentality to one of a survivor's mentality, or even thriver’s mindset, then and ONLY then can the strength be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. People have different characters (perception + personality). Some are more resilient, they face the difficulty, and stand again, with survival's mentality; others live with a victim mentality. They are unable to accept it mentally, though would still survive. Few might face difficulties, bounce back with resilience and transform it into a rock solid character.
Adversity Quotient is rooted in three sciences: cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, and psychoneuroimmunology (Stolz): According to Stolz (1997), people need the C.O.R.E. dimensions of Adversity Quotient (AQ). Those dimensions include: Control, Ownership, Reach, and Endurance. The understanding and character development is tested during periods of difficulty. The person then shows how strong his/her character, and the cognitive understanding of circumstances. Through both intellectual cognition and refinement from direct or indirect life experience, he or she could fully master the aspect of growing consciousness. Strength of character is a virtue. Such people would stand by their principles, are focused and live with a attitude.
Climbers, Campers, or Quitters/losers: Stolz further asserted how he puts people into three different categories: Climbers, Campers, or Quitters/losers. Climbers find a way of getting through their 'adversity' no matter what it takes, and in the process lead others through their minuscule challenges in comparison. Those type of people make up roughly 10% of the population. Campers are ordinary folks that face their adversity complaining about their situation, but find a way just good enough to get through it without helping anyone along the way. Those type of people make up roughly 70% . Then lastly are the Quitters quit at the first sight of any challenge or adverse situation, and they make up roughly 20% of the population.
Life is a learning experience and an adventurous journey. As saying goes: Anything you resist -- persists. This is also mirrored in physics, any action will create an equal and opposing reaction. This is why war does not solve problems long term. But this philosophy also applies to personal attitudes and how we approach life. If you don't resist problems (resistance creates stress), but instead try to understand why the problem is there in the first place, and at a deeper level -- then it can be resolved more easily. There is a deeper purpose underlying what we see in the everyday world. There is also purpose in adversity and we all experience it, for life is about learning, and we all are going to get tested at various times in our lives. Acceptance of the situation allows us to see it from a broader and deeper perspective, and empowers us. Character needs to be built. Adversity may test what you are made of -- at that particular moment only. But we improve our character from these experiences and learn to be more resilient. Humans are great at improving their skills. We can learn through our own process, or learn from the examples of others. Once one has formed and 'built' their character through their own cognition and experiences, those experiences define who you are.
AQ deals with one's ability to be: Resilient, health, and have tenacity. It brings ownership and determines one's accountability, responsibility, action, and engagement. AQ exposes one's extent to which someone perceives an adversity will “reach into” and affect other aspects of the situation or beyond. This in turn determines burden, stress, energy, and effort; it tends to have cumulative effect. AQ also provides one with the endurance or the length of time the individual perceives the situation / adversity will last, or endure. Which would determine one's ability to have hope, optimism, and willingness to persevere. It does more accurately reflect of being who you are. If one has the "traits" necessary to be resilient and has the CORE dimensions of AQ than at least you have a fighting chance (if not better) than others.
When we open ourselves up to the full richness of life, we enable curious and unforeseen opportunities in which we might grow. Rather than the narrow alleyway our image of a perfect life drives us down, we are alive and awake to all that there is and we become whole. Being high on AQ would also mean to develop more empathy as you yourself have pass through lot of trials. It would also make one more wise, deep and understanding. Acceptance of a situation allows to see it from a broader and deeper perspective. “There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain of incidents, each link of which hangs upon the former. The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace. Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.” Joseph AddisonFollow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Change Management Starts with Big Why
Many organizations focus so heavily on the "doing" (the"how"), they lose sight of the "purpose" (the "why").
Change is everywhere and it happens every moment in the workplace, but unfortunately people are rarely recognize that; or sometimes change is for its own sake, so how to manage change by starting with Big WHY?
It is the key to present the WHY first. Primarily, it provides a way to inject enthusiasm, which is infectious and spurs the concept forward. Once people agree with the WHY, they can develop their own level or means of participating, maybe even offering what you didn't think to ask for, expanding the efficiency of the concept itself, thereby re-injecting further excitement in their being part of it. It becomes our project. "Why" should not only precede "How," but should be reaffirmed at each step in the "How." Every process, every expenditure of time, money, or energy, and every assignment of resources should directly relate back to the "Why." Useless processes not related to the "why" built over time through tradition; or tribal habit should be analyzed, improved to applicability, or abandoned. Many organizations focus so heavily on the "doing" (the "how"), they lose sight of the "purpose" (the "why"), the "HOW" was originally designed to achieve. They reach a point at which 90% of their efforts are towards processes that are not aligned towards or, in some cases, directly in opposition to the achievement of the real goal of the organization.
Leaders should contemplate the big WHY and know the dynamic of change and act upon it. By communicating with why and creating a team sense, leaders can overcome resistance to change. In short, the more we know about a change, and the more we feel it is necessary and urgent, the more we are to accept the change. But many leaders from top organizations do know the "why," but deliberately hold it from the team, the doers of the "how." Because if they reveal the why, the inside story is on everyone's lips and secrets of the company are out. The leaders should still let the team come up with the "why" and see if there are any gaps. If you want a buy in from the employees, doing a thorough job of the rationale or "why" is all that's required. Often companies waste a lot of time on the "how" anyways since that's the freedom the employees can have, and you should give that room to personalize how something needs to be accomplished rather than prescribed. Integrating leadership development within people to achieve the desired mission, goals and results. It is a collaborative effort no matter how big or small the mission/project is. If we want to inspire, create and innovate, we have to develop a more integrated/collaborative style of working with each other.
C-level educates the Board and employees on WHY culture innovation is important. The area of culture suffers from an imbalance of over conceptualized offerings vs. a simple, pragmatic, operational approach. On the other hand, if senior people could just witness the practical difference that employees make when they are fully engaged with the brand and values, they would be interested. Ultimately, culture is the only sustainable point of differentiation, so, why would you not be interested in the DNA of your organization - Culture? Culture is how the group of people think and do things, the big WHY of many phenomenon happening there. The shareholder value has to start somewhere and that somewhere may begin with a positive corporate culture. A company with a positive corporate culture that is aligned around the values of a company will likely outperform their competition within their market. Those companies which can successfully transform their cultures do a few specific things to ensure success and sustained commitment: First, the CXOs take ownership of the culture, does not delegate it as a function, program or initiative to functional heads. By keeping the culture led from the top and alignment of the entire senior team around it, the CXOs also put in place a meaningful set of objectives and defines measurements of success, in both quantitative and qualitative way. As early on in the process as possible, the C-level fully educates the board on WHT the culture transformation is needed, what it will take in terms of time, money and ongoing commitment and provides the cultural roadmap. He or she also must provide the business case and expected ROI to desired outcomes, whether it be a business model shift, a merger integration or to create a more agile culture of innovation, etc.
Business Change Management is managing everything that is necessary to get people to adopt new ways of thinking and working, by starting with big WHY, Change Management can fine tune corporate culture, process, and talent employees, and people always support what they understand, the Big WHY will dig deeper, to make change radical and sustainable.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Change is everywhere and it happens every moment in the workplace, but unfortunately people are rarely recognize that; or sometimes change is for its own sake, so how to manage change by starting with Big WHY?
It is the key to present the WHY first. Primarily, it provides a way to inject enthusiasm, which is infectious and spurs the concept forward. Once people agree with the WHY, they can develop their own level or means of participating, maybe even offering what you didn't think to ask for, expanding the efficiency of the concept itself, thereby re-injecting further excitement in their being part of it. It becomes our project. "Why" should not only precede "How," but should be reaffirmed at each step in the "How." Every process, every expenditure of time, money, or energy, and every assignment of resources should directly relate back to the "Why." Useless processes not related to the "why" built over time through tradition; or tribal habit should be analyzed, improved to applicability, or abandoned. Many organizations focus so heavily on the "doing" (the "how"), they lose sight of the "purpose" (the "why"), the "HOW" was originally designed to achieve. They reach a point at which 90% of their efforts are towards processes that are not aligned towards or, in some cases, directly in opposition to the achievement of the real goal of the organization.
Leaders should contemplate the big WHY and know the dynamic of change and act upon it. By communicating with why and creating a team sense, leaders can overcome resistance to change. In short, the more we know about a change, and the more we feel it is necessary and urgent, the more we are to accept the change. But many leaders from top organizations do know the "why," but deliberately hold it from the team, the doers of the "how." Because if they reveal the why, the inside story is on everyone's lips and secrets of the company are out. The leaders should still let the team come up with the "why" and see if there are any gaps. If you want a buy in from the employees, doing a thorough job of the rationale or "why" is all that's required. Often companies waste a lot of time on the "how" anyways since that's the freedom the employees can have, and you should give that room to personalize how something needs to be accomplished rather than prescribed. Integrating leadership development within people to achieve the desired mission, goals and results. It is a collaborative effort no matter how big or small the mission/project is. If we want to inspire, create and innovate, we have to develop a more integrated/collaborative style of working with each other.
C-level educates the Board and employees on WHY culture innovation is important. The area of culture suffers from an imbalance of over conceptualized offerings vs. a simple, pragmatic, operational approach. On the other hand, if senior people could just witness the practical difference that employees make when they are fully engaged with the brand and values, they would be interested. Ultimately, culture is the only sustainable point of differentiation, so, why would you not be interested in the DNA of your organization - Culture? Culture is how the group of people think and do things, the big WHY of many phenomenon happening there. The shareholder value has to start somewhere and that somewhere may begin with a positive corporate culture. A company with a positive corporate culture that is aligned around the values of a company will likely outperform their competition within their market. Those companies which can successfully transform their cultures do a few specific things to ensure success and sustained commitment: First, the CXOs take ownership of the culture, does not delegate it as a function, program or initiative to functional heads. By keeping the culture led from the top and alignment of the entire senior team around it, the CXOs also put in place a meaningful set of objectives and defines measurements of success, in both quantitative and qualitative way. As early on in the process as possible, the C-level fully educates the board on WHT the culture transformation is needed, what it will take in terms of time, money and ongoing commitment and provides the cultural roadmap. He or she also must provide the business case and expected ROI to desired outcomes, whether it be a business model shift, a merger integration or to create a more agile culture of innovation, etc.
Business Change Management is managing everything that is necessary to get people to adopt new ways of thinking and working, by starting with big WHY, Change Management can fine tune corporate culture, process, and talent employees, and people always support what they understand, the Big WHY will dig deeper, to make change radical and sustainable.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
June 17, 2015
How do you Handle People who do not Support Change Initiative.
The psychology behind the change is that, “People likes to change, but do not wants to be changed and there is the difference.”
Change is inevitable, successful Change Management is an ongoing business capability. However, do not expect everyone supporting your change initiatives to the same degree, it’s even no surprise that only small percentage of people are change agent, so both strategically and tactically, how do you handle people who do not support change initiative?
It is valuable to sincerely engage with people who have symptom of “change inertia.” In doing so, you will disarm them as this is not what they are used to. It will also help/force you to get the rationale for the change absolutely clear. Resistance to change has many reasons, political, ego (self-interest), power (loss of), misunderstanding, altering habits, lack of facts, hidden agenda, lack to commit, and the person's basic personality (low tolerance to change). By engaging with them, you are sending a strong signal to those around them that you are serious about the change. It will also build your credibility as a leader and manager. They may not come on board immediately, if at all, but there is good chance that will be less likely to undermine the initiative. They will jump on any lack of clarity or weak justification. In turn, in engaging with them, do not let them get away with vague and general assertions. Make them be specific about their concerns and issues. If they can verbalize them, this information can be quite useful in planning the change initiative. If not, it will put them further on the back foot.
Resistance to change is energy in another direction. Sometimes it pays to explore that direction - and some interesting developments surface which impact the change. Their resistance can add insight on how to manage the change more effectively and they often have useful stories and can foresee obstacles that have not yet been raised or considered. Change is often driven from the perspective of the benefits to the organization, business unit or even the employee - but that's often determined incorrectly. The organization or those responsible for the change makes the assessment, not those affected by the change. While they may believe they're considering the employees' perspective, it's not the same as actually seeking it and considering it. Greater awareness of some issues, can provide insights from hidden part of the organization that might actually help fine-tune your change objectives and increase the inclusiveness of influential individuals or groups.
Identify change agent and change laggard: Start with the basic profile that 20% will be early supporters, 20% will reluctantly or never support, and 60% are initially undecided. Seek out your early adopters and plant the seed, and help them as they work on the next round of people to show the value in the change. Meanwhile, check out what the people who “do not want to change” are doing and what they're saying because they are saying it to people other than you, and you need to know what their arguments are. The next time you're in a meeting or publishing a communication, you can assuage some of the fear they are instilling in the organization. It also shows that you're listening. Try to convert some of the bottom 20% to change supporter should have a big impact on the undecided. However, that takes a big investment of time. Sometimes too big for the potential return generated by an occasional convert. It is perhaps too hard to make everyone support changes. The logic is that the 60% will quickly see the advantage of following the 20% early supporters and effectively isolate the remaining 20% - who will either reluctantly go along or possible just leave. When observing early adopters, they fall in two camps. Genuine concerts and ‘Yes’ men, the latter can be worse than detractors going with the flow for an easy life and ultimately reverting to type the minute your attention shifts. It takes both principles and practices to manage change more effectively.
“What's in it for me?" It is also true that people tend to be selfishly motivated and need an answer to 'what's in it for me?' To try move them along, use Deep Democracy principle of 'what do you need...?' with caution - it tends to be more successful with smaller groups and people are generally willing to negotiate a trade-off once the feel they have been heard. Some people can't see beyond a very short change horizon. Time and time again when selling the big picture which is often too far along the change curve for people to see "what's around the bend." As you approach a corner (Change), if the corner seems to be coming towards you (Resistance) back off the gas, you’re going to take the time to shorten the vision, investigate the why, build the WIIFIM, "take the right line" and time to find gains for your naysayers, even if they are small ones. It is critical to shape a good attitude! In fact, when you brainstorm the attributes of ideal team members, the participants say skill (although a pre-requisite) is 20% of the deal, and that good attitude to change is 80%!
Change Management takes multidisciplinary approach, the psychology behind the change is that, “People likes to change, but do not wants to be changed and there is the difference.” By nature we resist the changes, however, if we are part of it, it is easier to shift to the new behavior. So treat people with respect, empathy and fairness in order to make change sustainable.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Change is inevitable, successful Change Management is an ongoing business capability. However, do not expect everyone supporting your change initiatives to the same degree, it’s even no surprise that only small percentage of people are change agent, so both strategically and tactically, how do you handle people who do not support change initiative?
It is valuable to sincerely engage with people who have symptom of “change inertia.” In doing so, you will disarm them as this is not what they are used to. It will also help/force you to get the rationale for the change absolutely clear. Resistance to change has many reasons, political, ego (self-interest), power (loss of), misunderstanding, altering habits, lack of facts, hidden agenda, lack to commit, and the person's basic personality (low tolerance to change). By engaging with them, you are sending a strong signal to those around them that you are serious about the change. It will also build your credibility as a leader and manager. They may not come on board immediately, if at all, but there is good chance that will be less likely to undermine the initiative. They will jump on any lack of clarity or weak justification. In turn, in engaging with them, do not let them get away with vague and general assertions. Make them be specific about their concerns and issues. If they can verbalize them, this information can be quite useful in planning the change initiative. If not, it will put them further on the back foot.
Resistance to change is energy in another direction. Sometimes it pays to explore that direction - and some interesting developments surface which impact the change. Their resistance can add insight on how to manage the change more effectively and they often have useful stories and can foresee obstacles that have not yet been raised or considered. Change is often driven from the perspective of the benefits to the organization, business unit or even the employee - but that's often determined incorrectly. The organization or those responsible for the change makes the assessment, not those affected by the change. While they may believe they're considering the employees' perspective, it's not the same as actually seeking it and considering it. Greater awareness of some issues, can provide insights from hidden part of the organization that might actually help fine-tune your change objectives and increase the inclusiveness of influential individuals or groups.
Identify change agent and change laggard: Start with the basic profile that 20% will be early supporters, 20% will reluctantly or never support, and 60% are initially undecided. Seek out your early adopters and plant the seed, and help them as they work on the next round of people to show the value in the change. Meanwhile, check out what the people who “do not want to change” are doing and what they're saying because they are saying it to people other than you, and you need to know what their arguments are. The next time you're in a meeting or publishing a communication, you can assuage some of the fear they are instilling in the organization. It also shows that you're listening. Try to convert some of the bottom 20% to change supporter should have a big impact on the undecided. However, that takes a big investment of time. Sometimes too big for the potential return generated by an occasional convert. It is perhaps too hard to make everyone support changes. The logic is that the 60% will quickly see the advantage of following the 20% early supporters and effectively isolate the remaining 20% - who will either reluctantly go along or possible just leave. When observing early adopters, they fall in two camps. Genuine concerts and ‘Yes’ men, the latter can be worse than detractors going with the flow for an easy life and ultimately reverting to type the minute your attention shifts. It takes both principles and practices to manage change more effectively.
“What's in it for me?" It is also true that people tend to be selfishly motivated and need an answer to 'what's in it for me?' To try move them along, use Deep Democracy principle of 'what do you need...?' with caution - it tends to be more successful with smaller groups and people are generally willing to negotiate a trade-off once the feel they have been heard. Some people can't see beyond a very short change horizon. Time and time again when selling the big picture which is often too far along the change curve for people to see "what's around the bend." As you approach a corner (Change), if the corner seems to be coming towards you (Resistance) back off the gas, you’re going to take the time to shorten the vision, investigate the why, build the WIIFIM, "take the right line" and time to find gains for your naysayers, even if they are small ones. It is critical to shape a good attitude! In fact, when you brainstorm the attributes of ideal team members, the participants say skill (although a pre-requisite) is 20% of the deal, and that good attitude to change is 80%!
Change Management takes multidisciplinary approach, the psychology behind the change is that, “People likes to change, but do not wants to be changed and there is the difference.” By nature we resist the changes, however, if we are part of it, it is easier to shift to the new behavior. So treat people with respect, empathy and fairness in order to make change sustainable.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
IT Strategy as Integral Part of Business Strategy
IT needs to go from supporting to engaging, IT Strategy is integral part of business strategy.
The biggest challenge now is the increasing rate of change, and this isn't going to change! The objective of IT strategy is not just to be aligned with business strategy, but IT strategy is an integral part of business strategy. IT strategies, services and solutions, absolutely need to be able to respond in an agile way and change themselves! In detail, how to craft a good strategy, and how to execute it effectively?IT is not just to support strategy, IT strategy is an integral part of business strategy: The main problem is that business executive still limit their vision of IT as “IT supports a strategy,” CIOs role as C-level is to contribute to the formulation of the business strategy where new trends of technology will provide strategic business capabilities to the business that will enhance the competitive advantages of the organization. CIO should have the knowledge and ability to demonstrate that IT capabilities as strategic enabler of the business and CIO to be part of the executives for articulating the business strategy. The main issue is the knowledge gap of business executives to the trends of new technology and its impact on the business . The main role of CIO is to demonstrate to the other executives the added value provided by technology using the business language (as businesses cases). CIO should have a holistic view of the business from the business executive perspectives and to provide added value of technology. Now, Information Systems are impacting every business activities at the organization, CIO should have strong business knowledge to be able communicate with the other executives.
At the end of the day, the organization must be centered on its clients. In the case of IT, the organization is "the client," as well as end customers. IT should be inviting the ranks of business professionals, C-level, directors, and managers to periodic review meetings which discuss the performance of various technologies. The role of IT is important, and the functional purpose of IT is still an enabler of business unit success. However, the IT Strategy can be a vague concept to the IT professional. Why? Because IT leadership needs to know the strategy of a business before any IT plan can be created to be integral part of business strategy. Uncertainty of the business strategy will be the real challenge to the CIO as to design an IT Architecture which has the complexity due to the technology trends at the different layers, while maintaining its agility for accommodating the dynamics of the business requirements. On the flip side - we need to look at IT as a business resource. The insight IT managers, Directors and CIOs gleam from various measurements of bits and bytes can be amazing. The help-desk team has a front row seat to organizational culture and behavior. The developer customizing web pages, customizing databases, or customizing applications across a global organization can speak to you in terms of lifecycle and bandwidth behaviors.
The business strategy lifecycle has for many business models progressively shortened. This is a process of evolution. At which point there is a need to re-brand 'IT Strategy' as 'Digital Strategy' is open to question; different departments or divisions within an organization have different speeds. And now it is the reality to run a bi-modal business with both industrial speed for stability) and digital speed (for agility). In practice, even in the simplest organizations, the 'Speed' is not homogeneous across the enterprise (differences between 'front office' & 'back office,' enterprises with multiples businesses and associated business models). So many organizations will have to 'mix & match' at least two different speeds' with appropriate IT governance styles, accommodating the resulting different IT strategy cycles. That makes the overall governance tricky since each department need to align to its own speed in the market. So the point of view is that the group IT strategy need to focus on the fastest speed available - because that is the main threat to competitiveness. Also, it is necessary to understand that no department will suffer from being challenged too often. Challenging does not mean replacing strategy, but rather quality assuring the strategy.
IT Strategy and Digital Strategy are integrated into business strategy: A digital strategy is not just about the plan to design a pretty website or marketing strategy, it has a purpose to drive customer engagement and experience as cross-functional responsibility, uniting all silos to contribute to great customer experience. The IT Strategy is how to leverage the resources and assets of the IT departments to create the optimal business value - which in the next step, will generate revenue growth, brand or increased market shares. The IT strategy is the responsibility of the CIO and works as a foundation for driving business success. The two types of strategies can be integrated, but it is important to understand that responsibility, objectives and needed resources to be successful. It's the responsibility of the CIO. The CIO is not simply the leader of the enterprise's IT departments, The CIO role is an enterprise leadership & executive role who is the enterprise executive responsible for leadership of the information agenda, which includes driving customer engagement and experience as a cross-functional enterprise responsibility.
IT needs to go from supporting to engaging: IT is responsible for the information agenda from a provider’s perspective, but CIOs need to take more proactive approach cross-functional border to see things from business lenses, it is a differentiating point between digital IT as an innovation engine, and a traditional IT as a back office. IT is to provide accurate information and applications to store and allow modeling of information. But, departments such as marketing, finance, HR and business - are responsible for applying the information to their businesses with an aim of generating revenue growth, motivated employees, customer experience and engagement. There are different departments, with different roles and ways of leveraging the data in the organization. The CIO leads on the provision of information, and that various functions across the enterprise are responsible both for deciding what they need and then using it strategically & operationally. The CIO and his/her people need to collaborate very closely with other functional CxOs and their people to ensure optimum outcomes. But in all such relationships, the CIO needs to have a very good grasp of the overall business, its strategy, marketplace, business model and competitive distinctiveness to ensure that the IT-enabled services supplied to the enterprise deliver maximum value at acceptable cost with optimum service.
Running a digital IT is all about Speed, Agility and Innovation. IT strategy is an integral part of business strategy which takes a more holistic approach (cross-functional) and describe how the company as a whole can create superior customer experience, improve employee engagement; and help business build a full set of competitive capabilities for long term prosperity.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
June 16, 2015
Is Systems Thinking more about Framing the Right Questions, or Proposed Solutions?
In a broader sense, Systems Thinking is a path to greater awareness.
Systems Thinking is all about seeing the trees without missing the forest. Is Systems Thinking just about asking big questions recognizing the interconnections of things belonging within a system, or is it also about taking a systematic approach to answering these questions, creating a framework within which the journey between the defined problem (question) and the proposed solution (answer) is clearly articulated (logical steps, assumptions, facts vs. opinions, symptoms vs. root cause etc)?
Systems Thinking is simply a method of inquiry, one that starts with analysis and follows with synthesis. All systems include the observer, so starting inside with oneself and working outward is a great journey that uncovers our assumptions utilized in our mental models. A systems Thinking approach also integrates the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of our worlds since this is the space we exist and operate as human beings. So ST is an evolutionary journey - from understanding one's own personal and mental possibilities and limitations, to including others and their personal and mental frames to learning as a gestalt experience. Understanding Systems Thinking as a 'fifth' discipline suggests a less mechanistic way to frame the questions. Rather than try to understand ST in terms of questions and answers, and tools that can be 'applied' to solve problems and generate solutions, Senge uses the term 'discipline' to outline the four levels - personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision and team learning - that lead into ST as the next level.Systems Thinking and Systems Thinking tools are different things: Part of the problem with Systems Thinking is that there is a big bag of tools which are frequently confused with Systems Thinking itself. That makes it worse by the fact that the direction of any discussion goes in is so strongly influenced by which particular "swaggie" has the bag over his/her shoulder at the time. The tools define the framework you refer to. Learning more tools will give you more ways to approach your system, always remembering that problems exist not in isolation, but, as an interacting system of problems.
In a broader sense, Systems Thinking is a path to greater awareness. Because it allows us to be integral and not separate from the world. "Awareness" is a mixed word and it makes more sense to be aware of real boundaries than it does to disregard boundaries in trying to be "more aware." The "Out there" and the "In here" are only divided by our conventions and labels. Erase all the devised coping mechanisms and a more integrated world emerges. Watch it without violence or the "need to fix it...." and connections emerge that you would never expect, or allow with traditional ways. Psychology is just as systematic as anything else in nature. Human beings are certainly purposeful and if system environment’s boundaries consist of the degrees of power ( degree of control, influence and appreciation) over those things that affect our purpose, Freud’s unconscious id, ego and superego are system boundaries of the unconscious, Jung's conscious, subconscious and collective unconscious and his personality insights , introversion, extroversion= action, reflection or control; his thinking feeling is influence and his intuition sensing =appreciation
It’s important to apply Systems Thinking in framing the right questions before answering them, and it’s also important to leverage a good set of Systems Thinking tools to propose solutions. Although Systems Thinking might slow down the decision making scenario, for strategic or any critical decisions, it’s the necessary thinking process to do both analytics and synthesis, to see both trees and forest. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Systems Thinking is all about seeing the trees without missing the forest. Is Systems Thinking just about asking big questions recognizing the interconnections of things belonging within a system, or is it also about taking a systematic approach to answering these questions, creating a framework within which the journey between the defined problem (question) and the proposed solution (answer) is clearly articulated (logical steps, assumptions, facts vs. opinions, symptoms vs. root cause etc)?
Systems Thinking is simply a method of inquiry, one that starts with analysis and follows with synthesis. All systems include the observer, so starting inside with oneself and working outward is a great journey that uncovers our assumptions utilized in our mental models. A systems Thinking approach also integrates the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of our worlds since this is the space we exist and operate as human beings. So ST is an evolutionary journey - from understanding one's own personal and mental possibilities and limitations, to including others and their personal and mental frames to learning as a gestalt experience. Understanding Systems Thinking as a 'fifth' discipline suggests a less mechanistic way to frame the questions. Rather than try to understand ST in terms of questions and answers, and tools that can be 'applied' to solve problems and generate solutions, Senge uses the term 'discipline' to outline the four levels - personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision and team learning - that lead into ST as the next level.Systems Thinking and Systems Thinking tools are different things: Part of the problem with Systems Thinking is that there is a big bag of tools which are frequently confused with Systems Thinking itself. That makes it worse by the fact that the direction of any discussion goes in is so strongly influenced by which particular "swaggie" has the bag over his/her shoulder at the time. The tools define the framework you refer to. Learning more tools will give you more ways to approach your system, always remembering that problems exist not in isolation, but, as an interacting system of problems.
In a broader sense, Systems Thinking is a path to greater awareness. Because it allows us to be integral and not separate from the world. "Awareness" is a mixed word and it makes more sense to be aware of real boundaries than it does to disregard boundaries in trying to be "more aware." The "Out there" and the "In here" are only divided by our conventions and labels. Erase all the devised coping mechanisms and a more integrated world emerges. Watch it without violence or the "need to fix it...." and connections emerge that you would never expect, or allow with traditional ways. Psychology is just as systematic as anything else in nature. Human beings are certainly purposeful and if system environment’s boundaries consist of the degrees of power ( degree of control, influence and appreciation) over those things that affect our purpose, Freud’s unconscious id, ego and superego are system boundaries of the unconscious, Jung's conscious, subconscious and collective unconscious and his personality insights , introversion, extroversion= action, reflection or control; his thinking feeling is influence and his intuition sensing =appreciation It’s important to apply Systems Thinking in framing the right questions before answering them, and it’s also important to leverage a good set of Systems Thinking tools to propose solutions. Although Systems Thinking might slow down the decision making scenario, for strategic or any critical decisions, it’s the necessary thinking process to do both analytics and synthesis, to see both trees and forest. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Who are the UX Strategists
UX is not just a single business or technical project, it is an important element of your digital strategy.
UX is the conjunction point of ideas, purpose and human understanding. Companies with many products and services need an experience strategy that brings a unified experience design to the entire ecosystem. But who are the UX strategists, and how do they design an overarching UX strategy which is an integral part of business strategy, and how do UX teams switch between UX strategy mode and design mode more seamlessly?
A genuine UX Designer has to be a UX strategist. Creating user experience design process and applying UX methodologies and fundamental principles to product design and development is not UX strategy. Only when a UX designer can position themselves to work alongside the BA, content specialists and marketers can then influence the overall strategy. It means making sure all of your activities are geared towards supporting the product owner to form a vision for the product. Ultimately the user experience is only as good as that which you can build and release, and to influence the roadmap continuously, you need to be able to feed insight at the right time whilst having a true desire to support product owners in making effective decisions. The UX specific skills to be most effectively utilized in this space are (a) the ability to facilitate design thinking (b) the ability to convert insight into meaningful opportunities for the business and (c) the ability to empathize and understand a range of needs (including that of the internal technical and product teams). There is an inevitable overlap between product owner and UX strategy roles that can either make or break that relationship.
UX strategists are also someone outside the product and service design teams who can create an overall strategy: It guides the design of the entire product and service ecosystem, orchestrating all of the touchpoints to the brand. This "North Star" that guides product and service design should derive from business strategy and brand strategy, but is not identical to them, because those strategies don't prescribe specific experience design direction. Product managers can't determine the overall experience strategy unless the company only has one product. It's not that a product manager can't come up with a strategy for more than one product, in practice, the other products have other product managers who are responsible for their own products. Politically they have no authority to develop an experience strategy for the other products and services. It is impossible for different product owners to create a single overarching experience strategy that all of the other product owners will adhere to, so that the customer has one single branded experience that delivers long-term competitive advantage. This is where experience strategy comes in. It sits outside product teams. The business strategy and brand strategy are not nearly prescriptive enough to give all of the product and service design teams this North Star that they all need to conform to in terms of customer experience. Usually nobody on a product team has enough authority for that. The companies who are able to develop a customer experience strategy that encompasses all of their designed products, services, and customer touchpoints will win. This is the realm of UX strategy. It is beyond any individual product owner, unless the company only has one product.
Either an individual designer or team needs to work on UX strategy mode and design mode simultaneously. That is, one needs to give time to both strategy and designing (switching between both seamlessly). Without strategy, a designer can start to lose the bigger picture. Without design, the grand plan never gets implemented or is done adequately. Even if a UX team is split between those who focus more on product strategy and those who focus more closely on design elements, they must work more collaboratively to make seamless design following the strategy, develop skills - either individually or within a team in visualizing the strategy and implement it. Perhaps when UX artifacts are allowed to be used as tools to bring people together, reveal solutions vs just dictating specifications for others to follow, and then, strategy and vision can be embraced by all - not limited to a role or individual.
UX is not just a single business or technical project, it is an important element of your digital strategy, from research to planning; from multi-lenses inquiries to multiple-stage reviews; from visual arts to wire frames, it is not just about a user interface, but an end-to-end” customer experience and about your brand and competency. It is an integral part of business strategy. It is all about partnerships and, indeed, in making others successful which in turn makes UX strategists successful. UX needs to be owned by the business, not by UX team alone; only then can you get the best experience.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
UX is the conjunction point of ideas, purpose and human understanding. Companies with many products and services need an experience strategy that brings a unified experience design to the entire ecosystem. But who are the UX strategists, and how do they design an overarching UX strategy which is an integral part of business strategy, and how do UX teams switch between UX strategy mode and design mode more seamlessly?
A genuine UX Designer has to be a UX strategist. Creating user experience design process and applying UX methodologies and fundamental principles to product design and development is not UX strategy. Only when a UX designer can position themselves to work alongside the BA, content specialists and marketers can then influence the overall strategy. It means making sure all of your activities are geared towards supporting the product owner to form a vision for the product. Ultimately the user experience is only as good as that which you can build and release, and to influence the roadmap continuously, you need to be able to feed insight at the right time whilst having a true desire to support product owners in making effective decisions. The UX specific skills to be most effectively utilized in this space are (a) the ability to facilitate design thinking (b) the ability to convert insight into meaningful opportunities for the business and (c) the ability to empathize and understand a range of needs (including that of the internal technical and product teams). There is an inevitable overlap between product owner and UX strategy roles that can either make or break that relationship.
UX strategists are also someone outside the product and service design teams who can create an overall strategy: It guides the design of the entire product and service ecosystem, orchestrating all of the touchpoints to the brand. This "North Star" that guides product and service design should derive from business strategy and brand strategy, but is not identical to them, because those strategies don't prescribe specific experience design direction. Product managers can't determine the overall experience strategy unless the company only has one product. It's not that a product manager can't come up with a strategy for more than one product, in practice, the other products have other product managers who are responsible for their own products. Politically they have no authority to develop an experience strategy for the other products and services. It is impossible for different product owners to create a single overarching experience strategy that all of the other product owners will adhere to, so that the customer has one single branded experience that delivers long-term competitive advantage. This is where experience strategy comes in. It sits outside product teams. The business strategy and brand strategy are not nearly prescriptive enough to give all of the product and service design teams this North Star that they all need to conform to in terms of customer experience. Usually nobody on a product team has enough authority for that. The companies who are able to develop a customer experience strategy that encompasses all of their designed products, services, and customer touchpoints will win. This is the realm of UX strategy. It is beyond any individual product owner, unless the company only has one product.
Either an individual designer or team needs to work on UX strategy mode and design mode simultaneously. That is, one needs to give time to both strategy and designing (switching between both seamlessly). Without strategy, a designer can start to lose the bigger picture. Without design, the grand plan never gets implemented or is done adequately. Even if a UX team is split between those who focus more on product strategy and those who focus more closely on design elements, they must work more collaboratively to make seamless design following the strategy, develop skills - either individually or within a team in visualizing the strategy and implement it. Perhaps when UX artifacts are allowed to be used as tools to bring people together, reveal solutions vs just dictating specifications for others to follow, and then, strategy and vision can be embraced by all - not limited to a role or individual.
UX is not just a single business or technical project, it is an important element of your digital strategy, from research to planning; from multi-lenses inquiries to multiple-stage reviews; from visual arts to wire frames, it is not just about a user interface, but an end-to-end” customer experience and about your brand and competency. It is an integral part of business strategy. It is all about partnerships and, indeed, in making others successful which in turn makes UX strategists successful. UX needs to be owned by the business, not by UX team alone; only then can you get the best experience.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
