Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1430

How Much Systems Thinking will be a Strategic Skill for Managers or Leaders

Systems Thinking still lacks of acceptance, thus creating cognitive unease, among decision makers at executive level.
Many organizations reach the inflection point to accelerate digital transformation, and they have gone well past the point at which traditional hierarchical and silo management approaches work. And it’s because the paradigm on which they are built is no longer fit for the complexity and hyperconnectivity of digital dynamic managers face. So they have a whole raft of standard management approaches that basically don't work - the classic approach to strategy, change management, finance management, project management. The failure rates of these approaches are just dismal. But, how to develop more systematic approach to manage the new normal, how much Systems Thinking will be an strategic skill for the the leaders or managers cross the industrial sectors?

Leverage Systems Thinking in strategy making: The challenge is to develop systems approaches that allow senior managers to act systemically even if they aren't natural systems thinkers. It is more to do with paradigm shifts linked to systemic thinking that we may see the shifts. Currently social, economic, and environmental sustainability issues being topical and may be a prelude to paradigm shifts supported by System Thinking. Effective senior management leaders are able to comprehend complexity and the systemic issues they face and be able to consider this in their strategic thinking. Yet the rest of the organization operate remaining on more linear systems thinking and silo management control systems.It is even more important to leverage Systems Thinking in developing business strategies. Strategy is a holistic business plan to achieve a coherent goal through a series of specific actions. This definition clearly suggests the value of Systems Thinking in devising such a strategy.

Elegant Systems Design must begin and end with precise statements. How do you manage the process of establishing a ‘concise’ description, the statement of strategic intent as the foundation for strategic decision making, or simply as systems design, amid the ambiguity of Systems Thinking in today's corporate world. Poor management decisions often arise from unnecessary embellishment of the problem. This can be due to corporate political necessities or ignorance of the problem parameters. Often, precision is lost in a cloud of contingent qualifiers as a management team attempts to find the same page. So, how is discovery possible without variant perspectives? Systems Thinking is a practice, not a solution. If a rate of error is properly described, failure is reduced and decision quality increased. Two approaches provide focus: convergence and divergence; analysis and synthesis. The more you try to build a comprehensive picture of a system, the better adapted your decisions with respect to that system. Poor decision making is unfortunately pervasive and caused by factors such as:-Cognitive Bias: Poor or inaccurate judgement, illogical interpretations and decisions, characterized by patterns of behavior.-Strategic Misrepresentation: Deliberate misrepresentation in budgeting caused by distorted incentives.-Planning Fallacy: Systematic tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete a task even when there is past experience of similar tasks over-running.-Optimism Bias: Systematic tendency to be overly optimistic about the outcome of actions.-Focalism: Systematic tendency to become inwardly focussed and to lose situational awareness and appreciation of wider context during times of stress.

The convergence of "hard science" and "soft science": From digital ecosystem or macro-economic system perspective: Economics should include interdisciplinary approaches to engage with other social sciences and the humanities. That issue is perhaps more about Systemic Thinking flowing down into more policy areas in an integrated fashion, and operationally systemic implications and methodologies becoming more embedded practice. Economists should understand that any real economic system is composed of and affected by diverse components such as peer pressure, social structures, globalization, and a host of other factors not normally included in economic thinking. Sustainable Balanced Scorecards, and Life Cycle Sustainability Assessments are being examples in the shorter term. And there are the trends with an interdisciplinary convergence of diverse sciences and humanities essential to the evolution toward a circular economy.

Systems Thinking still lacks of acceptance, thus creating cognitive unease, among decision makers at executive level. Therefore, such brainstorm helps how to make Systems Thinking 'socially acceptable' in important decision making processes and strategic making, it’s all about see the trees without missing the forest, to embrace the holism and interconnectivity of digital organization and human society.


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Three Aspects of Big Data

Big Data, is like raw diamonds, get their use when becoming treated, processed into industrial diamonds.
Big Data" refers to the ability to be able to store large volumes of data in their raw form quickly on cheap commodity hardware using a distributed file system, specially tailored to perform this task. But more specifically, what are the characteristics of Big Data, and what are the further aspect to deploy it and get true business VALUE from it?

Five “Vs” of Big Data: Big Data is the storage of very large, unstructured datasets. Analysis is domain of data science in order to support fact-based decision making. The storage could be on-premises, a DB appliance, Cloud storage, but in most cases, in NoSQL data structures, so storage isn't necessarily "low-cost, distributed file systems." Big Data is about Five “Vs”: (1) VOLUME, not infrastructure. (2) Second point is VARIETY; The main reason RDBMS data structures haven't been successful in the Big Data space is their limited capability to store data that are not alphanumeric. Images, Video, Web content and other forms of social media, unstructured data and relationships. (3) Third point is VELOCITY: Can you take a transaction, process it and run algorithms on it at the required pace. RDBMS require a large admin overhead, DBAs have to model what they want to store, and how they want it stored before any data are loaded. (4) The Fourth point is VERACITY. Veracity is another V to focus on making the data useful and trustworthy. Veracity is the lynch pin to all of these aspects. (5) VALUE - it’s all about capturing the insight and foresight via data analytics and visualization. There is always a long lead time before any analysis or ROI can be achieved. An unstructured database doesn't incur the same overhead, but requires a different set of analysis tools in order to pull business value out of the data. In the world of Big Data, describe in terms of VOLUME, VARIETY, VELOCITY of the data & VISUALIZATION for the business use of the data. Big Data can be helpful as opposed to just the marketing and business side of it.

Only “treatment” makes Big Data valuable: “Big data” refers to the large amounts of information that has become accessible. You shouldn’t let the word “data” confuse you. Big Data is useful only if its information content is evaluated for accuracy, relevance, and timeliness. What used to be called “knowledge based enterprises” are designed to transform unevaluated raw data into information whose accuracy and authenticity are verified knowledge. It is still a matter of manipulating information to make it usable. How that it is then used is a different issue. Raw diamonds get their use when becoming treated, processed into industrial diamonds. Only treatment makes them valuable, able to serve a purpose. Human’s role in Big Data:
-People are the mine: This raw material, these raw data embody our experiences, behavior, customs, include our wishes, dreams. They are valuable from the beginning. We deliver these data preprocessed. Without us, these data wouldn’t exist.
-People are the audience as well: The processing of raw data to useful data is aimed at science, research with an anticipated outcome to improve human lives, to make customers buy new products, services, which are even not developed yet.
-People are both, subjects and objects. But first, people are the owners of their individual data.

Another perspective on Big Data & Advanced Analytics is the technology evolution: The classical DW and BI tool sets are very good at reporting on events that occurred in the past. Data are loaded on some frequency, but it's always historical data. For business executives, Reports, Dashboards, Analysis, etc. coming out of a DW has always been like, "driving fast and the view of the road is through the rear view mirror". The platform is deterministic and not very conducive to predicting future events. The emergent NoSQL databases is to solve the data processing problems caused by Big Data. They are distributed. This is known as data distribution. Some RDBMS also have it, but when talking in Big Data (volume, variety, velocity), the relational databases are not very adequate, not only in terms of read speeds (because of its related nature and all the joins), but also in terms of scalability and fault-tolerance. Once you've got your data into such a system, you then need to do something with it. The more data you have about certain activity, the better you're able to model it. Drawbacks include that more data can end up in a "can't see the wood for the trees" problem. It's difficult to draw correct insights from data due to too many variables being involved generating noisy data.

Big Data and Advanced Analytics give executives a view into the future. Some insight into what's likely to occur, and back it up with metrics so the platform is probabilistic. Where business executives struggle, is framing the right questions in order to make the probabilities as accurate as possible.

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What Triggers Innovation?

Innovation is a discipline that, if understood fully, reads more like a blueprint than science fiction.

The dictionary defines invention as 'a product of the imagination' and Innovation as "the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices, or methods." Everyone has at least one good idea that is capable of invention and innovation, great or small, manifested by overcoming that inner fear. And innovation does not just accidentally happen, it can be managed in more systematic way. But first you need to figure out: What triggers innovation?
The essence of innovation is made of trying new combinations of known things. It's the essence of evolution. Each human being is a potential innovation by definition as you won't find two humans that are exactly the same. We are all new combinations of the known. The traits of innovation include: - simply about how some people can see what's around easily and effortlessly discover a better way to do it,-is capable of innovation if they are capable of silencing the noise in the mind and thinking outside the conditioned mind and without fear.-would also add that parallel thinking and tangential thinking provide more opportunity for innovation than linear thinking-What many see as innovation is actually problem solving: a simple process of deduction to derive a solution drawing from knowledge, experience or a pool of data.

Knowledge and practices are relevant to innovation; doing more results in more opportunity for innovation. Innovation comes with the increased knowledge and understanding about facts. You never know, how innovative you might be in some field before encountering the problems and before adoption of solutions. Innovators are often the individuals that are so passionate about their jobs that they live it on their own time (work related hobbies, testing theories, products and applications) and they can focus better on what they are doing by diminishing distraction. If that kind of employee is working for you; not only do you have assurance, you are getting value for the compensation you are spending, you cannot help but get better results.

Innovation is a strategic choice: If you want to be an "innovative organization," you shape your current business structure to match your current stack rank of areas where innovation will reap the most significant benefit. Innovation then happens in three ways - it enhances your CORE technology, it finds better balance with ADJACENT technology, or it is completely new, which is TRANSFORMATIVE. Innovation isn't a magic word. Innovation is a discipline that, if practiced well and understood fully, reads more like a blueprint than science fiction. Innovation is only a strategic choice if you are in possession of some how-to’s. Believing it is possible for anyone is a necessary, but insufficient condition for successful execution. Giving people the how-to’s makes all the difference. In addition, emphasizing that innovation is a journey enables people to pace themselves and recognize that innovation is not an on-off switch. There will be ups and downs along the way and you need the resilience to make the trip to completion. Innovation includes both breakthrough and incremental improvement. Improvement has two parts to it: (1) Acceptance that perfection is impossible, that there's always room for improvement (2) a commitment to improvement followed by actions that implement improvement.

Brainstorming activates creativity which can be transformed into innovation. The key to brainstorming is not to evaluate your ideas. Just let the ideams flow. Since most of people have allowed themselves to get pre-programmed by the hidden hand in society and are only able to think along pre programmed neural pathways. In order to think out-of-box and to "silence the noise of the mind," one needs to be involved in a menial task that does not require much of a conscious effort to execute, thus allowing back ground operations to run such as brainstorming a solution to a problem. Innovation is all about madness of solving problems and doing things in the newer way. So a few innovation traits include: -A Learn to forget (not use) what you have been "educated" in the past.-B Start using the other halve brain for a change.-C Learn to trust and follow your gut FEELINGS, captures insight

Change is flow, and is necessary, but innovation should bring healthy, sustainable change with more pros than cons. People are all part of the Status Quo and it isn't until they are forced by circumstances, that you change. You are driven to change and improve, as things change, the old paradigm becomes incompatible with the new reality and there occurs a digital paradigm shift, we will need to focus on innovation rather than over-specification. This may be very painful, but very helpful in reassessment of what we stand for as a race.
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WHY Is It So Hard to Measure Change

It's probably better and more accessible to measure change-readiness rather than change progress.
Change is the only constant, and Change Management is one of the most important business initiatives for leading organizations forward. However, most companies do not understand the value that change management provides. In most cases many managers do not understand how to qualify or quantify how change management adds to the bottom line. It seems self-evident that there needs to be some way to 'measure' change, whether quantitative or qualitative, anecdotal or empirical. Otherwise, how can the proposed change be justified? If certain 'important' change is immeasurable. But how can you know whether there is a benefit that is worth the cost (in resources or peoples' time and effort)? How can you know if the enterprise is at least headed in the 'right' direction? How can you get people on board? What kind of change do companies want to measure? Why? Or for whom?

The very purpose of introducing any change in an organization is to improve. Improvement comes only when people embrace the change and are actively engaged in whatsoever they are doing. Increased engagement is a direct indicator of the effectiveness of any change. Increased engagement will always lead to higher profitability, morale, mutual trust, and everything else. Organizations consist of people. It is the change in people's behaviors that brings about change in the organization. Leaders must have desire to change a company. They must define the why and what the change outputs will look like. It's a fair assumption that the value of the change will be realized and delivered by the adoption, utilization and proficient use of their people in their 'new' ways. There are numerous points-of-view and reference points / systems of a huge number of players: CXOs, board members, senior executives, middle managers, professional staff, part-time workers, unionized workforce, they all have a different view on "change"; so if you want to measure "change" you have to consider all those frameworks - or decide for the one you do prefer: and then there is little difficulty in measuring it. Of course, the outcome is limited when you want to derive any consequence, action plan, or even next steps to do from it.

Some change is very difficult to quantify and measure. There are two things to take into account: Perhaps the difficulty in measuring change management is that the very thing we are measuring is changing. There is an inherent oxymoron in the term change management. We want people to change, and manage/control at the same time. That's like trying to drive with your foot on the brake and the accelerator at the same time. The other consideration is that the part we are measuring is only a snapshot of the entire organizational picture. Each change effort is so different. Even two simultaneous changes going on in a firm are so varied no cookie cutter metrics or methodologies exist that gives the answer. Employee morale can be measured in terms of retention and by surveying job satisfaction. Improved customer service can be measured as well. Not all elements of change are easily quantifiable, whereas some are in terms of hours, and dollars saved.

It's probably better and more accessible to measure change-readiness rather than change progress. The change must be defined in its base elements and associated benefits to be achieved. (financial, market share, productivity.) The deliverable's success value is then tied to the success of the elements dependent upon the amount of adoption, utilization and proficiency of the people involved. The higher the adoption, utilization and proficiency of the people in their new world, the more successful the deliverable will be. It can be argued that if you have good change-readiness, then you will probably be better at change (measure the input - not the output - it's too late to do anything about it by then anyway). It also depends on the source of change. Externally driven change is much more difficult to measure than internally driven change. Basically it is the lack of adequate control of the objectives, plan, programme budget and key deliverables. The dynamics of change where change situations overlap can also create this difficulty in measurement.

The challenge with measuring change has to do with the complexities of the organization that is imposing change upon their employees. It is one thing to establish a future state and understand the intended outcome of the change, but it is quite another thing to implement and measure progress to the future state. Within every organization, there are complex business rules, policies, processes, and performance systems that all govern how people operate. But often people get to a granular level understanding of what behaviors are expected of people under the changes that have taken place. You need to look at the bigger picture. Understand that your perception is just that - only a perception. The fact that you have worked that way all your life, does not mean that it is the only way. There are different ways of doing things and it is worthwhile to stop beating the same drum and to come out of your comfort cave and look around.
So bottom line, is whatever the great minds on the core leadership team deem as worthy and proper measures, including both a series of in-process measures and a set of final--desired outcome--measures will be the appropriate ones. Every leader of a change effort had better address the measurement aspect rigorously and forthrightly with the stakeholders comprising the core change team early on. This is critical since it will help set the course of the whole change plan. Change indeed is difficult to measure unless all parties involved in the change take ownership of the change and see why and what the change is about. Individuals differ in managing the change. If the change is to benefit the organization and the individual who is implementing the change, then it can be measured when the objectives of the change is realized and the organization is moving forward.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

How do you Leverage VRIO Framework in Strategy Planning

 The organizational weighting varies considerably with company size and complexity.

VRIO framework is the tool used to analyze firm’s internal resources and capabilities to find out if they can be a source of sustained competitive advantage. VRIO is an acronym from the first letters of the names of the dimensions: (Strategicmanagementinsight.com)
Value - How expensive is the resource and how easy is it to obtain on the market Rareness - How rare or limited is the resource? Imitability - How difficult is it to imitate the resource? Organization, respectively arrangement - Is the resource supported by any existing arrangements and can the organization use it properly?Businesses primarily use VRIO as a framework for determining the competitive potential of a resource or capability; you would give equal weighting to all the four components for a balanced evaluation. The intent is to determine a sustainable competitive advantage. The resource doesn't matter nearly so much as how it's used. That is why VRIO Framework deals with capabilities. Barney posits that all four conditions--value, rarity, Imitability, and organizational alignment--must be present in order for the capability to create 'sustained competitive advantage.'

Only when all four elements of VRIO are present does a longer-term advantage occur. The presence of 'V', 'R', and 'I' confers temporary advantage with above-normal profits that are likewise temporary. How long will the advantage conferred by a capability that passes all four components of VRIO? There is substantial multicollinearity among Valuable, Rare, and Inimitable. Any capability which is not rare will rather quickly lose much of its value, as will one which can reasonably be imitated. However, imitability can be impeded by other strategic decisions made by a company or a business.

There is substantial multicollinearity among Valuable, Rare, and Inimitable. A new entrant does not have to consider the implications of previous decisions, while an established competitor does. Collectively, these three elements -Value, Rareness and Imitability ask whether competitive advantage is conceptually possible. "O" captures the organization's ability to implement. If you don't have a pretty strong "yes" to both, competitive advantage is not likely to be realized for any length of time. Also, your weighting of "O" may be lower because your focal industry segment tends to be more heavily weighted with smaller, less complex organizations. Consider the possibility that two hurdles (VRI, O) might work a lot better than a single one.
The organizational weighting varies considerably with company size and complexity. If all weights have to add up to 1.0, then a different "O" weighting will lead to different weightings for "VRI." Because each factor is clearly not a 0/1 thing, a weighting of the factors may be needed if you want to speak of forecasting one resource as being a more or less potentially powerful source of competitive advantage than another. Firms have lots of stuff that have no real V in this sense. A temporary advantage comes with a bit if rarity is high, until copied or substituted. Longer term advantage comes if the rare valuable resource is quite difficult or expensive to imitate. But all that said, organizations seem to then have to capture so much, all the organizational and managerial capabilities, plus implementation and systems development.

On the measurement side, successful factor weightings can and certainly should be derived. Just because the factors are not orthogonal, and may even be to some extent subsets of each other, does not mean that important patterns do not exist. At the most successful firms, a pattern of importance among the factors may very well exist. Knowing this would help inform the strategy, but the strategy theory should be refined and tested and further refined, and not just left to heuristics. Perhaps intervening "what if" variables can probably be sorted out that impact the importance of factors, such as industry complexity, pace of innovation, legal environment, 5-forces factors, organizational size and so forth.

A good strategy is based on the application of scientific, economic, socio-cultural and practical (technical/ non-technical) knowledge in order to design processes and solutions to resolve and transform situations and complexities in opportunities and success. The variety of strategy frameworks or theories are just the tools to do strategy management more scientifically, but this approach is never going to reach the goals if you don't consider the art part to add innovation, motivation, passion and a lot of courage.
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What are the Strategic Conversation between CIO and Other CXOs all About?

CIOs need to be an IT evangelist, learn to sell, speak business, but it's a two way street.

IT is no longer running as an isolated function or back office utility, nowadays, IT has to add more business value and delight both internal and end customers. Hence, CIO needs to talk about business with other C-Level more often, but not about IT. This is the major issue in companies. IT is a way to innovate business and improve process, but it's not solution if CIO doesn't understand business areas. CIOs must be adding value to business and it is essential in decisions businesses ever make. However, as CIOs, how should you interpret IT aspects as a business issues to the CXOs? How do you avoid the details of any IT decision and still convince the CXO it is the good strategy to make or best action to take?

Focus on discussing how to leverage IT for implementing strategy and engage IT in business transformation. As CIO, it is always a challenge and important task to align IT into the overall business strategy, also engage IT with long term business modernization and transformation. The big concern in most of the organization is dealing with change, as the current business environment changes so fast that it is even though for business user to cope, it’s even tougher for IT department to adjust quickly to support. Companies that uses technology to create key differentiation among competition is usually much successful than those who don't, it is important for CIO to work closely with other CXOs to align, and engage IT with overall business strategy internally and externally.With digital transformation is at agenda of any forward-thinking organizations,  this is a phenomenal opportunity for the CIO to educate other executive leadership team on the value of IT and how she/he can help accelerate the leadership's strategy and agenda coming and for the future years. Initially it may seem to be an uphill situation, but every progress is made via overcoming business obstacles and avoid potential pitfalls. Technology is critical to the foundation and future of all industries, don't roll over.

The strategic conversation between CIO and other C levels focuses on both top-line business growth and innovation, as well as bottom line business efficiency. The top CEO concerns are customer retention, recurring revenues, new customer acquisition, talent development and profitable bottom line growth. Technology is a means to an end. Smart CIOs are talking about strategic use of technology to meet these concerns and if they are really smart, they are working with other C-Levels in the power base to ensure that technology are delivering is aligned and they can show an ROI. IT drives products, services, customers, line functions, staff functions, in short, IT is the lifeblood of the business. If you have a CEO that "thinks" they know IT, they don't listen because you are explaining something they thought was easy, but implementation is difficult because you actually understand the thing. If they then stop trusting or caring. It must be hard for a CEO to put the trust they need into their senior IT staff. Often CEO and CIO really do not even speak the same language when they discuss the same thing. It's not only about IT not understanding business; it is that business does not yet understand IT as well. IT is now permeating into almost all key processes of business, and IT is the key elements to shape differentiated set of business capabilities which underpin strategic executions.

CIOs need to be an IT evangelist, learn to sell, speak business, but it's a two way street; and CXOs need to understand what a CIO is and the value that technology can be to their business operations, growth and profits. More and more CEO are understanding the role of CIO and have an ear to the CIO proposals. And there are a number of CIOs moving to CEO position. This shows a positive trend and progress is being made slowly, but steadily and across multiple industries, you can also observe the amount of businesses have made short term profit through their core business (and being very good at it) but fail to recognize the longer term, strategic aspects of technology beyond PCs on desks and facilities to store documents. They look to spend as little as possible on technology, because of this perception instead of truly understanding what technology can do and investing in innovation to improve service, be more competitive and...make more money and create long term sustainability. In other cases, how many times have you seen a great small company give excellent service and then watched them grow and experienced the almost inevitable decline of service quality - the very thing that supported their growth? The same lack of understanding and vision at the top is what prevents the openness to embrace technology as it evolves into a completely different role from the traditional 'keep the lights on.' CIOs cannot provide strategic input if CXOs are fixated on short term profits and returns, and hence have their CFOs glued to their ears. CXOs and Boards need to change their attitudes at a much greater pace if they are truly interested in strategy and long term, sustainable business growth and profits.

One of the most important imperatives to the success of any company is its personnel. CXOs must mandate that every manager, senior or 1st Line, be skilled in the areas of motivation, reward, and career advancement. Without these three keystone components, companies will have turnover above the norm in the highly aggressive open-positions-market. At bottom-line, it's about people. The qualified personnel in every organization exceeding expectations impacts the CXO's position. Through rounds of such in-depth conversations between CXOs, both CIOs and other C-levels should understand where IT fits into the business like they understands where every part of the business fits into servicing the customer. It's not necessary for them to know the technical details unless they impact a service a company is trying to build for their customers. For the tactical, hopefully they trust the team to deliver the result to meet customers’ expectation.
IT is no longer just commodity, IT now needs more business guidance, communicate more often, and work more collaboratively with both senior executives and other functional leaders to tailor business needs and deliver value. Only by putting these views out there to provoke thought, can IT possibly enact or act as a catalyst to change.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

How to Get Performance Management "Unstuck"?

The Purpose of reviews is about improvement for the future. Performance Management is more as planning than tools.
In the hugely inter-connected and volatile digital world today, Performance Management is a complex management discipline out there with so many variables that determine performance - including inter-dependencies within teams or organizations, quantity vs. quality; performance vs. potential, etc. Performance is also very much visible in spaces that are outside the corporate world, because digital footprint becomes part of “WHO WE ARE!” All of them have one common thread - a group dialoguing and performing together where each individual contributes and counts. So is traditional Performance Management out-of-date, and how to get Performance Management unstuck?


The myth Of objectivity: No evaluations or employee reviews are objective. Subjectivity abounds so you need to stop pretending that your ways of evaluating employee performance are objective. What is important is setting agreed upon goals and objectives, establishing key indicators, and then working with the employee so there is common understanding of goals, and agreement on how to measure them. It means a negotiated approach. Traditional Performance management does not work - simply because, for most employees, their results or outcomes are dependent on other people and other factors. In particular - well designed work processes and systems, collaborative colleagues, insightful leadership and great communication.

Systematic Approach: How do you get performance management unstuck? (1) Leadership is the key. If executive leadership isn't behind appraisals, then the company will copy that modeled behavior. (2) Business justification: HR needs to make the case to executive leadership why appraisals are important with facts and data. (3) Prioritization: Executive leadership then needs to prioritize their own involvement in the execution to support the process. (4) WIIFM (What's In It For Me?) is the overriding principle - management as a whole isn't seeing any benefits from doing appraisals, nor any overt negative effects from not doing them (5) Documenting: The necessity of doing appraisals needs to be built into all management position descriptions. (6) Simplification: Appraisals need to be simplified. (7) Culture: the company culture needs to embrace frequent, simplified appraisals. Leadership is responsible for creating that culture.

The Purpose of reviews is about improvement for the future. The past is over. Move the purpose of performance reviews away from "evaluating" the past, and to improving success in the future. When you lead a business or an organization, you really need to be passionate about what you are trying to achieve for the customer and long term prosperity of your organization. You then need to be able to convey this passion to your people and show passion for both the customer and your people - this is the 'heart part.' The ' mind' part is then all about: objectives, goals, talking to people, empathy, appreciation and encouragement. Relationships become stuck when the passion fades away. Digital Performance Management need to move the "elephant" firmly to the space of group evaluations of itself and each other by applying Agile principle. Such transparency and brainstorming is the good experiment to build shared understanding of common goals as well as understanding own role in the larger picture. It also then becomes a space of confronting the invariable thorny issues that either impact performance directly or form perceptions that hinder future performance.

Performance Management is more as planning than tools. A manager is involved with his/her people and is there to teach, advise, listen, correct, reward, motivate, and discipline, things change for the better. This is Performance Management. Managers are leaders/trainers/teachers, and it is their job to prepare their people, not only for their current job, but for their next job as well. Performance Management is not a bunch of paperwork, but a combination of actions leading to a constantly improving product. Performance Management gets "stuck" when the people in charge get "stuck." Performance Management uses performance evaluation as the main tool, it will not be of much value. But when it is more on work or performance planning, then better results will follow. Evaluation is water down the bridge even if this is supposed to be used for development or as a lesson for future work unless the work will be exactly the same. But if performance management is done at the initial stage where managers review work approaches to accomplish goals and sustained throughout the work as it is being done, then there will be better chances for success. This is why regular discussions during the course of accomplishing a goal is helpful.

Until and unless there is mutual agreement between both management and staff as to a vested and balanced approach to the goals and vision of the organization, the performance management process will most likely remain an adversarial relationship. Simply input, buy-in and ownership are the keys to advancing the mutual goals of the organization. To really make a difference within HR departments and improving the performance of company employees, it starts with culture and organic change, also leveraging the latest digital trend and technology such as social media or talent analytics. Often employees are blown left and right by HR initiatives and new forms, but really what they want is for their manager to understand their inspiration and motivation with empathy, what they're doing well, not so well and what areas they need to work on to get to the next level. And the most important thing is to unify hearts, minds and hands to achieve collective high performance by deeply understanding of process capability, capacity or variation and a driven culture of autocracy, innovation and mastery.


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To Celebrate #1900th Blog: Three Thinkings to Make you Stand Out as a Digital Transformational Leader

Leadership is not just about what you say, or even what you act, to dig through and lead more profoundly and cohesively, it’s about WHY, WHAT and HOW you THINK!

Thinking, thinking, and thinking more. Here comes the #1900th posting. The intention of the abundant thinking is to achieve the other kind of richness - Content Enrichment. With increasing speed of changes and unprecedented digital dynamic, Thought Leadership is a mindset. Leadership is all about future, what are the most crucial thinking processes to make one stand out as a digital transformational leader? Strategic Thinking: Strategic thinking is the "big picture" thinking to keep the end in mind, it's about where you are, where you want to be, identify the gap and create the alternate approaches to anticipate and provide solutions with long term perspective. A strategist has an inquisitive mindset that always be curious, constant gathering of information, learning knowledge. But become skeptic about perceived information so that you examine everything well before accepting it for its real truths before advising it to others - keep your knowledge being valid; have experience, but must be up to date with business trends and essential technologies. This is the lifeblood as a strategy practitioner: (1) An understanding of the past and an understanding of the future so far as data permits; (2) The ability to view the complete business system as an ecosystem with all its dependencies and interconnections. (3) The ability to tie these things together in order to develop actionable plans. (4) ability to identify key leverage points where non proportional impact can be made (5) ability to hypothesize interventions and iterate them till the right fit is made. Simply put, a strategist has knowledge, common sense and vision to bring all stakeholder together with right view and conduct.

Systems Thinking: Systems Thinking is about "seeing the trees without missing the forest;" it's to understand how the “part” interconnected with the”whole - the digital ecosystem.” Systems Thinking advocates holism, interdisciplinarity and versatility. This is always a good start when working to build collaboration: understanding where each is coming from and having some trust from them. This is something that you should work towards. And organizations arise when the scale of the interrelations, interactions, or interrelational interactions surpasses our brain's capacity to be able to do whatever it does with smaller scales. It's important to leverage ST to understand the variety of business relationship. Systems thinking digs deeper: It is the discipline for discerning relationships and context that are not obvious and may upon first thought even appear to be doubtful in their veracity or usefulness. Systems Thinking would help you get behind the "surface" validity, and give you deeper insight into the nuances of why and how.

Out-of-Box (Creative) Thinking: Out-of-Box thinking keeps creativity flowing! Fundamentally, the "box" is the set of "rules" you are abiding by at any moment in time, by breakdown of old rules, your mind sets free to create the new ideas, usually comes from identifying and challenging assumptions and then generating more possibilities. Great ideas only happen outside of the usual restraints. Start with "what if . . ., " and see where it takes you. Only then do you have enough to start weeding out the bizarre and tweaking sound ideas into reality. The point is not to be unduly constrained in your thinking, but at the same time, not to lose sight of the objective of thinking. Particularly, the box keeps changing. In today's competitive digital dynamic, what was outside the box yesterday, may not be such today. Our thinking has to continuously evolve, adopt, and prepare for changes. There is not such things as too much out-of-box thinking, but it's also important to shape the newer box to stay focus. There’s nothing wrong with lots of out-of-the box creative type thinking as long as you couple it with some good analytical (left brain type thinking). Think of it as going from divergent thinking (out-of-the-box) to convergent thinking where you filter or funnel down the ideas to those that make sense given your capabilities. Thinking outside of box means you are at a continuous learning mode, also embrace critical thinking, independent thinking and creative thinking.  When one leaves those thoughts and standards to seek additional knowledge and experience, they are stepping outside that box to unfamiliar territory. We all should broaden our points of interest and try new things to extend our thinking box. That leads to a better mutual understanding and more advanced society among all humans.

Leadership is not just about what you say, or even what you act, to dig through and lead more profoundly and cohesively, it’s about WHY, WHAT and HOW you THINK! Thought leadership is not a “nice to have,” but “must have” quality to lead more effectively. It is the ability to assimilate knowledge, to think with knowledge, but transcends to the insight and wisdom. It is a disciplined mindset with the process that can innovate and extend knowledge. Leadership is all about CHANGE! Start with big WHY, the substance of leadership is to drive human progress, develop expertise and craft wisdom to make leadership influence both touching the hearts and shaping the minds, also keep the personal leadership style as well, because every leader is unique. Be authentic, be influential and be mature.
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Doing the Wrong Things Differently Isn't Transformation

First things first, frame the right questions before answering them, ensure doing the right things before doing things right.
Organizations large or small are at the journey of digital transformation. However, statistically more than two thirds of these programs fail to achieve the expectation. What are the root causes? Do you agree: Doing the wrong things differently isn’t transformation. That is the importance of good transformation practice within a motivated change culture oriented to the right work for the right reasons. But what are the logical steps to follow during the transformation to ensure you are doing the right things, before doing things right, also improve organizational maturity from efficiency to effectiveness to agility?

Diagnose the current business problems: It is about the role of the "Problem Creator." A solution is nothing if the problem is not perceived, therefore, creating the awareness of the problem is the first step to making a solution be understood and accepted, realizing “We can't stay the same,” the realization only comes when the problem is perceived. One concept always is present in any process designed to successfully produce positive change; "Begin with an End in Mind (Vision in this example)." Transformation starts with the realization that where you currently no long can deliver the business objective and vision of success for your company and your shareholders. Determining what the future needs to look like, and what the transformation must look like is the next step. Having the most senior champion is critical - someone who will not only communicate what the transformation looks like, and where people will fit in the new vision, but also be observed as the leader who is "marching towards" that transformational vision. That's the starting point. Leadership is about disclosing the new world of the organization, by developing a good strategy, by designing the right organizational structure, and by leading the way people show up in the organization through the way in which they show up. Transformation is about people in most of the situations. Most people prefer to follow and change as a result of positivity and inspiration. The process, change assessment, etc. are all tactics to get the organization there - but it all starts with the realization that "we can't stay the same."

Build a comprehensive roadmap for digital transformation: There are a number of challenges common in transformation programs, such as getting the right strategies, execution, a good leader to lead the transformational vision, and broader view of consumer demand, etc. They come up over and, those are the reasons why approximately 80% of these programs fail. Many of them are symptomatic of not having a comprehensive and strategic approach to transformation. Almost all organizations 'want' to change, they just don't have the roadmap. Transformations are mostly the C-Level’s 'big thing.' Besides a roadmap, a single transformation towards an organization that is constantly, effectively and organically evolving in a manner and culture that continuously deploy new capabilities seems more valuable - and a fair chance for the organization to remain competitive. Is it time to 'transform' transformations and give the organization a break!

The toughest part of strategy is the trade-offs: The more you can front load and truly define the current state, the easier the journey moves ahead. Establishing an accurate baseline from which to transition from. It also assists with the entire education and communication required. Whilst spring-cleaning brings with it some benefit, there is a question about time and effort and a bigger questions as to whether not doing it per se, It is a better trade-off to rather aligning behind new enterprise-wide capabilities. One of the pitfalls for transformation, either for improvement or innovation is sometimes getting the 'right answer' to the 'wrong question.' (remember that famous quip - When you ask customer what they want, they might choose the faster horse, not an automobile).  It's difficult to tease out the incremental innovations that yield margin efficiency or some top line boost (cannibalization notwithstanding) from the WOW/step function innovations that change markets, at least at their inception. An 'ecosystem' perspective is essential. Enterprise needs an analytic platform to provide insight into where value is being created and where destroyed. If spring-cleaning is at the high-end of the transformation agenda, there are some questions to be asked about the strategic agenda before embarking on any transformation, these questions can be considered: - Is a major transformation necessary? (or is it just organizational right sizing, spring cleaning)-Does your company strategy hold or remain valid in the time it takes to actually 'transform'?- Is the current state of your organization optimal for the type of transformation you are choosing?- Do you need to transform your organization before transforming the business?- Will you know you have actually transformed?- Doing the same things faster with technology is not re-engineering.- Measuring the same things with better reporting tools is not driving change,- Keeping the old business rules and culture in place without confirming their continued value is not transformative.
Digital transformation is a leapfrogging business change. There are many pitfalls on the way, first things first, frame the right questions before answering them, ensure doing the right things before doing things right. Business will be more successful when they realize that one of their greatest strengths will be their change capability. That being said, it requires a good strategy, a comprehensive roadmap and most importantly the solid execution. Absolutely doing the wrong things differently isn’t a transformation, and the success of your digital transformation will also depend on how you overcome the leadership, management and governance challenges. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu

An Intellectual Mind

Intellectuals are intelligent, knowledgeable, articulate, and curious. An intellectual today, is defined by learning agility and growth mindset.
Intellectual as an ADJECTIVE is about “possessing or showing intellect or mental capacity, especially to a high degree: or characterized by or suggesting a predominance of intellect.” Intellectual as a NOUN describe “a person who places a high value on or pursues things of interest to the intellect or the more complex forms and fields of knowledge, as aesthetic or philosophical matters, especially on an abstract and general level.” (dictionary.com). But is it the concept of intellectualism so subjective that it depends solely on the individual placing the label? Is there some universal set of rules that makes someone an intellectual?  What does it mean to be an intellectual? Is it the knowledge you possess? Is it the vocabulary that a person uses to hold a discussion? Is it the level of education the person has attained? Is it the ability to create ideas that surpass one’s consciousness?  What is an intellectual? Are you an intellectual or are you equipped with an intellectual mind?


Intellectuals are intelligent, knowledgeable, articulate, and curious. It's how you think, and how others view your thoughts! Then, you need the intellectual integrity to use that knowledge wisely rather than for your own ends. That would be a true intellectual, of which there are very few in the world. An intellectual can always see another side to anything and consider alternatives, even when there are none. People have varying cognitive abilities. When someone is described as "an intellectual," he or she is usually thought of as articulate, educated, and well read across a range of serious subjects. Emotionalism does not enter into it. Intellectual does not mean automatically creative or articulate either. Creativity means to bring into being, creating, playing and designing, and this is a capacity done in connection with one's Higher Self (or subconscious and superconscious mind), based on insights and inspiration from higher or enlightened realms and not just rational formulation.

Intellect is simply the willingness to discuss and expand on ideas. It would be the ability to keep up and well express your thoughts and perception, to explain your point of view based not only in knowledge, but in applied experience not just theoretical unless stated otherwise, and then it's a free for all of taking it in new directions and it's the willingness to say there is no box is the tell tale sign of someone you can explore any topic with, and have a good intellectual discussion. Generally speaking, everybody has certain “raw intelligence,” independent of their formal education – an inherent intelligence and an area they're good at or even excel. Whether they are aware of it and can express it, or not, is a different question. To be intellectual, one needs to understand their self worth and be able to challenge perspectives and assumptions based on their cognitive understanding and worldly or experiential knowledge. Intellectual refers to rational thought, that's intellectual as an adjective, not a noun, it’s the ability to question the established order, the capability of critical thinking and creative thinking. Intellectuals among other things are perceptive thinkers. They do not accept the status quo and continually challenge what most people understand as normal.

What makes a person intellectual is the use of his/her intellect, which is the rational, analytical mind. When things are perceived intellectually, then they are looked at from the conscious mind and ordinary awareness, which means a quantifiable, logical, external perspective involving a lot of mental "doing" = thinking, comparing, concluding, reasoning and planning. The sole use of the intellectual mind is rather limited though as it lacks the input of holistic perception. It does not consider our multidimensional reality and connection to higher intelligence and dimensions, allowing intuition, inspiration, insights and wisdom via one's sensing and feeling. But at higher level, a multidimensional intellectual mind is the  “thinking pot” which blends different flavor of thinking such as strategic thinking, systems thinking, creative thinking, critical thinking, holistic thinking, analytics & synthesis, etc to solve complex problems or to make effective decisions.

An intellectual today, is defined by learning agility and growth mindset. Being an intellectual means having been exposed to, and continuing to want to be exposed to, information. Then distilling this information to formulate conclusions not learning facts. Intellectual is the ability to then make all this useful and apply in real life is where intelligence comes in. Intellectualism, is based on having educated, original opinions. One need not be intellectual to regurgitate facts or news. An intellectual today, is defined by learning agility and growth mindset. Knowledge is a commodity, but deep thinking, problem solving, grit and perseverance define all of us innovating in the 21st century. Learning agility is a very quality of having an intellectual mind.
An intellectual is a person who has all the qualities mentioned in the explanation like being “thoughtful,” the mental discipline and the ability to break down problems, knowledgeable, possessing good vocabulary, achieved a certain level of education, innovative in nature, being a critical and independent thinker to challenge status quo etc. The one element connecting all intellectuals, definitions aside, is the love of and hunger for getting-right-down-to-it thinking, unpuzzling the puzzles and coming up with new ones, the fearless considering of even the most discomfiting issues and ideas. Philosophically, an intellectual is a person of true wisdom who has attained control over his or her ego and desires of the mind. The more you know, the more you feel humbled because what you know, compared to what you don’t know is just a tip of iceberg. Humility is a vital virtue for him or her which is as important as our breath or life itself.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu