Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1443
April 6, 2015
How to Avoid Micromanagement Pitfalls
The 'result' of micromanagement is perhaps tangible in short run, but more often causes damage for long term.
Micromanagement generally has negative connotation, it means the managers put too tight control on their employees or team or insignificant details, it perhaps causes more damage than benefit. And many management experts thought that micromanagement is indeed one of the most destructive patterns a leader - middle or senior - can have. And from culture perspective, ”not being micromanaged" almost always comes up. So why does micromanagement cause problems, and how to avoid such micromanagement pitfalls?
Micromanagement is a big pitfall for senior leaders; micromanagement is also very de-motivating to sr. level people. Micromanagement may be efficient on a lower level. But if someone climbs up to a higher tier and remains in the practices of the lower level, he or she may be not able to assess the given requirements. That means insufficiency of intellectual capacity. A micromanager will overemphasize the 'how' over the 'what' and ‘why’ and will be laser focused on minutiae to the detriment of the overall outcome. When there is a change in management, and the prior manager was not someone who micromanaged the team. This can be very perplexing to some of the most talented individuals in the team, because they suddenly find themselves more worried about some routines, not laser focus on the top priority. What makes the pattern more difficult to break is the fact that micromanagers are often seen by the organization as detail oriented and dedicated (and many times they are). So they don't see the need to change.
The 'result' of micromanagement is perhaps tangible in short run, but more often cause damage for long term: The challenge, of course, is whether the benefits of an extremely detail oriented manager outweigh the damage -for the long term. Because the benefits can seem more tangible in short run- things are getting done, and it's often not clear that a given micromanager is the reason for high employee turnover. There's also the challenge for the micro managers themselves. Many want to move up to senior management - but will always be stuck in the middle tier - unless they can see and modify some habits. And that's hard to do.
The key is to strike the right balance between big picture and significant details: It is important to lay out the ground rules upfront as a team to what are the goals and the measures to guide the team and be clear on expectations. And sometimes those measures may feel myopic, but often they are a true indicator that goals or the principles to achieving those goals will be attained. Holding managers or staff to their accountability is key and that the whole team knowing the significant details, the mechanisms and goals to the annual and long term goals is vital. At the same time, pulling the reins too tight, setting too rigid process, or undermining managers or staff to micro run or make a decision without vetting in a constructive manner is wrong.
Micromanagement starts when the present senior level fails to train and educate the upcoming senior management strategically. There are studies showing that mediocrity in professional life more and more increases due to the ineffective rewarding system. This derives from the situation that companies are not looking for and recruiting the best, but simple normal staff-members. “In an organizational structure, the assessment of the potential of an employee for a promotion is often based on their performance in the current job rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. This results in their being promoted to their highest level of competence and potentially then to a role in which they are not competent, referred to as their "level of incompetence". -Peter-Principle.
Some say: If someone is trapped in micromanagement there are little ways to change it. Still, micromanagement is a culture thing, it can be changed. So the first step is recognizing that pattern - and then doing the hard work to change, from mindshift to putting the right person to the right position. It is indeed hard work - but everyone benefits.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Micromanagement generally has negative connotation, it means the managers put too tight control on their employees or team or insignificant details, it perhaps causes more damage than benefit. And many management experts thought that micromanagement is indeed one of the most destructive patterns a leader - middle or senior - can have. And from culture perspective, ”not being micromanaged" almost always comes up. So why does micromanagement cause problems, and how to avoid such micromanagement pitfalls?
Micromanagement is a big pitfall for senior leaders; micromanagement is also very de-motivating to sr. level people. Micromanagement may be efficient on a lower level. But if someone climbs up to a higher tier and remains in the practices of the lower level, he or she may be not able to assess the given requirements. That means insufficiency of intellectual capacity. A micromanager will overemphasize the 'how' over the 'what' and ‘why’ and will be laser focused on minutiae to the detriment of the overall outcome. When there is a change in management, and the prior manager was not someone who micromanaged the team. This can be very perplexing to some of the most talented individuals in the team, because they suddenly find themselves more worried about some routines, not laser focus on the top priority. What makes the pattern more difficult to break is the fact that micromanagers are often seen by the organization as detail oriented and dedicated (and many times they are). So they don't see the need to change.
The 'result' of micromanagement is perhaps tangible in short run, but more often cause damage for long term: The challenge, of course, is whether the benefits of an extremely detail oriented manager outweigh the damage -for the long term. Because the benefits can seem more tangible in short run- things are getting done, and it's often not clear that a given micromanager is the reason for high employee turnover. There's also the challenge for the micro managers themselves. Many want to move up to senior management - but will always be stuck in the middle tier - unless they can see and modify some habits. And that's hard to do.
The key is to strike the right balance between big picture and significant details: It is important to lay out the ground rules upfront as a team to what are the goals and the measures to guide the team and be clear on expectations. And sometimes those measures may feel myopic, but often they are a true indicator that goals or the principles to achieving those goals will be attained. Holding managers or staff to their accountability is key and that the whole team knowing the significant details, the mechanisms and goals to the annual and long term goals is vital. At the same time, pulling the reins too tight, setting too rigid process, or undermining managers or staff to micro run or make a decision without vetting in a constructive manner is wrong.
Micromanagement starts when the present senior level fails to train and educate the upcoming senior management strategically. There are studies showing that mediocrity in professional life more and more increases due to the ineffective rewarding system. This derives from the situation that companies are not looking for and recruiting the best, but simple normal staff-members. “In an organizational structure, the assessment of the potential of an employee for a promotion is often based on their performance in the current job rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. This results in their being promoted to their highest level of competence and potentially then to a role in which they are not competent, referred to as their "level of incompetence". -Peter-Principle.
Some say: If someone is trapped in micromanagement there are little ways to change it. Still, micromanagement is a culture thing, it can be changed. So the first step is recognizing that pattern - and then doing the hard work to change, from mindshift to putting the right person to the right position. It is indeed hard work - but everyone benefits.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Is IT Organization as Responsive as it needs to Be?
A responsive IT means a lot of things for the digital transformation: speed, innovation, agility, integration, modernization, intelligence, value creation, and maturity, etc.
Without a doubt, IT is the most difficult and challenging part of a company due to its change nature. Nowadays, information is the lifeblood of an organization, and technology is more often the innovation driver. And the speed of change is accelerated at digital age. So is your IT organization as responsive as it needs to be? What does the digital shift mean to IT organization?
A Responsive IT needs to be more innovative: CIO role has never been about just managing the status quo. So the digital shift in some industries is to be innovative with systems of engagement rather than systems of record. In saying that, some industries have been also doing this for some time. The available technology just makes innovation easier to do now than in the past - less costly, more easily accessible, thanks for the "lightweight' digital technologies and mosaic style of service model. So IT leaders have to continue self-checking: What business value are you helping to create? Which business team members determine the priority of your work? If you don’t receive straight forward, consistent responses – you have a problem with alignment, and accountability – most likely across IT and Business.
IT needs to transform from a controller to an enabler: Many IT organizations still run in the industry mode -built to last, not agile enough to adapt to changes. So business even complains that IT sometimes becomes the very obstacle to get things done. In order to rebuild IT reputation as an enabler, instead of having too rigid rules that most of the organization thinks is crap, instead of saying no, no, no and quoting policy, follow the agile principle, leverage the latest on-demand model, create customized products and solutions, and sell them, also educate in the process to your coworkers (customers). Instead of saying not invented here, be quick to identify the illicit tools being used and create your own secure version within the company. To put simply, IT has to speed up, engage as a business partner, going beyond from business-IT alignment.
IT needs to get empowered by senior executive team: The topic of “responsiveness” is to be one of the most challenging areas a senior IT Leader must address for their organization to be realized as successful. So the digital leaders (meaning companies that lead in digital transformation) are much more likely to have a C-level team who understands digital opportunities and threats and, who builds that into his or her strategy and communication. That leader will often, but not always deputize the CIO and internal IT to co-lead and execute on the digital transformation. Laggard companies often have a C-level team or board of directors who are comfortable doing things the old way, and view IT as a purely support organization. It's very tough for CIO to drive transformation if that is the case. That said, it is also critical to get senior leadership team’s buy-in order to run a more responsive IT.
IT has to not only improve its own speed, but also overall organizational agility: The type of speed issues (such as IT slow to change) comes from gaps created between IT and the rest of the company. When there is no willingness to serve users and on the other way round, no appetite from users to involve IT, the gaps get bigger and dangerous behaviours may get introduced. It often seems like there is a bad case of not being able to see the forest because of the trees. Due to the unique position to oversight business processes, IT also plays important role in building up an agile enterprises which can succeed in combining two distinct but interconnected elements— strategic responsiveness and organizational flexibility, with the combination of an innovative culture that promotes responsiveness throughout the company, and the leadership qualities needed to sense change, develop the proper strategic response.
IT needs to run as a business, like a software company: In order to run IT as a business, besides building the good products and solutions, IT needs to know how to promote its products and services: from IT leaders to IT support staffs, IT professionals need to know how to promote their services and solutions like any software company with a product or a service to sell. Running IT as a business means IT understands what’s the customers’ true need, help solve their problems, but also transform from a cost center into a value center. IT is business, nowadays, the forward-looking organizations also claim they are in the information business, so business’s IT as well.
A responsive IT means a lot of things for the digital transformation: speed, innovation, agility, integration, modernization, intelligence, value creation, and maturity, etc. It is the way to run a digital IT and an overall digital organization.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Without a doubt, IT is the most difficult and challenging part of a company due to its change nature. Nowadays, information is the lifeblood of an organization, and technology is more often the innovation driver. And the speed of change is accelerated at digital age. So is your IT organization as responsive as it needs to be? What does the digital shift mean to IT organization?
A Responsive IT needs to be more innovative: CIO role has never been about just managing the status quo. So the digital shift in some industries is to be innovative with systems of engagement rather than systems of record. In saying that, some industries have been also doing this for some time. The available technology just makes innovation easier to do now than in the past - less costly, more easily accessible, thanks for the "lightweight' digital technologies and mosaic style of service model. So IT leaders have to continue self-checking: What business value are you helping to create? Which business team members determine the priority of your work? If you don’t receive straight forward, consistent responses – you have a problem with alignment, and accountability – most likely across IT and Business.
IT needs to transform from a controller to an enabler: Many IT organizations still run in the industry mode -built to last, not agile enough to adapt to changes. So business even complains that IT sometimes becomes the very obstacle to get things done. In order to rebuild IT reputation as an enabler, instead of having too rigid rules that most of the organization thinks is crap, instead of saying no, no, no and quoting policy, follow the agile principle, leverage the latest on-demand model, create customized products and solutions, and sell them, also educate in the process to your coworkers (customers). Instead of saying not invented here, be quick to identify the illicit tools being used and create your own secure version within the company. To put simply, IT has to speed up, engage as a business partner, going beyond from business-IT alignment.
IT needs to get empowered by senior executive team: The topic of “responsiveness” is to be one of the most challenging areas a senior IT Leader must address for their organization to be realized as successful. So the digital leaders (meaning companies that lead in digital transformation) are much more likely to have a C-level team who understands digital opportunities and threats and, who builds that into his or her strategy and communication. That leader will often, but not always deputize the CIO and internal IT to co-lead and execute on the digital transformation. Laggard companies often have a C-level team or board of directors who are comfortable doing things the old way, and view IT as a purely support organization. It's very tough for CIO to drive transformation if that is the case. That said, it is also critical to get senior leadership team’s buy-in order to run a more responsive IT.
IT has to not only improve its own speed, but also overall organizational agility: The type of speed issues (such as IT slow to change) comes from gaps created between IT and the rest of the company. When there is no willingness to serve users and on the other way round, no appetite from users to involve IT, the gaps get bigger and dangerous behaviours may get introduced. It often seems like there is a bad case of not being able to see the forest because of the trees. Due to the unique position to oversight business processes, IT also plays important role in building up an agile enterprises which can succeed in combining two distinct but interconnected elements— strategic responsiveness and organizational flexibility, with the combination of an innovative culture that promotes responsiveness throughout the company, and the leadership qualities needed to sense change, develop the proper strategic response.
IT needs to run as a business, like a software company: In order to run IT as a business, besides building the good products and solutions, IT needs to know how to promote its products and services: from IT leaders to IT support staffs, IT professionals need to know how to promote their services and solutions like any software company with a product or a service to sell. Running IT as a business means IT understands what’s the customers’ true need, help solve their problems, but also transform from a cost center into a value center. IT is business, nowadays, the forward-looking organizations also claim they are in the information business, so business’s IT as well. A responsive IT means a lot of things for the digital transformation: speed, innovation, agility, integration, modernization, intelligence, value creation, and maturity, etc. It is the way to run a digital IT and an overall digital organization.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
A Maturity Mind
Maturity is more about wisdom rather than experience.
What is maturity basically? Is it a perception depending on our understanding? Or is there any scientific attribute which decides maturity level? Is it possible to develop maturity? Will it come automatically through the experience and people or is it gained over a period of time. Is it always true when you get older, you get more mature? How to decide a person's maturity level? It is subjective or is there any objective standard?
Maturity is more about wisdom rather than experience: It is related to handling a situation wisely, taking responsibility, being accountable for both what you say and what you do. It is about adaptability to various situations and age groups. Maturity is not associated with age, maturity is a manner to handle life. But maturity can be both gained over time, as per experience and intellectuality, Maturity is also not about how you are good at following conventional wisdom, more about being mindful in decision making or problem solving. Maturity means you not only see the things, but also perceive; you are not only knowledgeable, but more importantly, being insightful and wise.
Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration (Covey): If a person can express his or her feelings and convictions with courage balanced with consideration for the feelings, and convictions of another person, he or she is mature, particularly when the issue is very important to the both parties. Maturity in person can be defined as the person’s ability to react, behave and respond to the situation encounter; or one faced and how he or she apply his or her thought process in manipulating the situation with respect to time-frame and thereby coming at appropriate and best possible solutions or comments towards it. This things makes the person to aligned towards the maturity factor and makes oneself undertake and performed in real way.
Maturity is the combination of capability and potentiality: It is the ability of an individual to gauge or measure the capability or potentiality of a candidate for responding to a particular query - action- behavior- delivery of any thought processes, based on the level of response received at to receiver's end. Maturity means you are fully developed in some way to fulfill a role or function. A fruit or vegetable is mature when it is ripe — ready for consumption. When a person knows the rules of life and has trained his or her body to great levels of capability or skill, the person becomes fully developed and thus has achieved maturity in the role. Maturity comes to person when he/she tried to understand their responsibility and their role in life and works towards others, or in other way when someone shoulders the responsibility to them.
Maturity refers to having sound understanding of basics and making fair judgement: Maturity is the clarity of thoughts along with self control which helps in choosing the most appropriate reaction (or inaction: deciding not to react) to any given situation. Maturity is the ability to wait, think, and respond to a situation without responding with a knee jerk reaction. It’s the ability to weigh in the impact of what we are planning to do and who will be impacted because of the intended action. Maturity is also a phrase we are using today to describe a decent level of emotional intelligence at work, understanding what to say to whom and when to say it. Maturity can be seen from people responding to every situation according to its severity level. Also, knowledge of talking to various people in a different ways.
Mental maturity is nothing to do with physical maturity, it is a thinking ability: Maturity is simply having the ability to live comfortably with contradictory thoughts, and expressing things sometimes courageously by taking care of the feelings of the other persons too, saying your part without hurting the other. Communicating, but not winning a small battle of ego. It is the thinking ability and understanding ability which we gain through learning. It may be through education, experience and majorly the type of people we mingle day in and out and how we take them in life. Maturity weights on how much we understand about life and the purpose of life.
Sometimes maturity ends up as a sort of abstract opposite of immaturity in settling for a definition for this word: Basically, in our understanding of maturity, it is just the opposite of being immature, it is that maturity is meant to be the idea, the goal. Maturity is a state we want to reach, a behavior, as in sense of action. So when we say about maturity, we actually sum it up into 'to not being immature', and we aren't left with much. and this creates a problem for 'maturity' as the subject as a moral lesson, and instead of saying 'we are to act like this', with a fair and square understanding of the action involved, we say 'do not act like this'. This leaves us with a long long list of Don'ts.
Maturity definitely needs to become one of key success factors in leadership, although there is no such magic success formula, still, we try to manage a few equations: Maturity + Opportunities + Scale + Resources + Conviction + Strength + Backup options + Attitude + ...... = Success is a relative term, it is different for different people.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
What is maturity basically? Is it a perception depending on our understanding? Or is there any scientific attribute which decides maturity level? Is it possible to develop maturity? Will it come automatically through the experience and people or is it gained over a period of time. Is it always true when you get older, you get more mature? How to decide a person's maturity level? It is subjective or is there any objective standard?
Maturity is more about wisdom rather than experience: It is related to handling a situation wisely, taking responsibility, being accountable for both what you say and what you do. It is about adaptability to various situations and age groups. Maturity is not associated with age, maturity is a manner to handle life. But maturity can be both gained over time, as per experience and intellectuality, Maturity is also not about how you are good at following conventional wisdom, more about being mindful in decision making or problem solving. Maturity means you not only see the things, but also perceive; you are not only knowledgeable, but more importantly, being insightful and wise.
Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration (Covey): If a person can express his or her feelings and convictions with courage balanced with consideration for the feelings, and convictions of another person, he or she is mature, particularly when the issue is very important to the both parties. Maturity in person can be defined as the person’s ability to react, behave and respond to the situation encounter; or one faced and how he or she apply his or her thought process in manipulating the situation with respect to time-frame and thereby coming at appropriate and best possible solutions or comments towards it. This things makes the person to aligned towards the maturity factor and makes oneself undertake and performed in real way.
Maturity is the combination of capability and potentiality: It is the ability of an individual to gauge or measure the capability or potentiality of a candidate for responding to a particular query - action- behavior- delivery of any thought processes, based on the level of response received at to receiver's end. Maturity means you are fully developed in some way to fulfill a role or function. A fruit or vegetable is mature when it is ripe — ready for consumption. When a person knows the rules of life and has trained his or her body to great levels of capability or skill, the person becomes fully developed and thus has achieved maturity in the role. Maturity comes to person when he/she tried to understand their responsibility and their role in life and works towards others, or in other way when someone shoulders the responsibility to them.
Maturity refers to having sound understanding of basics and making fair judgement: Maturity is the clarity of thoughts along with self control which helps in choosing the most appropriate reaction (or inaction: deciding not to react) to any given situation. Maturity is the ability to wait, think, and respond to a situation without responding with a knee jerk reaction. It’s the ability to weigh in the impact of what we are planning to do and who will be impacted because of the intended action. Maturity is also a phrase we are using today to describe a decent level of emotional intelligence at work, understanding what to say to whom and when to say it. Maturity can be seen from people responding to every situation according to its severity level. Also, knowledge of talking to various people in a different ways.
Mental maturity is nothing to do with physical maturity, it is a thinking ability: Maturity is simply having the ability to live comfortably with contradictory thoughts, and expressing things sometimes courageously by taking care of the feelings of the other persons too, saying your part without hurting the other. Communicating, but not winning a small battle of ego. It is the thinking ability and understanding ability which we gain through learning. It may be through education, experience and majorly the type of people we mingle day in and out and how we take them in life. Maturity weights on how much we understand about life and the purpose of life.
Sometimes maturity ends up as a sort of abstract opposite of immaturity in settling for a definition for this word: Basically, in our understanding of maturity, it is just the opposite of being immature, it is that maturity is meant to be the idea, the goal. Maturity is a state we want to reach, a behavior, as in sense of action. So when we say about maturity, we actually sum it up into 'to not being immature', and we aren't left with much. and this creates a problem for 'maturity' as the subject as a moral lesson, and instead of saying 'we are to act like this', with a fair and square understanding of the action involved, we say 'do not act like this'. This leaves us with a long long list of Don'ts.
Maturity definitely needs to become one of key success factors in leadership, although there is no such magic success formula, still, we try to manage a few equations: Maturity + Opportunities + Scale + Resources + Conviction + Strength + Backup options + Attitude + ...... = Success is a relative term, it is different for different people.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
April 5, 2015
Problem vs. Opportunity Mindset
So it comes down to how one perceives: A 'problem' for one, is an 'opportunity' for the other.
We are all familiar with such philosophical reasoning: Every risk (problem) has opportunity in it; and every opportunity has risk (problem) in it. Isn't opportunities and problems the same thing only with a perceptive change? Doesn't it come down to how we view the situation - at the time it could be a problem or it could be an opportunity. Or to put simply, are they sort of mindset?
Seeing something as a problem or an opportunity is definitely all about personal perception. All problems are opportunities, but not all opportunities are problems. However, most opportunities generate problems that need to be solved, aka more opportunities. The difference between solving a problem and capitalizing on the opportunity the problem represented is largely semantics, A "problem" is an opportunity waiting to happen. There are criteria that characterize good and bad statements of problems and opportunities. Some problems are essentially damaging in some way. So it would be glib to say that a problem is an opportunity. However, in some cases, depending on one’s psychological make-up, it is in fact an opportunity. Some delusion may be essential to finding opportunities out of problems. A problem often leads to opportunities because they challenge us to address something that is not working for us. As Maslow said," What are called personality problems depends on who is doing the calling."
It is how you approach a problem that can generate an opportunity. An undesirable event is just that - an undesirable event. What happens as a result of that is purely an outcome of the mindset, growth and ongoing impact of the event, an optimistic vs. pessimistic perspective. Desirable events have the same outcome possibilities. The more time that you are given to analyze the situation, the more likely you are to find more opportunities than problems. Some problems are huge and the potential for opportunity may seem to be limited. But if you are not looking for opportunities, you are unlikely to discover them. Change is the only constant outcome of all of what happens, and the mindsets of the people facing the challenges in front of them open the possibilities of the extent of that change. Challenges and opportunities give "meaning." Without a purpose nothing we see has any use. Without purpose it is impossible to "improve" it or make it efficient. And therefore, it is possible to set a target and seek to accomplish that in the most efficient manner possible.
It takes collaboration to transform the mankind problems into progressive opportunities: We don't live in a "closed system" but one which is complex,interrelated and interconnected. Our needs and priorities may be different, but it takes collaboration to overcome the challenges and grasp opportunities. We "co" operate many of the systems that we and others have built to "move us forward" as a species, often seeking the maximum efficiency. This has resulted in incredible leaps in science and technology. We are able to tap into energy and transform materials with incredible ease and efficiency. Yet, still our environment reacts and changes with us. We get bored with our successes, complacent with our accomplishments, act foolishly in our pride. And not everyone wants to "co-operate." Some want to do their own thing, or do things the easy way, or just the way that most pleases them and then we end up in head to head destructive competition which causes more problems.
So it comes down to how one perceives: A 'problem' for one, is an 'opportunity' for the other. Opportunities arise from the problems that people face. Today, with the latest technology tools, the real advantage is to foresee opportunities before the problem, to anticipate latent needs and find solutions for it.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
We are all familiar with such philosophical reasoning: Every risk (problem) has opportunity in it; and every opportunity has risk (problem) in it. Isn't opportunities and problems the same thing only with a perceptive change? Doesn't it come down to how we view the situation - at the time it could be a problem or it could be an opportunity. Or to put simply, are they sort of mindset?
Seeing something as a problem or an opportunity is definitely all about personal perception. All problems are opportunities, but not all opportunities are problems. However, most opportunities generate problems that need to be solved, aka more opportunities. The difference between solving a problem and capitalizing on the opportunity the problem represented is largely semantics, A "problem" is an opportunity waiting to happen. There are criteria that characterize good and bad statements of problems and opportunities. Some problems are essentially damaging in some way. So it would be glib to say that a problem is an opportunity. However, in some cases, depending on one’s psychological make-up, it is in fact an opportunity. Some delusion may be essential to finding opportunities out of problems. A problem often leads to opportunities because they challenge us to address something that is not working for us. As Maslow said," What are called personality problems depends on who is doing the calling."
It is how you approach a problem that can generate an opportunity. An undesirable event is just that - an undesirable event. What happens as a result of that is purely an outcome of the mindset, growth and ongoing impact of the event, an optimistic vs. pessimistic perspective. Desirable events have the same outcome possibilities. The more time that you are given to analyze the situation, the more likely you are to find more opportunities than problems. Some problems are huge and the potential for opportunity may seem to be limited. But if you are not looking for opportunities, you are unlikely to discover them. Change is the only constant outcome of all of what happens, and the mindsets of the people facing the challenges in front of them open the possibilities of the extent of that change. Challenges and opportunities give "meaning." Without a purpose nothing we see has any use. Without purpose it is impossible to "improve" it or make it efficient. And therefore, it is possible to set a target and seek to accomplish that in the most efficient manner possible.
It takes collaboration to transform the mankind problems into progressive opportunities: We don't live in a "closed system" but one which is complex,interrelated and interconnected. Our needs and priorities may be different, but it takes collaboration to overcome the challenges and grasp opportunities. We "co" operate many of the systems that we and others have built to "move us forward" as a species, often seeking the maximum efficiency. This has resulted in incredible leaps in science and technology. We are able to tap into energy and transform materials with incredible ease and efficiency. Yet, still our environment reacts and changes with us. We get bored with our successes, complacent with our accomplishments, act foolishly in our pride. And not everyone wants to "co-operate." Some want to do their own thing, or do things the easy way, or just the way that most pleases them and then we end up in head to head destructive competition which causes more problems.
So it comes down to how one perceives: A 'problem' for one, is an 'opportunity' for the other. Opportunities arise from the problems that people face. Today, with the latest technology tools, the real advantage is to foresee opportunities before the problem, to anticipate latent needs and find solutions for it.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Digital Master Tuning #70: How to Harness Collective Creativity
The exercise of blending people's problem solving abilities to produce a desired outcome is a worthwhile thing to do.
There are still full of serendipity in creativity: How many forms of creativity are there? How are they different? How are they similar? Isn't what makes them similar or different, also what makes them creativity? Individual creativity is absolutely critical, but how to harness the collective creativity?
Creativity can manifest in a collective environment: While the individual contributions provide the 'building block" of creativity, it is the collective consensus on what to do with them that is exciting. The purpose of pursuing collective creativity is based on: - the intent of the event was to develop a tangible result that did not currently exist.-the nature of the result was deliberately expressive and improvised.-the interactions between participants was not premeditated or contrived.- the resulting 'product' was more than any one individual was capable of achieving.-the result was not something that any one participant could have conceived independently.
The exercise of blending people's problem solving abilities to produce a desired outcome is a worthwhile thing to do. It is not just a mere cumulation of the creative inputs of those involved. It is also not only a synchronizing of their individual inputs to make something that no one individual would achieve. It is more than that. It has its own dynamic which is in a state of constant flux. It (on occasions) builds up a momentum that draws creative contributions from the participants that they did not previously conceive or understood they were capable of. Whether creativity can be collective is clear and flows from what seems like an expansive, generous, creative mind, and illustrates the 'Third Alternative' synergistic result Steven Covey (7 Habits of Highly Effective People) refers to when the final result is bigger than the intentions of the individuals involved. It is indeed creative to push, invite, allow, and accept ideas from a group to reach a final result not originally predicted, because it requires the openness to create a new idea, and allow it to fully form.
The collective creativity depends on varying factors: Being creative is the kind to "think outside the box" for ideas and solutions. But the creative spark does not always originate solely in the individual. In that manner, you could say there is more collective creativity happening everywhere than many stop to realize, because it is really hard for some people to see outside of their own box. Also, the group of people does not always make creativity blossom. You can get a diverse group of people together in one room and still not have "creativity" if the individuals participating are not particularly creative. What matters is how creative are the individuals. Hence, the collective creativity depends on varying factors, because the team perhaps have different intents (destructive vs. constructive), different processes (enforcement vs collaboration), different participants (compliant vs. creative), different outcomes (disharmony vs harmony) and different philosophies (selfishness vs selflessness).
Creativity has many forms and manifestations. Take the standpoint that creativity has its starting point within an individual. Once we take into consideration the influences around this person (environment, culture, principles etc), their creativity will manifest in different forms. From its starting within an individual, to the point where it becomes external to them (visually, aurally, tactile etc), it cannot be identical from one person to another. And by manifesting creativity from an individual endeavor to a team activity and a collective effort, the horizon of creativity is expanded, it converges with the concept of innovation which is the management discipline to transform innate ideas and achieve its business value.
Digitalization is like a flywheel, and Digital Masters are the one riding above it. Surf more Information about Digital Master:
Digital Master Wikipedia Introduction
Digital Master Kindle Version Book Order URL
Digital Master Book URL
Digital Master Author URL
Digital Master Video Clip on YouTube
Digital Master Fun QuizFollow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
There are still full of serendipity in creativity: How many forms of creativity are there? How are they different? How are they similar? Isn't what makes them similar or different, also what makes them creativity? Individual creativity is absolutely critical, but how to harness the collective creativity?
Creativity can manifest in a collective environment: While the individual contributions provide the 'building block" of creativity, it is the collective consensus on what to do with them that is exciting. The purpose of pursuing collective creativity is based on: - the intent of the event was to develop a tangible result that did not currently exist.-the nature of the result was deliberately expressive and improvised.-the interactions between participants was not premeditated or contrived.- the resulting 'product' was more than any one individual was capable of achieving.-the result was not something that any one participant could have conceived independently.
The exercise of blending people's problem solving abilities to produce a desired outcome is a worthwhile thing to do. It is not just a mere cumulation of the creative inputs of those involved. It is also not only a synchronizing of their individual inputs to make something that no one individual would achieve. It is more than that. It has its own dynamic which is in a state of constant flux. It (on occasions) builds up a momentum that draws creative contributions from the participants that they did not previously conceive or understood they were capable of. Whether creativity can be collective is clear and flows from what seems like an expansive, generous, creative mind, and illustrates the 'Third Alternative' synergistic result Steven Covey (7 Habits of Highly Effective People) refers to when the final result is bigger than the intentions of the individuals involved. It is indeed creative to push, invite, allow, and accept ideas from a group to reach a final result not originally predicted, because it requires the openness to create a new idea, and allow it to fully form.
The collective creativity depends on varying factors: Being creative is the kind to "think outside the box" for ideas and solutions. But the creative spark does not always originate solely in the individual. In that manner, you could say there is more collective creativity happening everywhere than many stop to realize, because it is really hard for some people to see outside of their own box. Also, the group of people does not always make creativity blossom. You can get a diverse group of people together in one room and still not have "creativity" if the individuals participating are not particularly creative. What matters is how creative are the individuals. Hence, the collective creativity depends on varying factors, because the team perhaps have different intents (destructive vs. constructive), different processes (enforcement vs collaboration), different participants (compliant vs. creative), different outcomes (disharmony vs harmony) and different philosophies (selfishness vs selflessness).
Creativity has many forms and manifestations. Take the standpoint that creativity has its starting point within an individual. Once we take into consideration the influences around this person (environment, culture, principles etc), their creativity will manifest in different forms. From its starting within an individual, to the point where it becomes external to them (visually, aurally, tactile etc), it cannot be identical from one person to another. And by manifesting creativity from an individual endeavor to a team activity and a collective effort, the horizon of creativity is expanded, it converges with the concept of innovation which is the management discipline to transform innate ideas and achieve its business value.
Digitalization is like a flywheel, and Digital Masters are the one riding above it. Surf more Information about Digital Master:
Digital Master Wikipedia Introduction
Digital Master Kindle Version Book Order URL
Digital Master Book URL
Digital Master Author URL
Digital Master Video Clip on YouTube
Digital Master Fun QuizFollow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
What’s your Leadership Psychology?
Leadership is both art and science; psychology and philosophy.
The substance of leadership never changes: it’s about the future, change and influence. However, the leadership style is varying: are you empowering people to learn develop and grow? Or are you leading or managing through fear or anger? How does your leadership style affect corporate culture and business result? Or broadly, is leadership psychology or philosophy?
Leadership is a psychological phenomenon, but only positive emotions can lead forward: Some say, leadership is in its full regalia: fear, anger, blame, resentment, small mindedness, dislike, inspiration, passion, commitment, charisma and out-and-out brilliance. But fear or anger are not elements, keys, qualities, cornerstones or benchmarks of leadership, nor are they the qualities we admire in people and leaders. As children, we learned how to treat people, either through anger/fear or other psychological abuse tactics, or through care, respect , compassion and love. Either way, as adults the choice is ours in how we treat each other in positive way (trust, appreciation, respect) or negative way (envy, fear, anger, bias). Looking back, it's the examples of positivity and brilliance that shine brightest, rather than those that left people feeling disappointed and wretched. Those leaders that were brilliant were kind, self-critical, empowering, unbelievably insightful and endlessly patient. It's these things that make leadership inspiring. When we know that anger and fear are counterproductive to earning or building trust, then, the onus of responsibility is to change how we think, feel and act towards others.
Fear only creates order in short term: One thing that is true, fear and anger operate on the lowest level and can do little more than create order in short term. When leaders realize that if you want to achieve greatness in your realm, you will have to touch the upper levels, thus eliminating fear and anger as options. Once you realize that you have to find other options, you begin to investigate the real motivators like passion and trust. There is no substitute for creating an environment of success. Fear creates order at times and in some departments, but it creates short term results only. Anger and fear can cause the damage for the long term,and make the negative impact that has on results and the successes of other approaches. However, sugarcoating bad situation to avoid fear and anger in others will make the bad situation worse as well. The key is that the message or the information conveyed by the leader/messenger must reflect true integrity (truth and transparency). Truthfully telling what it is might invoke fear and anger spontaneously, but will quickly change into curiosity if the message is deemed truthful. Many people have applied the theory to many different business applications. It takes a much more talented leader to move up the pyramid than it does to stay at the base.
The good leaders are also great coaches: The leaders are also coach who are either teaching people "how to fish" so that they can do it themselves; or they are just telling, ordering, barking out commands. Earning or building trusting relationships was like teaching someone to fish- so that they could feed themselves for a lifetime. Empowering people isn't having all the answers, giving people the "secret of life," nor supplying them with a list. Empowering people cannot happen when we are using anger and fear tactics to "teach people a lesson." You have to empower people to learn, develop, and grow by finding out what their goals are. Most people have goals. You create the stepping stones they need to reach their next goal. You allow for mistakes, because that's how most people learn. You guide. You care. You support. You listen. You give your employees the tools they need to perform. Always maximize people's strengths. Insisting on making them stronger where they are weak and uninterested is a waste of time, energy, and resources and a source of frustration. Instead, concentrate on what they do best, and get them to thrive.
Leadership is all about change. The organization (or group, or individual) has to have a compelling and credible reason to change. Even then, each person grieves the loss of status quo differently, and at different rates. Taking an organization to a new level of performance requires "relentless pressure, lightly applied" until a new level of normal is achieved and internalized. Even then, if pressure is removed, the normal will drift back to where the multitude of forces takes it over time. Hence, the leadership style is important, sometimes leadership through passion and commitment was enough. Sometimes it needed clarity and direction. And there were those inevitable moments when leaders faced open resistance. It was in these moments that you built up the skill to understand that what was needed in some situations was a combination of stick and carrot: never one without the other. Still, the high mature leadership shall evoke the positive emotions in order to make change sustainable and lead business transformation more effectively for the long term.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
The substance of leadership never changes: it’s about the future, change and influence. However, the leadership style is varying: are you empowering people to learn develop and grow? Or are you leading or managing through fear or anger? How does your leadership style affect corporate culture and business result? Or broadly, is leadership psychology or philosophy?
Leadership is a psychological phenomenon, but only positive emotions can lead forward: Some say, leadership is in its full regalia: fear, anger, blame, resentment, small mindedness, dislike, inspiration, passion, commitment, charisma and out-and-out brilliance. But fear or anger are not elements, keys, qualities, cornerstones or benchmarks of leadership, nor are they the qualities we admire in people and leaders. As children, we learned how to treat people, either through anger/fear or other psychological abuse tactics, or through care, respect , compassion and love. Either way, as adults the choice is ours in how we treat each other in positive way (trust, appreciation, respect) or negative way (envy, fear, anger, bias). Looking back, it's the examples of positivity and brilliance that shine brightest, rather than those that left people feeling disappointed and wretched. Those leaders that were brilliant were kind, self-critical, empowering, unbelievably insightful and endlessly patient. It's these things that make leadership inspiring. When we know that anger and fear are counterproductive to earning or building trust, then, the onus of responsibility is to change how we think, feel and act towards others.
Fear only creates order in short term: One thing that is true, fear and anger operate on the lowest level and can do little more than create order in short term. When leaders realize that if you want to achieve greatness in your realm, you will have to touch the upper levels, thus eliminating fear and anger as options. Once you realize that you have to find other options, you begin to investigate the real motivators like passion and trust. There is no substitute for creating an environment of success. Fear creates order at times and in some departments, but it creates short term results only. Anger and fear can cause the damage for the long term,and make the negative impact that has on results and the successes of other approaches. However, sugarcoating bad situation to avoid fear and anger in others will make the bad situation worse as well. The key is that the message or the information conveyed by the leader/messenger must reflect true integrity (truth and transparency). Truthfully telling what it is might invoke fear and anger spontaneously, but will quickly change into curiosity if the message is deemed truthful. Many people have applied the theory to many different business applications. It takes a much more talented leader to move up the pyramid than it does to stay at the base.
The good leaders are also great coaches: The leaders are also coach who are either teaching people "how to fish" so that they can do it themselves; or they are just telling, ordering, barking out commands. Earning or building trusting relationships was like teaching someone to fish- so that they could feed themselves for a lifetime. Empowering people isn't having all the answers, giving people the "secret of life," nor supplying them with a list. Empowering people cannot happen when we are using anger and fear tactics to "teach people a lesson." You have to empower people to learn, develop, and grow by finding out what their goals are. Most people have goals. You create the stepping stones they need to reach their next goal. You allow for mistakes, because that's how most people learn. You guide. You care. You support. You listen. You give your employees the tools they need to perform. Always maximize people's strengths. Insisting on making them stronger where they are weak and uninterested is a waste of time, energy, and resources and a source of frustration. Instead, concentrate on what they do best, and get them to thrive.
Leadership is all about change. The organization (or group, or individual) has to have a compelling and credible reason to change. Even then, each person grieves the loss of status quo differently, and at different rates. Taking an organization to a new level of performance requires "relentless pressure, lightly applied" until a new level of normal is achieved and internalized. Even then, if pressure is removed, the normal will drift back to where the multitude of forces takes it over time. Hence, the leadership style is important, sometimes leadership through passion and commitment was enough. Sometimes it needed clarity and direction. And there were those inevitable moments when leaders faced open resistance. It was in these moments that you built up the skill to understand that what was needed in some situations was a combination of stick and carrot: never one without the other. Still, the high mature leadership shall evoke the positive emotions in order to make change sustainable and lead business transformation more effectively for the long term. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
April 4, 2015
BIg Data and HR
Technology such as Big Data analytics opens new ways to shape the work, the people doing the work.
The “VUCA” business environment today, is nonstop “volatility, unpredictability, complexity, and ambiguity.” They make the case for adaptive techniques to solve adaptive challenges. Adaptive techniques means working together in an organization, rather than alone, as no one person has all of the knowledge or ability to solve such problems. This is where HR can contribute if they have the data analytics to show people trends, productivity, engagement metrics, costs-savings, etc. That also can help make the human capital aspect less volatile, more predictable, and less ambiguous for the business. Bottom line: the technical aspect is easier to master in this VUCA world than human factors. And HR plays critical role in leveraging technologies to manage their invaluable asset - people more effectively.
HR is a key factor in an organization: Even looking at HR holistically and not as a set of independent actions is an improvement. However, people who still continue to see technology as just a tool, do not see the potential HR can take advantage of in better decision making and better service to the employees and their managers without having to spend too much time. The problem is that some HRs are living in the previous centuries and in their comfort zone, not even realizing that they are no match for their management colleagues who all come to meetings with state of the art systems supporting their decisions. Such HR departments are cumbersome and non-value added, perpetuating the reputation of HR being the least strategic department in the organization. There are no excuses to be stagnant. HR has to catch up to reshape its reputation.
There are great opportunities available to learn how analytics can transform the HR reputation. HR folks need to live in the real business world with serious analytical abilities that support decision making. Analytics and big data are the best opportunity for HR to speak the language of business and become a relevant strategic business partner. Or HR can focus on efficiencies in a shared services model and become more transaction-based. The best organizations will embrace technology and become a driver of business strategy rather than an afterthought. HR must be involved from the very beginning when analyzing the best HR technology software for the organization, assessing current needs and how best to satisfy those needs, and perhaps most importantly, take the time to conduct due diligence on the plethora of options out there. One size does not fit all!
Companies need to make HR and its related activities a strategic priority in the organization: Once that happens technology is a critical component to successfully implementing their business strategy. Many of the business decisions are based on employees' ability to execute; and without the data from HR, critical decisions about company growth areas, the need for organizational retooling and identification of high performance areas is just based on an opinion without the quantification of performance measures and employee trends and costs.
Successful HR analytics relies upon a partnership amongst HR, IT, finance, business unit leaders, and senior leadership. Often executives think that HR system is the solution and launch one with "top-down" approach. However, the key is to understand the needs at the frontline and identify the right measures that really affect the business. Big data could help do the influence on the decision making, but the bulk of the work is not at the deployment stage, but way before that. Automation of transactional HR is important, but you also need consistent data standards and definitions. Inconsistency forces HR analytics practitioners to do a great deal of data clean-up in order to produce useful results. Also, you must have an analyst or two who can do data clean-up, run regression models, support transactional process improvements, and speak the language of the internal customers.
Technology can be your friend, but you need to treat it well. Although technology only cannot completely transform an organization, but certain technologies can help you learn more about your employees and help you better understand your organization and what you can do to improve the company culture. HR, technology can be your friend, but you need to treat it well, understand what it wants from you (like data standardization/Governance), and how well it gets along with other pieces of technology. Big data is nothing new, but the technology to access it, manipulate it, and perhaps even analyze it visually has come through technology breakthroughs. It is not a Silver Bullet, the answer to what "ails you" is in the people not the technology.
Conducting an ROI on every initiative is game changing not just for HR, but across the enterprise. Technology is as only as good as the people using and interpreting the data to make and influence informed decisions. So more HR and organizational development professionals need to more boldly advocate for business decisions with the data to support. Everything in life and business is what you make of it. The core issue here is measurable accountability. Often times when companies launch new software or processes they forget to reinforce them with measurable accountability metrics. The scope of work for any new technology introduction should include a long term implementation and measurement of its success. Success in relation to the impact the software makes and success in relation to how well the "people" in the company integrate the tool into their work.
People are the only thing that differentiates any organization from another. If you take the premise that HR is the shepherd of culture (shared with leadership), then HR is in the greatest position to change culture. Creating the flexible, agile organizations that businesses need to be competitive starts with the people. People act within the framework of the culture of the business. But technology such as Big Data analytics opens new ways to shape the work, the people doing the work, support them through connection and collaboration, reward and recognize differently. It's the time for HR to leverage Big Data to play big.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
The “VUCA” business environment today, is nonstop “volatility, unpredictability, complexity, and ambiguity.” They make the case for adaptive techniques to solve adaptive challenges. Adaptive techniques means working together in an organization, rather than alone, as no one person has all of the knowledge or ability to solve such problems. This is where HR can contribute if they have the data analytics to show people trends, productivity, engagement metrics, costs-savings, etc. That also can help make the human capital aspect less volatile, more predictable, and less ambiguous for the business. Bottom line: the technical aspect is easier to master in this VUCA world than human factors. And HR plays critical role in leveraging technologies to manage their invaluable asset - people more effectively.
HR is a key factor in an organization: Even looking at HR holistically and not as a set of independent actions is an improvement. However, people who still continue to see technology as just a tool, do not see the potential HR can take advantage of in better decision making and better service to the employees and their managers without having to spend too much time. The problem is that some HRs are living in the previous centuries and in their comfort zone, not even realizing that they are no match for their management colleagues who all come to meetings with state of the art systems supporting their decisions. Such HR departments are cumbersome and non-value added, perpetuating the reputation of HR being the least strategic department in the organization. There are no excuses to be stagnant. HR has to catch up to reshape its reputation.
There are great opportunities available to learn how analytics can transform the HR reputation. HR folks need to live in the real business world with serious analytical abilities that support decision making. Analytics and big data are the best opportunity for HR to speak the language of business and become a relevant strategic business partner. Or HR can focus on efficiencies in a shared services model and become more transaction-based. The best organizations will embrace technology and become a driver of business strategy rather than an afterthought. HR must be involved from the very beginning when analyzing the best HR technology software for the organization, assessing current needs and how best to satisfy those needs, and perhaps most importantly, take the time to conduct due diligence on the plethora of options out there. One size does not fit all!
Companies need to make HR and its related activities a strategic priority in the organization: Once that happens technology is a critical component to successfully implementing their business strategy. Many of the business decisions are based on employees' ability to execute; and without the data from HR, critical decisions about company growth areas, the need for organizational retooling and identification of high performance areas is just based on an opinion without the quantification of performance measures and employee trends and costs.
Successful HR analytics relies upon a partnership amongst HR, IT, finance, business unit leaders, and senior leadership. Often executives think that HR system is the solution and launch one with "top-down" approach. However, the key is to understand the needs at the frontline and identify the right measures that really affect the business. Big data could help do the influence on the decision making, but the bulk of the work is not at the deployment stage, but way before that. Automation of transactional HR is important, but you also need consistent data standards and definitions. Inconsistency forces HR analytics practitioners to do a great deal of data clean-up in order to produce useful results. Also, you must have an analyst or two who can do data clean-up, run regression models, support transactional process improvements, and speak the language of the internal customers.
Technology can be your friend, but you need to treat it well. Although technology only cannot completely transform an organization, but certain technologies can help you learn more about your employees and help you better understand your organization and what you can do to improve the company culture. HR, technology can be your friend, but you need to treat it well, understand what it wants from you (like data standardization/Governance), and how well it gets along with other pieces of technology. Big data is nothing new, but the technology to access it, manipulate it, and perhaps even analyze it visually has come through technology breakthroughs. It is not a Silver Bullet, the answer to what "ails you" is in the people not the technology.
Conducting an ROI on every initiative is game changing not just for HR, but across the enterprise. Technology is as only as good as the people using and interpreting the data to make and influence informed decisions. So more HR and organizational development professionals need to more boldly advocate for business decisions with the data to support. Everything in life and business is what you make of it. The core issue here is measurable accountability. Often times when companies launch new software or processes they forget to reinforce them with measurable accountability metrics. The scope of work for any new technology introduction should include a long term implementation and measurement of its success. Success in relation to the impact the software makes and success in relation to how well the "people" in the company integrate the tool into their work.
People are the only thing that differentiates any organization from another. If you take the premise that HR is the shepherd of culture (shared with leadership), then HR is in the greatest position to change culture. Creating the flexible, agile organizations that businesses need to be competitive starts with the people. People act within the framework of the culture of the business. But technology such as Big Data analytics opens new ways to shape the work, the people doing the work, support them through connection and collaboration, reward and recognize differently. It's the time for HR to leverage Big Data to play big.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
How to Developing the Capability of your Leadership Team?
The leaders should be ROUGH (Character) and RAW (Authenticity); Responsible and Relax (High EQ).
We live in the paradoxical world: on one side, there’s abundance of data, information, even knowledge; on the other side, there’s lack of business insight to overcome the challenges caused by digital dynamic, there’s paucity of wisdom to solve the complex problems facing either in businesses or society. There are also not enough great leaders who can envision the future trend, breakdown the out dated minds or rules; enable the positive changes and inclusiveness, and empower others to unleash the full potential. Something worth considering is: can we see the leader in each person; or do we allow our own bias/judgments to get in the way? Shouldn't we empower one another learn and practice leadership skills, and how to develop the capability of your leadership team?
By helping them shape the digital mindsets - helping the team develop their capacity for learning and being. With this mindset (growth, creativity, critical thinking, etc.), they will then develop or hire the capabilities necessary for the challenges/ opportunities we face and in turn grow their teams capacity for learning and being and thus capabilities. Leadership growth comes from identifying opportunities, tailoring development and putting the appropriate level of effort into the process. Guidance and assistance along the way is critical, however, it is often missed or under emphasised.
By helping them discover who they are -the authenticity. By identifying their human values and helping them to implement them and by developing their critical thinking skills. By developing the human capital in terms of capacity building and adapting to the dynamism of the turbulent socio economic and political global trend. By investing in probing conversations that explore and develop. This takes time, which one must make the effort to find.The Leader should be authenticThe Leader should be able to take RESPONSIBILITY The Leader should be able to be ROUGH (Character)The Leader should know, how to RELAX (High EQ)If any of these abilities gets lost - you can't create a real leader.
By identifying the gaps that we are facing or will be facing tomorrow to have great digital leaders or global leaders and how to fill them: It’s basically based on the situation and how an individual react to that particular situation and who takes the initiative to address the issue more effectively. Its well known fact that there is no perfect leader, but the progressive one is on their way to be more effective.
By investing in their professional training. By ensuring that your emerging leaders are provided with ample professional development training, mentoring, job-coaching and job shadowing opportunities, provides a good start for them. Clearly, there are many other activities that you can offer up and coming leaders that will enhance their growth. training is the key for successful leadership.Leadership is about values and beliefs. A good Leader must invest in his/her emotional intelligence to be sensitive with opportunities that arise from time to time.
By observing their saying and doing: Start with their behavior, remember them at their responsibility for themselves and their team members, support them for a better communication, coach awareness and reflection competences. Basics is not to be forgotten. Exploring future leaders gradually in front row, is a simple and well proven method works in all sectors. If "part of the problem is there are too many leaders who don't measure up," a solution may be to re-engineer the leadership. Begin with re-designing a strategy, re-training leaders to be digital leaders. If your leaders lack these following qualities re-think your leadership. -Do they know how to thinking mindfully
-Do they value diverse opinions-Do they cultivate a culture of trust-Do they truly teach and develop other leaders-Are they encouraging-Do they act with humility-Do they think long-term
By striking a shared balance between operations and development is a great place to start:Developing leaders is a crucial investment, requiring time and energy...often viewed as a luxury in today's fast paced work environment. There does appear to be a gap. Leaders today need to prioritize by taking a hard look at what they value and assure it is instilled among their leaders and emitting throughout their company culture.
Lao-tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching (Dow de jing) said to be the world's oldest leadership manual. In it he states “knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” Leaders are both nature and nurtured. And leadership is both art and science. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
We live in the paradoxical world: on one side, there’s abundance of data, information, even knowledge; on the other side, there’s lack of business insight to overcome the challenges caused by digital dynamic, there’s paucity of wisdom to solve the complex problems facing either in businesses or society. There are also not enough great leaders who can envision the future trend, breakdown the out dated minds or rules; enable the positive changes and inclusiveness, and empower others to unleash the full potential. Something worth considering is: can we see the leader in each person; or do we allow our own bias/judgments to get in the way? Shouldn't we empower one another learn and practice leadership skills, and how to develop the capability of your leadership team?
By helping them shape the digital mindsets - helping the team develop their capacity for learning and being. With this mindset (growth, creativity, critical thinking, etc.), they will then develop or hire the capabilities necessary for the challenges/ opportunities we face and in turn grow their teams capacity for learning and being and thus capabilities. Leadership growth comes from identifying opportunities, tailoring development and putting the appropriate level of effort into the process. Guidance and assistance along the way is critical, however, it is often missed or under emphasised.
By helping them discover who they are -the authenticity. By identifying their human values and helping them to implement them and by developing their critical thinking skills. By developing the human capital in terms of capacity building and adapting to the dynamism of the turbulent socio economic and political global trend. By investing in probing conversations that explore and develop. This takes time, which one must make the effort to find.The Leader should be authenticThe Leader should be able to take RESPONSIBILITY The Leader should be able to be ROUGH (Character)The Leader should know, how to RELAX (High EQ)If any of these abilities gets lost - you can't create a real leader.
By identifying the gaps that we are facing or will be facing tomorrow to have great digital leaders or global leaders and how to fill them: It’s basically based on the situation and how an individual react to that particular situation and who takes the initiative to address the issue more effectively. Its well known fact that there is no perfect leader, but the progressive one is on their way to be more effective.
By investing in their professional training. By ensuring that your emerging leaders are provided with ample professional development training, mentoring, job-coaching and job shadowing opportunities, provides a good start for them. Clearly, there are many other activities that you can offer up and coming leaders that will enhance their growth. training is the key for successful leadership.Leadership is about values and beliefs. A good Leader must invest in his/her emotional intelligence to be sensitive with opportunities that arise from time to time.
By observing their saying and doing: Start with their behavior, remember them at their responsibility for themselves and their team members, support them for a better communication, coach awareness and reflection competences. Basics is not to be forgotten. Exploring future leaders gradually in front row, is a simple and well proven method works in all sectors. If "part of the problem is there are too many leaders who don't measure up," a solution may be to re-engineer the leadership. Begin with re-designing a strategy, re-training leaders to be digital leaders. If your leaders lack these following qualities re-think your leadership. -Do they know how to thinking mindfully-Do they value diverse opinions-Do they cultivate a culture of trust-Do they truly teach and develop other leaders-Are they encouraging-Do they act with humility-Do they think long-term
By striking a shared balance between operations and development is a great place to start:Developing leaders is a crucial investment, requiring time and energy...often viewed as a luxury in today's fast paced work environment. There does appear to be a gap. Leaders today need to prioritize by taking a hard look at what they value and assure it is instilled among their leaders and emitting throughout their company culture.
Lao-tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching (Dow de jing) said to be the world's oldest leadership manual. In it he states “knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” Leaders are both nature and nurtured. And leadership is both art and science. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Many Shades of Creativity
We are able to see creativity's effects, feel its inspiration, and use it in a myriad of ways. Human CREATIVITY is perhaps far more advanced than what can be achieved by a machine so far. Our thoughts, emotions, "gut-feel," "intuition," "insight," and many more complex aspects of our consciousness and awareness greatly enhance our learning and thinking creatively. There are many shades of creativity:
The important aspect of creativity is seeing things in new ways and putting old things together: Creativity is the synthesis of what you know, what you suppose and what you feel, expressed in some way. That can be a solution to a problem, a shared vision or even a stronger emotional connection.
Creativity is both innate, and a skill: Everyone has it, but some can really develop it to be something breathtaking so creativity at its inception is very intimate, personal pursuit. Craft and skill are the means to achieve that. Finally what happens to the object of that creation, - whether it is trashed or applauded is different matter altogether. That is where the issue of risk-taking comes in.
Creativity is risk, expressed through intuition and skill: It requires time to grow and ruminate. And is certainly not isolated from other types of thinking. Perhaps it's a bit delicate. Because it can often be strange or different when it appears risk and creativity is that a person needs to be able to try new things, be daring, bold.
Creativity is a result of living in your intuitive space: It is a action or a reaction to the world, from that place, it has no fear or traditions. It's not only about trying to "think outside the box," but an intuitive expression and alternative path that takes you wherever it needs to go, without boundaries. The fear or uneasiness is only the ego getting in the way. On the broadest level, creativity is embodied in the act of creating a self, or Self, through narrative, or the creation of a Self Story, and this is the most fundamental creative effort we make.
Most creativity theories, see creativity as a process through which the individual finds relationship with the environment. For psychoanalysis, this is a neurotic function; for humanistic psychology, it is a sign of health. With this wide divergence the only seemingly obvious conclusion is that the substance and source of creativity still elude discovery. We are able to see creativity's effects, feel its inspiration, and use it in a myriad of ways. All these psychologies see creativity as an encounter with, and merging of divergent information, but disagree about the source of that information and the procedure through which it is processed.
Is there a link between creativity and authenticity? As if standing in a hall of mirrors, we reflect creativity back upon itself and speculate upon its nature never knowing which image is real and which the reflection. It seems creativity reflects itself without revealing its true nature. Each reflection is different in its own environment, yet isomorphic of the others. We "create" metaphors that describe, and theories to explain the acts by which metaphors and theories are themselves brought into being.Creativity + Positivity are the powerful combination to push the human world forward.
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April 3, 2015
The Key Factors in Organizational Change Management
Organizational change management has strong role in business transformation, benefits realization and strategy execution.
With change becomes the new normal, and the speed of change is accelerating at digital age, Change Management also turns to be strategically important in today’s organization, it is no longer just a one-time project, but an ongoing business capability. But what are the key success factors in managing change successfully and where should Change Management be positioned in the organization?Change management vs. change leadership: Although they are more often being used interchangeably at times, change management and change leadership have distinctions. Is the organization seeking change management (communications and training) or change leadership (achievement of business benefits)? Be mindful of this difference as it will also demonstrate the maturity of the organization in change. Change leadership and sponsorship is critical to driving strategy and adoption. Combined with that, change management is focused on execution, resistance management and adoption leading to the realization of intended business results. Both should come into discussions when planning strategic direction and initiatives for the company. Change leadership or sponsorship is critical to driving strategy and adoption. Combined with that, change management is focused on execution, resistance management and adoption leading to the realization of intended business results. Both should come into discussions when planning strategic direction and initiatives for the company.
The role of sponsorship should be addressed: A great sponsor can overcome organizational issues, particularly early in the maturity. Where are the key influencers in the organization? Not the influencers by nature of title, but those who have strong relationships, with the nature of which create and maintain cross functional trust, transparency, action and results. Identifying motivators, behaviours and emotional intelligence competencies with assessment tools assists in identifying them. If they happen to be senior leaders regardless of the functional leadership role even better. Trust is a key determinant of success. If you are starting to build change as ongoing capability in the organization, where you can receive the strongest sponsorship. the strong sponsor is more important than the correct functional alignment.-Where does synergistic attainment of organizational goals and superior returns on investment occur? -What is the expectation from change management?-If the desire is to make an enterprise wide impact, it needs to be integrated at the right level as well, in addition to functional area.-Culture will play a role too. Hierarchical organizations require more structure to stand up and operate the change function, while more "network like" organizations may allow for a more consultative structure.
Organizational Change Management needs to be treated as strategic function: Because organizational change becomes common practice within an organization, it needs to be treated as a strategic function to reach its full advantage: Alignment with organizational design, enterprise architecture and program office functions is ultimately where you need to be to really make a difference. From the organizational capability perspective, organizational change management has strong role in business transformation, benefits realization and strategy execution. However, not all organizations operate at this level. Therefore, the overall organizational maturity, but also maturity of other functions in the organization, will be a key factor in where organizational change management best fits. Where the organizational change management function resides can be also managed and addressed as its maturity progresses in the organization. With time and increased understanding of OCM, there is an acknowledgement that the best fit for OCM is at the strategic level. Though it will take some time due to the maturity of the organization, It is important for integrating OCM into strategic level processes and practices.
Organizational culture is a critical factor to consider: Because the values, norms and ability to adapt with an "and" versus an "or" perspective in many transformational efforts have made the difference between success and failure!! Demographics matter. Listening to stakeholders who are impacted is critical, the change readiness assessment, stakeholder analysis and data gathering tools and techniques is the critical success factor. Applying lessons learned is a key determinant of success. The great success is achieved in organizations where the responsibility and accountability for organizational change management remit is assigned to the change champions and change agents; they are highly skilled content and business experts with traditional hard skills and people with traditional organizational development or soft experts. These individuals often exceed the goals of the initiative, and they set the foundation for culture of change and sustainability. Regardless where it resides, Organizational Change Management needs to be treated as a strategic function, well integrated with IT, HR, governance, and other strategic level processes and practices, and plays even more critical role in digital transformation. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
