Three Barriers Stop IT from Reaching Digital Premium

Many organizations are on the journey of digital transformation, but it is the path not being fully discovered and explored yet and there are still many roadblocks and hidden barriers on the way. There are both pains and gains to transform from the industrial age with knowledge scarcity to the digital era with information abundance, and there is still a long way to go from the classic industrial management flavor to the dynamic digital leadership style. Here are three barriers stop IT from reaching digital premium.
Silo: The majority of organizations in the industrial age apply reductionist management style to operate the business with functional silos to improve the certain level of efficiency. However, silos don't seem to fit within emerging 'networked' collaborative digital organizational forms with increasing speed of change which requires frequent cross-functional communication and collaboration. Yet many business managers still apply old silo management mindsets to new ways of running always-on and always-connected businesses. The result is about the higher risk of conflict and inertia, not something the organization wants in a global business environment that demands innovation, speed, responsiveness and flexibility to succeed. The digital shift has come to a change in organizational forms away from the traditional rigid hierarchies managed through command and control to more fluid and responsive network forms. To improve decision effectiveness and digital fluidity, it’s important to build a high level of trust within the upper rankings of management, share the same vision, set the strategic goals, being able to coordinate and communicate effectively across departments, and manage business performance to ensure the organization as a whole is more superior to the sum of pieces. From IT management perspective, it’s critical to breakdown silos, bridge the gaps, and  fix dysfunctional roles and relationships between business and IT, in order for the business as a whole to reach digital premium.
Complacency: To reach digital premium, complacency is probably the biggest challenge either individuals or organizations have to overcome. Because Organizations and individuals that are complacent do not look for new opportunities or hazards. Some say it is not complacency that is at the heart of the resistance. It is the unknown and being afraid of new things and it will be the same for the word "complacency." A complacency mind gets use to reacting, not being proactive. If you stick to the comfort zone too long, you might lose the “mojo” to move forward. The point is when complacency sprouts up, people with such mindset stop flowing their energy up towards the positive directions (learning new things, building new capabilities, exploring new opportunities), then, their energy more often flows down to the negative or unprofessional direction. And it also becomes the root cause of the culture of mediocrity. Numerous changes or business transformations run, complete, and then slowly crumble away as people slowly revert to old ways, while few creative teams build phenomenal long-lived transformations and make the difference. Once that barrier is broken, a positive change process can commence. From IT management perspective, the proactive IT should look forward, focus on the way ahead via calculating the potential value of IT with a Normal/Best/Worst scenario in the future with Near/Mid/ Long term and creates a multidimensional map on how to always get out of comfort zone and achieve digital premium.  
Ignorance: Digital is full of uncertainty, velocity, complexity and ambiguity. There is no prescribed change formula, or one size fits all change scenario. Ignorance of unknown is another pitfall which could fail change or transformation effort. Businesses are different, people are different, the very goal behind each change initiative is also different. Therefore, you have to be humble to realize there are many things you know you don’t know and perhaps even more which you don't know what you don't know. But it doesn’t mean you should just ignore the unknown, the positive leadership approach is to analyze circumstance objectively and even predict the future with a certain degree of accuracy, to prepare the “VUCA” new normal wisely. Ignore the trivial, but pay more attention to the significant details. Change is the team effort, encourage all employees to provide feedback, ask questions, and participate change proactively, to expand their view of the business and gain a holistic understanding of changes. Until that happens, you will continue on the lives in blindness.
Digital premium means a lot, such as business effectiveness, agility, innovation, intelligence and people-centricity. organizations which operate this way have happy staff and customers, superior business capabilities, strong balance sheet, and positive social influence upon the environment. Therefore, it is worth the effort to break down silos, get out of comfort zone, prepare the future proactively, in order to transform the organization in a holistic way.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu