More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Mark Raskino
Read between
March 30 - May 2, 2019
No matter how much work you do to energize, enlighten, and improve the existing executive team members, your efforts might not move the company far enough, fast enough. The terrifying pace of digital disruption can require an accelerated response.
The traditional CIO has responsibility for the information systems, but not the information that is contained within them. The CDO becomes a central organizer and custodian of the information itself. Chief data officers are often brought in initially to “play defense” by governing the data assets that are running out of control. Later, they progress to “playing offense” by introducing stronger data analytics, data science, and data monetization services.
Around 2010, while most businesses were still firefighting the global financial crisis, at 120-year-old General Electric Corporation, CEO Jeffrey Immelt and CTO Mark Little were already looking beyond the crisis. Scanning the future horizon, they could see massive digital change coming to many industries, including their own.
Immelt and Little looked at the tech sector and realized that if a competitor invaded with the right knowledge, it could disrupt GE unless they acted. However, because of their industrial domain knowledge, they knew that the company had a unique opportunity to lead in the digital space. But they needed a new level of advanced software and analytics competency. They recruited Bill Ruh from Cisco to become vice president of GE Software, tasking him with driving the rapid creation of a massive new software and data analytics headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Ruh’s mission is to create a new core competency and change the culture of GE. In essence, he needs the company to accept that the kind of information technology Google or Facebook does is just as important as the physical engineering of rotating machinery. “In many ways, we are driving a culture change in the company, and we are totally rethinking the structure and organization, we’re totally rethinking the processes,” Ruh said.1
#social
At GE, software and analytics are no longer supporting functions; they have become core to the products and services, and thus they are the business. This shift of emphasis isn’t unusual—it’s becoming increasingly common.
To achieve that goal, a range of new competencies is needed, but these can incubate in different parts of the enterprise and then extend their reach. There won’t be a single locus of control because digital isn’t a department—it’s something that all employees are involved with, whether their job is writing words, hiring people, or managing money—digital capabilities eventually become common within most parts of the business.
At Estée Lauder, CIO Denise Clark has been taking this approach to help accelerate the company’s digital journey. “Hire really good people. I can’t overemphasize that,” she said. “We want to leapfrog some of the technologies of the past. They have to be innovative people so I can help the business create competitive advantage and bring that technology innovation into the company. I rely quite heavily on some of the new talent I’ve brought into the organization to help me do that.”12
As digital goes to the core of the enterprise—into the very products and services it offers—the resolution revolution’s deeply disruptive power challenges persistent norms and deeply rooted beliefs. Leading the team in this context requires an inspiring vision of what’s possible, a deep conviction that change is necessary, and an adventurer’s zeal for the quest. But to bring everyone along on the digital journey, leaders must couple this adventurer’s spirit with an ambassador’s art of persuasion and loyalty to the enterprise’s ultimate purpose.
Does this feel at all like your situation in response to digital disruption? Your circumstances may have several themes in common: Goss also knew the need, had a desire to move forward, but lacked all knowledge of how to get there.
No matter how charismatic or good Fields is, he cannot do it alone. He must lead others, and they must operate as a team.
To institutionalize this type of relevant digital leadership across GE, in early 2015 Immelt oversaw the rollout of a set of behavioral principles called “GE Beliefs.” A sample belief is the explicit recognition for the need to “Deliver results in an uncertain world,” further described by three key behavioral anchors: We act with urgency, and play to win. We have the courage to make bets others won’t. We use expertise and judgment to manage risk while always acting with integrity.8
10 Giresi thinks that friction is a good sign, and we agree. Without some friction you won’t make any serious progress—digital adventurers are agitators.
You’ve got to have leaders with an intuitive understanding of emerging technologies. They’ve got to be tech savvy and they’ve got to be risk oriented and they’ve got to have vision and passion around the future because this is a huge translation exercise for the institution.16
As we have stated, digital leaders must have a compelling vision and deep conviction about their particular form of the digital possible, one that is unique to their enterprise’s mission and competitive context.
Powerful digital leadership is not for the faint of heart. In many cases, your peers will be blind to the market forces that threaten your space and the digital opportunity available. Alternatively, they may be impeded by mind-set and management behaviors poorly suited to the demands of highly disruptive digital change.
Leading in this digital era will be an uncertain endeavor, as technological, social, and regulatory tipping points intertwine and compound upon each other. As the level of industry disruption increases, it becomes ever more critical that digital leaders be clarifiers of what matters most, including both the threats and opportunity spaces at the confluence of the specific tipping points most critical to their enterprise. In addition to being clarifiers, effective digital leaders must play a key role as educators to amplify digital savvy in the C-suite and board and to upgrade the digital DNA of
...more
“But,” she continued, “I will never forget the day my GPS talked to me. I was headed down the interstate on a very long trip, and out of the blue a voice said, ‘In ten miles there will be a twenty-minute delay. Would you like to take an alternate route?’ In amazement, I spoke back aloud to the GPS, ‘Now that was helpful!’”
As a digital leader, one who is fully immersed and always probing digital trends and their impact on your enterprise, you will often be several steps ahead of your peers in your thinking. This mismatch can form a dangerous chasm, made more treacherous by the compound uncertainty of the technological, social, and regulatory tipping points discussed in chapter 3. The best digital leaders do not bemoan the dynamic of “why others don’t get it” but rather tackle it head-on, embracing a collaborative role that is part clarifier and part educator.
Winright has made it a priority to clarify, educate, and collaborate with her executive team and board partners on how to maximize the digital opportunity space. So should you.
Number one was clarity, specifically as defined by Bob Johansen, distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future: “The ability to see through messes and contradictions to a future that others cannot yet see.”3
In team meetings, regularly, gently, but persistently ask “Why?”
While this thinking is obvious to digitally savvy leaders, it is counter to the core mind-sets and practices of many leaders who grew up in a more certain, steady, and analog world. Digital leaders should never underestimate nor get frustrated by this dynamic, instead embracing the opportunity to lead by being an educator who helps others grasp the digital opportunity space they cannot yet see.
Talking to many of these leading CIOs as he pursued more detailed case studies, Aron described the way they thought of their leadership role: “Sure, I have to run a solid IT shop, but even more important is educating and inspiring business peers in the C-suite as to what is possible.”
If you were looking to open a shoe shop in Madrid, for example, the service would, based on advanced analytics, assist you in selecting your location and help you understand the type of customers and competitors you should expect.
Bressan recalled another inspiring moment at the innovation center, this time with a group of his BBVA business peers. There was quite a “wow” factor the first time they could see the bank’s data creatively overlaid on a map, producing a fascinating visualization of payment patterns across a city and the changes in consumer behavior at night or at various times of day. One insight from the visualization was that a particular restaurant drew people from long distances, past many other seemingly similar restaurants. This turned out to be a very valuable finding and an indicator of “commercial
...more
Commercial opportunity
But the best digital leaders don’t attract just any people; the trick is to attract people who are already attuned to the leader’s and enterprise’s core purpose and critical differentiation space, which we think of as the “magnetic true north.” Once
As in the early digital Pac-Man game (which had the goal of eating while avoiding being eaten), there is a bigger predatory force in the market. Think of this principle as “Digital disruptive market forces will consume enterprises with irrelevant cultures as a snack.”
If leaders are to pivot their mind-sets, they also need to change their frame of thinking to one more suited to the demands of today’s digital-era marketplace.
But culture alone is not enough. As digital trends blur boundaries at every level, leaders and organizations need to remap internal structures and relationships, transform their relationships with customers and partners, and at times redefine the industry boundaries themselves.
In order to travel your digital path and arrive safely at a desirable destination, you will require navigation tools such as a map. But relying on an old-world map of your industry’s competitive space is a bit like navigating a journey today using Anaximander’s world map. It is misleading at best, and possibly very dangerous. Additionally, if you do not understand the contours of the terrain, you will have little chance to influence, shape, or remap it to your advantage.
