Saturday, July 22, 2017

Discover Three Hidden Gems to Shine Through Digital Transformation Journey

The organization’s digitalization is like the treasure hunting journey to discover those hidden gems and create value from it.

We are in a time of tremendous change, the dawn of digital age, the path to the next level of innovation, also the era of confusion and information overload. Digital businesses nowadays are fast, always “on,” highly connected, interdependent, and ultra-competitive. They have to continue to discover their strengths, build differentiated capabilities and unleash their collective potential in order to build the competitive business advantage. Here are three hidden gems to help them shine through the journey of digital transformation.  

The raw intelligence: All humans have their innate capabilities or intelligence, or being called “raw intelligence,” independent of their formal education or accumulated experience; or the innate strength that can be further strengthened into differentiated capabilities. At the collective organizational level, the business potential is the “raw intelligence” of the organization, which can be discovered, tune-up, and shine through for helping the business build their differentiated competency. Either at the individual or organizational level, the next step is investigating what’s your strength, your vision, and passion, defining your tasks, things you want to do and do better than others. It is more impactful to work on improving your strengths as this is where you can work in your sweet spot. When organizations implement a capability-based strategy, they significantly improve the success rate to achieve the higher-than-expected business results. So, the trick is to know what your strengths (either at the individual or team/organizational level) are (realized and unrealized), like digging into the underground to discover hidden gems, and then polished them, strengthen your strength to build your unique set of capabilities. Discovering the hidden gems inside you is to discover who you are, the genuine self, and ensure that your voices and actions are in synchronization by combined action, endurance, and with the right spirit.


The diversity of thoughts: A creative team should have the cogitative difference and diversified worldview. Do you find yourself getting inspired, challenged or intimidated by people of a different background from you? Can you always discover new perspectives and really valid learning points in work or any social community? In a sense, does diversity spur new perspectives in an individual then? The diversity of thoughts is like the multiple gems shining through at the dim night. The digital fit is less about thinking alike, more about thinking differently. Digital transformation is like the journey to discover those thinking gems and the pearl of wisdom. To produce a high-performing team, we need cognitive differences, levels of capabilities, complementary experiences, the spectrum of skills, unique competencies, cultural perspectives and different personalities. That's what cultivates the culture of innovation and improves performance ultimately. As a digital leader today, it is important to discover those shining gems, because the diversity of thoughts are the fountain of creativity and sparkling of innovation.


Constructive criticism: If traditional organizations focus on compliance and practice command & control style of management discipline. And then highly innovative digital organizations are hunting for constructive criticism and smart skepticism as the hidden gems. But to discern them correctly and act on them actively and precisely takes growth mindsets, skills, and an attitude of intellectual discernment. Because criticism from a "Competent and genuine critic" is really good for further improvement, you must be capable of imbibing such real criticism and discover its true value to help the business improve and innovate. It is also important to know what context are we using the term "critic,” the constructive criticisms such as good advice or timely feedback is crucial to our advancement either individually or at the business scope. Not to have critics could make your path easy, but you might not be able to explore your true potential. However, pay more attention to those destructive criticisms with negative intentions, remember the old saying: Not everything shining is the gem, and applying wisdom to handle them in a positive and intelligent way.


Digital transformation is a journey, compared to the change, TRANSFORMATION is definitely the more ambitious sounding term, and the organization’s digitalization is like the treasure hunting journey to discover those hidden gems and create value from it. It is about discovering the new path to take the adventure for exploring the new possibilities, better ways to do things, refine those raw gems into the differentiated advantage, as well as improve the business maturity with accelerated speed.

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