Monday, April 8, 2019

The Monthly “Digital Maturity” Book Tuning: “Self-Managing” as the Digital Theme Apr. 2019

Digital organizations are like the living systems that can self-manage, self-adapt, and self-renew in thriving as high-performance businesses.

Digital makes a significant impact on every aspect of the business from people, process to technology, both horizontally and vertically. The digitalization flattens the organizational hierarchy and blurs the functional, organizational and geographical borders in the business ecosystem. It is like the gigantic puzzle with many misplaced pieces, you have to put them all in the right places to discover the real meaning and unleash its full potential. You cannot make a true digital paradigm shift without an in-depth understanding of the digital interconnectivity and embracing the multitude of digital maturity.





“Self-Managing” as the Digital Theme


Three Refinement to Shape High-Mature Digital Organization Change is multifaceted with increasing speed and velocity. Digitalization is the radical change, Change Management is all about balancing the main elements impacting change such as people, strategies, processes/procedures and IT, refining business success factors to practice digital management disciplines relentlessly.

The Spectrum of Self-Organizing and Self-Managing Self-organization comes from chaos theory. Living systems are self-organizing—there is no genetic manager. Human systems are living systems, therefore, human systems are self-organizing, by definition. The problem is we are taught to be managed out of this natural state of being, by well-meaning people who believe outside control to deliver more effective results at industrial age. Such a command-control management style is the root cause of many business issues such as low employee engagement, lack of innovation, 'toxic culture,' etc. However, forward-thinking organizations today are on the journey of digital transformation, what's the optimal digital management style? There's a whole spectrum between minimally self-organizing and fully self-managing. If the organization were larger, some of the management burdens would likely be shared between the teams. but how much is right? That depends on the context.

How to Run a Digital Organization with Autonomy The business world is moving from a static, siloed, and mechanic industrial mood to the dynamic, fluid, and innovative digital mentality. Because the speed of change is accelerating, so the attempts to solve the existing challenges through the lens of the old paradigm continue failing. The new paradigm that is emerging is a digital organization that is more responsive, holistic, vibrant, self-driving, and above all enhances and supports the living organization and the dignity of the creative human spirit. More specifically, what is the digital way of running an energetic and autonomous digital IT organization?

The Self-Renewal Digital Organization? Digital transformation is rarely a straight line. It is all about interaction, incrementalism, and innovation. The journey is far more important than the destination. Digital organizations have to adapt to the continuous changes and are able to reconfigure the organizational structure and change their own behaviors for their adaptation to environmental changes and business dynamic. Digital organizations are like the living systems that can self-manage, self-adapt, and self-renew in thriving as high-performance businesses.

The Organizational Autonomy and Digital Transformation? Digital disruptions are inevitable, and digital transformation is unstoppable. Organizations shouldn’t just respond to them in a reactive way. The new paradigm that is emerging is a digital organization that is more responsive, holistic, vibrant, self-driving, innovative, and above all enhances and supports the living organization. In fact, autonomy becomes one of the most critical characteristics for digital organizations to thrive as well as the symbol of achieving high-level digital maturity.


The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 2.8 million page views with about #5500th blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The “Digital Master book series includes 25 books to share insight from the multidimensional digital lens and perceive the multi-faceted impact the digital era upon us is making to the businesses and society. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking and innovating the new ideas; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.

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