The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO” 5/27/2016

Blogging is not about writing, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom.

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.3 million page views with 2800+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Here is the weekly insight about digital leadership, IT Management, and Talent Management.

The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO”  5/27/2016

• Is Digital Leadership Constructively Disruptive: Many think digital is the age of innovation. Digital is a disruption with rapidly increasing speed and hyperconnectivity to break down silos and rigid hierarchy. Digitalization implies the full-scale changes in the way business is conducted so that simply adopting a new digital technology may be insufficient. You have to transform the company's underlying processes, cultures, and organization as a whole with adjusted digital speed. Otherwise, companies may begin a decline from its previous high performance. Digital border is not made of sharp lines, but cursive dots need to be widely connected to spark the next level of innovation. And in order to lead more effectively, does a digital leader have to be constructively disruptive?

• Three Silo Effects to Stifle IT Innovation: Forward-looking organizations are reimagining the digital potential of IT and reinventing IT reputation from a cost center to an innovation engine. However, the majority of IT organizations still get stuck at the lower level of maturity, running as a siloed function. Despite the mountain of evidence pointing the detrimental effects of these silos, they still seem to be quite common in the organization. What are the root causes to silos? Are silos a mere product of organizational design? Or is their nature tied to human nature? What are silo effects which stifle innovation, and downgrade IT effectiveness and performance? What would be some ideas to assist in breaking down silos in an organization where they are present?

• Three Aspects to Enhance IT Value Proposition Forward-look IT organizations work hard to reinvent IT reputation as a value creator and innovation engine. IT is an enabler of current and future capabilities of both the organization and its ecosystem. IT needs to deliver value to the organization in order to help the business build competency and implement business strategy. Thus, CIOs need to maximize IT value via pursuing strategic, innovative, and tactical alignment and integration with the business. Maximizing IT value really means a lot: from enabling business strategy via capability to adapting to the changes via agility and flexibility; from revenue growth to business resilience, from “doing more with innovation,” to “doing more with less” (efficiency). Here are three aspects to enhance IT value proposition.

• What are Common Change Pitfalls? Organizations today are more dynamic than ever, there are Big’C’ changes such as digital transformation, merging organizations with overlapping or duplicate functions, and little ‘c’ changes such as implementing a new software tool, reorganizing a department, improving a new process to do things more efficiently. Big ‘C’ Change requires buy-in via digging through the ‘big why’ behind the change, sets success criteria and to hold managers accountable,; and little’c’ change needs to have a step-wise approach on ‘how’ to make change more efficiently. Still, more than two-thirds of Change Management effort fail to achieve the expectation, what are the pitfalls on the way?

• The Agility Impact on Digital Transformation Agile is both a philosophy and methodology to run a digital organization. The purpose of agile is to provide value to the business by delivering a product that is beneficial to end users, either internal or external customers. All Agile methodologies define a set of best practices, but true agility is much more than the practices defined in a given methodology. Agility involves the whole ecosystem, including all the stakeholders, from the customer's requirement to the delivery. Agility plays a significant impact on digital transformation. It's to change what the organization currently values in regards to process: Look at transformation goal as more often an enterprise strategic decision for the organization to achieve goals related to financial, market etc. And common understanding is an essential input towards this transformation.

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 the 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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