Sunday, January 13, 2019

Three “Digital Fit” Practices to Run High Mature Organization

Organizational fit, manifested in the collective mindset, accepted and expected behavior, has a way of making progress, fostering innovation, neutralizing difference, and improving business maturity.

Digital is all about the exponential growth of information and the rapid speed of changes. From the business management perspective, one of the good reasons for change is to keep the organization fit, and a fitting business has better changeability and higher performance. Digital organizations need to keep both the business balance cycle and growth cycle, develop the best and next practices to “run, grow, and transform.”




Blend in: Digital workforce is multigenerational, multi-cultural and multi-devicing. Digital management is multidimensional. There are different kinds of rationality that apply to different dimensions of corporate management. There is physical and technical rationality. There is emotional and psychological rationality, and there is mental or spiritual rationality, just to name a few. Each arena has its own rules and norms. Thus, digital management needs to take multiple lenses to view things from a different angle and understand things contextually, in order to run a viable business. Either individually or as the team, learn how to do the basics well, such as listening, asking questions, handling conflicts or constructively blending in the diverse viewpoints to deal with the multi-logical situation in order to make effective decisions. Digital organizations have so many moving parts, require dynamic planning, and taking a multidisciplinary approach to solving either existing or emerging business problems effectively. It is critical to building the culture of inclusiveness, orient people and make them aware of the diversity in their team or organization, and build up the highly innovative and high-performance team by blending cognitive difference, diverse background, expertise, and experience. Create a digital business context in which people are empowered and respected, they can collaborate to bridge the digital divides, streamline idea flow and achieve digital fluency.

Dig in: Fundamentally, running a business is an iterative problem-solving continuum. However, if trying to fix the symptom, the real problem will keep coming back. Trying to fix the wrong cause of a problem will waste time and resources, increase anxiety and decrease productivity. Thus, never assume you know what the problem is. It's worthwhile considering why things are the way they are for, in doing so, you are challenging automatic assumptions that something needs 'fixing.' A solution is nothing if the problem is not perceived. Therefore, creating awareness of the problem is the first step to making a solution be understood and accepted. It’s important to leverage critical thinking for digging into root causes and apply Systems Thinking for problem-framing. “Digging in” takes the logical scenario to diagnose the real problem by asking big “WHY” questions; peeling back the layers to find the root causes, understanding the interconnected relationship between different problems, as well as figuring out potential solutions. It’s about gaining business insight which takes both reasoning and creativity, logic and intuition, the power of acute observation and deduction, questioning, connection, penetration, perception, understanding, and discernment.


Fit in: Either individually or at the business level, digital fit means to well balance the fit (growth mindset, learning ability, good attitude, and accepted behavior) and misfit (independent thinking and creativity). Different organizations perhaps set varying criteria to evaluate “digital fit.” The point is how to make intelligent judgments to ensure the RIGHT people with the RIGHT capabilities to solve the RIGHT problems. It’s much easier to say than doing because it involves multiple intelligent assessment processes to evaluate people and problems. Although there are many attributes that may influence how to put the right people in the right position to solve the right problems. The culture of the organization begins at the top with the leadership. The question is: How would you define the right people? How do you define wrong, average, mediocre, good, or great people? The fit is not equal to compliance. Fit or “Misfit" is contextual. the organizational fit is the good balance of the “misfit” thinking and fitting attitude. Generally speaking, a “digital fit” person is self-aware, self-motivated, self-directed, self-inspired, purposeful, and creative; they are dedicated, have proficient knowledge, focus on problem-solving and innovating, keep their energy flowing and influence the surrounding in a positive way. Digital leaders should ask themselves and others: Can you make a sound judgment about the people and problems? Are you enforcing the stereotype or status quo; or are you exemplifying contemporary digital leadership - being the change agent, empowering outliers, encouraging creativity and advocating innovation? Select the right people who possess the advanced mind with proficient knowledge and problem-solving skills to move your business in the right direction and accelerate digital transformation.

Organizational fit, manifested in the collective mindset, accepted and expected behavior, has a way of making progress, fostering innovation, neutralizing difference, improving business effectiveness, efficiency, performance, and maturity. Highly mature organizations not just apply the most advanced digital technologies to their business, more strategically important, they need to focus on keeping digital fit and building long-term differentiated business competencies.

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