Cross-school of ...

Digital businesses today are more like the organic living thing keeps growing, rather than the mechanical system keeps spinning. 

Businesses across the vertical sectors are on the journey of digital transformation. The traditional management based on reductionist philosophy is no longer fitting for the business dynamics full of uncertainty and complexity. Digital management is fundamentally an iterative cycle to design, build, scale and optimize business competency and achieve desired effects under specified performance standards and conditions. The business management needs to gain the multitude of digital perspectives and apply cross domain management styles to empower people, enforce iterative communication, and harness cross-functional collaboration to make continuous improvement, deliver better business results and unleash the full digital potential of the organization.

Cross school of thinking: Traditional managers often practice silo or linear thinking to operate inside-out for achieving business efficiency. But the digital era upon us is about choice, innovation and people-centricity. Highly effective managers apply two schools of thinking- reflective thinking and predictive thinking at sync to learn lessons from the past, understand the current state, and envision the future of the business. Leverage multidimensional thinking to make wise decisions and take smart actions. They ponder around: How successful of business strategy execution? What are smart actions they can take for competing to win today? How will such actions help to compete and win going forward. If actions didn’t get expected results for the long run, is it because the action is not aligned with the strategy of the company or it’s a tactical activity to drive short-term results but perhaps it dilutes the equity of the brand the company wants to build.

Digital ecosystems are complex systems, behaving by way of interactions among the various constituents. The analogy to digital thinking shift is about transforming thinking from linear to nonlinear, from binary thinking to Systems Thinking, etc. Business managers can leverage the integral thinking of analytics and synthesis for bringing an awareness of an entire digital ecosystem, and understanding how the change to any part of that system impacts the other parts of the system and the whole. Cross school of thinking helps to avoid unconscious bias, overcome silo or rigid polarity, practice mindful and high-influential leadership cohesively.

Cross-school innovation management: Innovation is the most desired change. Because innovation management in today’s business world has become increasingly complex in nature. It shouldn’t be a few random efforts, but a systematic discipline with the right dose of innovation theories mixed with the right set of best and next innovation practices. If the innovation theory is sound, then it can help the innovation practice achieve repeatability of outcome.

Theory = thinking. Practice = doing. Theory and practice are interactive and interdependent and they are inextricably linked. There is tension between applying innovation theories and experimenting with the next innovation practices. Generally speaking, innovation practices preceded theory, but then theory evolved and was used to instruct and modify practices. The cross school of innovation management enables more meaningful dots connecting, initiating and accelerating innovation cycles smoothly.

Cross school performance management: Performance management is about defining key performance indicators, managing and measuring performance to achieve tangible results. Business value is not just about financial results, but including customer value, culture value, brand value, etc. Terminology differences are a rough spot. Each 'school' of performance management uses particular terms in specific contexts to standardize their use and mean the same thing to all practitioners within that school. So cross school performance management needs to simplify, tailor the right approach to capture the business results objectively.

The “across schools” practitioners can speak different languages, each sees the world through their practices and manages change differently, but to achieve common goals, they need to communicate and collaborate, abstract quintessential, clarify the misused terms like 'goal', objective, measure, 'KPI' via multilingual conversations. It takes collaborative efforts across the entire business scope to streamline processes, keep information flow seamlessly and achieve measurable business results.

The reductionism has fueled industrialization. However, now we are moving into the hyperconnected digital economy, business leaders can't just sit back and apply yesterday’s techniques to today's problems. Digital businesses today are more like the organic living thing keeps growing, rather than the mechanical system keeps spinning. To break down old school silos of thoughts and traditional management, visionary leadership, cross-functional communication, collaboration, transparency, etc, are the keys to breaking down the perceptions and realities of the existing or emerging issues and harness interdisciplinary management disciplines.

Posted in: Digital Maturity,Innovation,Mindshift