Thursday, February 25, 2016

The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO” 2/26/2016

11:09 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Blog the way to the future!

The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO” 2/26/2016

How to Maximize IT Value Business paradigm is shifting from the industrial era to an information/digital era, IT plays a pivotal role in such a transformation: the business needs IT to deliver services / solutions that drive productivity and effectiveness; the business wants fit-for-purpose IT solutions that enable them to be efficient in delivering services and products to their market at the right cost to deliver profits to the shareholders; the business needs IT to provide better information as a nervous system to the right people for making the right decision and improving profitability; the businesses are also looking for IT to develop new innovative practices for complexity management, data transformation, quality improvement and agile construction etc. But, how can IT meet so many expectations and maximize IT value to achieve long-term business goals?

Three Principles for Communication Effectiveness : Communication is always important, although it is the means to the end, not the end itself. The end is for problem solving and idea brainstorming. A great communicator doesn’t need to be “the everyone’s cup of tea,” but in order to communicate effectively and avoid the miscommunication symptoms such as “lost in translation,” you have to follow the right set of principles and deliver the message persuasively and creatively.

Five Traits of High-Quality IT Professionals People are always the weakest link in any organization, this is particularly true for IT organizations due to the changing nature and complexity of technologies. IT skills gap is a significant challenge facing IT leaders today, the common complaints from talent managers include: people do not have the right competencies; they can’t find the right skills to fill the positions or their non-IT partners do not understand IT, etc. Are such problems an organization specific, or systematic? what are exactly the skills gaps and what are the resulting symptoms? What are the emergent traits to be high-quality IT professionals regardless of the specific skillset, how to reinvent "IT geek" stereotype and build a healthy and positive IT culture to catalyzing innovation?

Agility vs. Flexibility: Agility is the ability of a business to adapt rapidly and cost efficiently in response to changes in the business environment. Agile provides greater flexibility and it requires great discipline especially at team member level. Great power comes with great reasonability.

A Leadership Journey from Good to Great. The reason the great leadership being so rare is that people are more often conditioned throughout education to be followers, to conform, only one right answer, etc. The industrial age required followers, those, including some being put in a leadership position, that would just do their jobs and not to question. However, we are not in the industrial age any longer. On one hand, now at a digital age, there are many informal leaders - who practice professional influence via digital channels - throughout organizations, industry and beyond. More digital leaders are emerging via their power of positive influence; not the title of status quo. On the other hand, digital also raises the bar to be a great leader, because everything becomes so transparent, leadership is no longer just about a few spotlight moments, but a journey of continuous learning and delivery; leadership is also no long only about what you talk, what you act, but about what you think - the thought processes can be much easily tracked down via your digital footprint, so how can you take an ongoing leadership journey from good to great?

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, high 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.

Three Questions to Evaluate a Person’s Perception

11:06 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

To put simply, we are what we think of.

Perception is the way you understand someone or something. It is as we see, observe and experience as defined by our mental "band-pass filters." Our mind notices and recognizes some things, but may not do the same for some other things. Our perception is what makes up our worldview, and how do we articulate and convey from what we “see” or understand. Perception is one's interpretation of the reality. So it is very subjective and varies from person to person. How to evaluate a person’s perception, though?

What’s your “default thought process and thinking style"? Are you an analytical or synthetic thinker? An intuitive or a logical thinker? Are you a critical, independent thinker or a conventional thinker (following conventional wisdom) Etc. To put simply, we are what we think of. Perception is based on one’s thought processes which are influenced by one’s thinking style, cognitive understanding, and knowledge level. As a matter of fact, the way we think has much of an effect on how we deal with problems and turn out in our life (though many other things do as well). Some examples might be, who we surround ourselves with, how hard we try to do certain things, whether or not we're repetitive, the communication styles, the career preferences, or the hobbies and entertainment choice, etc.

Are you often make a fair judgment based on your perception, or the opposite is true? Our perception is, in turn, an interpretation based on our conditioning or beliefs etc, leading us to judge others, all of which may be positive or negative, depending on one's perception. In effect, our perception is always flawed, it is not absolutely true, but it is what we believe to be true. Most of the people like to label thing, perhaps via subconscious cognition. Labeling is not necessarily the problem, it’s misjudging that is problematic. Labels can be bad or misleading, but they aren't inherently so. It's the judging part that is problematic. It's when a label carries negative connotations, and drives bipolar or extreme thinking that might cause the problems and make a misjudgment. The challenge is to try and not judge something or someone as good or bad, or wrong or right, or black or white. And everybody is different because everyone has a different mindset, character, life goals, priority setting, personality, living styles and time management skills. etc.

Are you a digital literate with a continuous learning habit to consciously update your perceptions for things you are not sure or people you do not have an in-depth understanding? Because out of dated perception is like time glue that keeps you still while the rest of the world moves on which creates another problem- resentment and more negative thinking. Perception only affects how you interact with the world. One’s perception matters because it affects on how you are going to respond to “what happened.” What "really" happened is irrelevant. It is only your perception of what happened that is relevant, and therefore how you are going to respond to "what happened." Nowadays, information and knowledge are only clicks away, the digital illiterate is not the one who cannot read or write, but the one who can’t learn, delearn and relearn.

Everyone has the bias, even the eldest still has very limited life experience, and the wisest only understands the tip of the iceberg of the world. Perception is the way our eyes see the world. It can be shaped by our biased thinking and also by the environment around us. The reality is the result of what a group of people agrees to call real. Perception differs, according to what an individual or a group is able to understand this common reality. Having learning attitude allows you gaining cognizant of the different perceptions of the world, and having gratitude allows you being more positive and gives you the energy to overcome obstacles to first understand, and then being understood.

The Failure Point: Five Perils of Changes Management

11:02 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

If you make change part of your operation routine and your DNA - and then change becomes an ongoing business capability.

Change is the only constant, and the speed of change is increasing rapidly. Organizations large or small spend the significant time and resource to deal with the big changes such as radical digital transformation or small changes such as adopting a new version of the software. And statistically, more than 70% of Change Management effort fails to achieve the expected result, what are the perils of Change Management, and how to manage change more effectively?

Silo mentality: Silo mentality is a common challenge for lots of organizations. Even businesses take steps into the hyper-connected digital world, many business managers still apply old silo management mindsets to new ways of organizing, and this legacy of the old economy limits many 'networked' organizations. Are silos a mere product of organizational design? Or is it tied to a deeper humankind's nature? In today's volatile economy, nothing impedes progress more than protective silos which are simply a form of bureaucratic amorphous mass designed to preserve the status quo. Despite the mountain of evidence pointing the detrimental effects of these silos, they still seem to be quite common in organizations. In essence, with silo mentality, organizations lose their collaborative advantage as they are being over managed and under led, remain disconnected, hoard knowledge and power within silos, and do not have the competence to collaborate in the long term. When leaders of an organization place an emphasis on building a culture of cross-functional collaboration, the opportunity for silos to work against the alignment of all departments towards the goals and objectives of the organization is diminished.

Fixing the symptom, not curing the root causes: Often times, the management teams have a tendency to try to fix a symptom which results from the actual cause of the problem. When they do this, they throw good money after bad. They allow problems to grow under the surface, out of sight, out of mind, until it’s too late. The company is trying to fix a symptom, not the real problem which is stifling staff creativity, communication, and productivity. Until the underlying problem is addressed, the symptom or result will continue to return. So trying to fix the wrong cause of a problem will waste time and resources, increase anxiety, and leave industries full of opportunists that see short-term rewards by offering solutions that address symptoms without digging into the real problems. A better solution that crosses all industries is to keep peeling back the layers to find the root cause via asking five WHYs or taking other systematic approaches - to discover the real cause, and address it, and to make change sustainable.

Change inertia: As the saying's going, "people don't resist change, they resist being changed." Prevention of "R"(resistance) is what most people call "good leadership." There are two types of resistances are expected: personal level and the structural layer, and both need to be addressed effectively and efficiently. If someone is "resisting" change, what's that about? Are they perhaps interested in "certainty," "stability," "think things are on the right path" or is it something else? It's a good idea to get clarity on what the "resistance" is all about and look closer to the reality of what's going on. Change is inevitable, and the only differences are the reasons and goals behind the change and its scope, depth, and breadth (why to change, what you need to accomplish, what does it consist of and what does it impact). Overall, good anticipation in planning is key for a smoother execution, while over-communication, regular updates, and plan adjustments will enhance your chances of success.

Multifaceted complexity: Organizations "become complex," not for their own amusement, they do it to respond to environments more proactively. There are many shades of corporate complexity, some are desired, such as design or connectivity, others are not. The self-diagnosis questions include: Is there a selection of complexity dynamics at play which therefore leads one to think that organizations are becoming more complex, which leads better agility or less? Are they increasing in hierarchical complexity because they need to coordinate more cross-functionally? Are they increasing in information density complexity because of advance in technology and information processing? Are they increasing in network complexity because of the number of nodes and connections in the organizational environment? Within the organizational context, it seems to be useful to separate complication from complexity. The complicated things can be simplified in a certain way, but the desired complexity can become business’s competency because the competitors cannot copy such capabilities easily. The very effort of Change Management is to enforce the fair complexity and eliminate redundancy and complication.

Ineffective change leadership: The leaders need to be the Change Agent to walk the talk, to set the right tone for others to follow. Successful transformations require leaders to over-communicate the transformation vision. Unclear communication for vision, goals, the need for change, benefits of change and each one's role in the change is a huge mistake. And now, social and enterprise collaboration tools do provide effective and interesting digital platforms to make change more tangible and measurable. Change needs to have reasons: Remember no one like change especially when one can not identify the justification for the change. Top leaders' sponsorship for change is absolutely helpful, and change also must be adopted and led by all of the first line managers if others are to follow your lead. Only through effective leadership, the change management can be well designed and practiced systematically.

There are both promises and perils in Change Management. The promises of effective changes often lead the organization to the next level of business agility and maturity. The perils of Change Management we discuss here can waste a lot of resources and cause a lot of pains. Change cannot be just another thing that needs to be accomplished. It has to be woven into communication, process, and action of the organization. In today's over-complex work environment. It takes a lot of energy to break old habits and outdated thought processes, but change is happening at a more rapid pace. If you make change part of your operation routine and your DNA - and then change becomes easier to deal with, and even become an ongoing business capability.

How to Leverage IT to Handle Digital Intensity?

11:26 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

In order to run with digital speed, IT needs to be in a more proactive mode and handle the multidimensional digital intensity seamlessly.

Organizations large and small are heading to digital transformation; IT has been pushed out of its comfort zone as a back office and become a frontrunner in business transformation. Is IT ready or what’s the competitive advantage for IT in such a transformation? Can IT play a critical role in handling the digital intensity, and ultimately become the business catalyst to drive changes?

Strategy execution intensity: A finger without a hand is akin to a strategy without execution. A strategy is a planned direction to act - without implementation, it is not complete and is probably someone's idea that got lost in the mail. IT is one of the most critical components to building business capabilities which underpin strategy execution. However, most companies are lacking a holistic strategy with IT strategy as an integral component on how they use technology to drive their business, and it's the information management strategy that most often goes under-managed. Strategic planning and execution are a continuous cycle of organizational adaptation to a changing world. One of the factors for strategies to fail at the implementation phase is its complexity. IT is the very tool to manage it and there is great value in collaborative technologies that allow for more democratic decision-making and increased collaboration and information sharing across functional departments. Digital technologies can also be very helpful in strategic analysis, and handle strategy execution intensity in a structural way.

Agile intensity: Forward-looking organizations are shifting from “doing Agile” to “being Agile,” intensively. There are many things that need to be done to make a transition to a more agile way of working. Changes in the sizing and structuring of teams, their decision making, and team members’ levels of accountability and responsibility are just a few of the paradigm shifts you will encounter throughout the transition to Agile. Overall, the mindset change is important up-front: There is a difference in agile thinking vs. conventional thinking, that behaviors which make you a hero in one culture may make you a pariah in the other. So the agile mentality is being “fearless”: And when fear is a driver for taking decisions, the next step is to use blame when things go wrong-- independently on the goodness of the behavior of the people involved. In many large-scale transitions to Agile development, fear has always been one of the major obstacles to change--fear of failure, fear of loss of control, etc. Hence, from doing agile to being agility, the digital intensity needs to be handled in the mindset level.

Innovation intensity: Digital opens the new chapter of innovation, it is no longer “nice to have,” but “must have” business capability. Innovation is similar to as "the sum is larger than its parts." At today's modern organizations, variety, complexity, diversification, and collaboration are the characteristics of the digital innovation ecosystem. Innovation often implemented via technology is one main instrument to implement your company´s strategy. If you really innovate, you will differentiate your company at the same time. Innovation is costly most of the time, that is why you should really concentrate innovation on the main issues of your strategy - intensify innovation with focus. As you innovate, you might find helpful changes to your strategy. Further, organizations can no longer rely on a single individual or team to drive innovation. This is largely due to the fact that innovating in today’s digital world has become increasingly complex in nature. Innovation is intensified via complexity syndromes and the cause-effect scenario: Innovation will happen when people are given free space to be creative without rigid structures and without holding them back. In business, complexity both drives innovation and also hinders it. When a business becomes overly complex and people get frustrated and annoyed by not being able to accomplish things easily, this drives the search for simpler concepts and methods, which is the need to take the innovative initiative. At the same time, however, over-complexity in a business may be hiding simple and innovative ways to achieve things because the people involved just don't get the time to step back from the complexity and hence, they continue to follow the old routine to do the things, lack of the out of box creativity. Either way, IT is an enabler and the tool for innovation of the business.

In order to run with digital speed, IT needs to be in a more proactive mode to not only solve the immediate problems for the bottom line but also handle more critical business issues which can directly impact business top line growth, and handle the multidimensional digital intensity seamlessly; IT talent should be not only tactical but also strategic, and IT is on the way to drive change, catalyze business growth and improve organizational efficiency, effectiveness and agility.

Five Traits of High Quality IT Professionals

11:23 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

IT should reinvent a healthy and professional culture via hiring the right people to the right position and updating talent management practices.

People are always the weakest link in any organization, this is particularly true for IT organizations due to the changing nature and complexity of technologies. IT skills gap is a significant challenge facing IT leaders today, the common complaints from talent managers include: people do not have the right competencies; they can’t find the right skills to fill the positions or their non-IT partners do not understand IT, etc. Are such problems an organization specific, or systematic? what are exactly the skills gaps and what are the resulting symptoms? What are the emergent traits to be high-quality IT professionals regardless of the specific skills, how to reinvent "IT geek" stereotype and build a healthy and positive IT culture for catalyzing innovation?

Cultivate “Thinking Habit”: Make thinking a habit is to compare, contrast, connect, create, choose with confidence! The technology keeps changing, and the information is overloading. Hence, IT professionals should be in a “continuously thinking mode,” not just doing something mechanically. For example, we all take shortcuts, make assumptions, and repeat erroneous generalizations. Therefore, Critical Thinking is important. Critical Thinking has more to do with how you process information, which is a complex mental activity that encompasses all aspects of one's cognitive styles, and the skills associated with critical thinking include exploring a problem from multiple perspectives, at the deeper level, it has creativity embedded in it. Analyzing the possibilities and projected outcomes provides an opportunity to apply Critical Thinking to the situation, Critical Thinking is a skill that has to be developed through a process, and continuous practices will shape it as a “Thinking Habit.” It takes dedication to be a real thinker and a high-quality IT professional, and you don't need to look like a "geek or nerd" to prove you are a profound thinker. Hence, break down the outdated stereotype and reimagine IT professional image.

Changeability and learning agility: By changing nature of technology, it’s not ok if people who are in the IT operations and think what they learned ten years back is sufficient for a lifetime. There are few and few “comfort zone” for IT professionals across industry sectors these days, because the speed of change is increasing, the knowledge life cycle is significantly shortened and the information is only a few clicks away at the age of digitalization. Also, the project development and management cycle is shortened based on Agile philosophy, and there are fewer multi-year projects, more customer-centric solutions with faster delivery. It might sound like a cliche, the trick is understanding that moving out of a comfort zone leads to the creation of a new comfort zone which in turn will require you to move out "of" it again. This continuous moving "out" of your comfort zone is complemented by the cycle of self-development. Top IT performers are more adaptive and learning agile, and high-quality IT professionals need to be life-learners and change agents.

Creativity: Creativity is the #1 wanted skill for the digital workforce, this is particularly true for IT professionals because technology is often the innovation driver and IT professionals are innovation harbingers. Both information and technology are not for its own sake, but to discover the new and better way to do things, it’s the means to the end. The innovators are likely to make a change to the structure for better problem solving. The way we manage structure has a marked impact on how we deal with problems and the types of solutions we envisage. The IT workplace needs to be designed to build a culture of innovation, and help employees at all levels within an organization (from leaders to front-line) understand and develop their creative capacity to solve problems and exploit opportunities in new and innovative ways, the tool utilizes cutting-edge narrow band psychometrics to diagnose, assess and train the core four factors of creativity namely: cognitive processes, personality, motivation, and confidence..

Problem-solving: While there are certainly a lot of IT people out there, there are a much smaller percentage who are really the "go-to" people, the ones who can work independently, have excellent problem-solving skills, are disciplined, have a "customer focus," and communicate well. Many IT specialists do not have enough knowledge and understanding about their businesses or customers, very few know their business’s strategy, and can’t map their daily tasks to the business’s strategic goal. Thus, it is no surprise that sometimes, instead of solving problems, they probably add more unnecessary complexity to the already tangled processes or products, to create the new problems. A high quality IT professional needs to be an excellent problem solver, who has the breadth of understanding of the business, the depth of technique expertise, and the creativity to see things from different angles to manage complexity and solve the problems in a systematic way, and the high-performing team with complementary skills can solve the complex problems collectively.

The capability portfolio: The business becomes more complex and dynamic, especially IT organizations, often the single-handed skill is not sufficient to adapt to changes. Just like IT is composed of hardware and software, IT professionals need to have both hard skills and soft competency, and the competency of high-quality IT professionals is a combination of capabilities with a focus. Each of these same capabilities may be combined in different fashions to yield multiple competencies, to build your professional capability portfolio. From the IT talent management perspective, there exists a stereotype about the skills set an individual is perceived to possess. But in reality, there can be more or even less than expected. There are talent arenas such as synthetic capability, not very specific skills, can't be easily analyzed and hence, a recruiter fails in fitting right person to the job. They might even sometimes reject the correct person for the job based on the same stereotyped perception. From accumulating working experience (do you have X years experience or one-year experience X times) to sharpening linear skillset to building the nonlinear, but cohesive capability portfolio, IT professionals can improve digital proficiency and maturity.

IT stereotype is real, and IT skills gap is a reality. However, sometimes, the gaps people usually pick are not root causes they are symptoms of outdated talent management practices. It’s important to define the updated competency model, assess the talent's overall capability to solve problems, strike the right balance of hard and soft skills, learning capability, character, dedication, communication and energy within the teams. Getting the balance right is a must. Through recognizing the truly high-quality IT professional (either high performer or high potential), IT can build a healthy culture to hire the right people to the right position, also building a high-performance team is at the heart of what talent manager should do and choose the right balance of team members is, as we all know, critical as well.

The CIO’s Digital Agenda: How to Handle these IT Dilemmas to Run a Balanced IT?

11:21 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Modern IT has paradox nature, and contemporary CIOs are "Chief Paradox Officer."

IT Management is a strange animal, in that the capabilities are there, the data is there - but the motivations are often confused. Technology drives changes nowadays, but IT is often considered the function slower to change with “controlling mentality.” IT tends to measure itself against trivial things IT considers important but are often less important and impactful through the business lens. More importantly, how to deal with the management dilemmas in running a balanced IT to improve the overall organizational maturity.

How to Handle IT Dilemmas to Run a Balanced IT?

IT Transformation Debate: Shall IT Lead or Follow: More often than not, technology is the catalyst for driving business change and digital transformation, however, in most of the companies, IT is still perceived as an order taker and support function, and most of IT organizations get stuck at the lower level of maturity for functional alignment or enabler. So IT is at a crossroad: Should IT lead or follow? Should IT leadership rock the boat or just keep it afloat? And how to run digital IT with high speed and agility?

Shall a CIO be a General Manager of IT or a SME of all IT Domains? Today’s CIOs have multiple roles to play and take broader leadership responsibilities in transforming their organizations. Should a CIO be a general manager of IT or a subject matter expert (SME) of all IT domains?

Agile Dilemma: are Managers Happy, Developers are Unhappy or the Other Way Around Agile has emerged as the mainstream project management philosophy and methodology, does it make managers happy, developers unhappy, or the other way around, or ideally, can it make everyone happy as a fountain of improvement, interaction and incremental?

CIO’s Dilemma: Buy vs. Build There are many variables and considerations to the decision upon ‘build versus buy’. This decision is unique to each organization, industry, and application. There are pros and cons to each but regardless of which decision is taken, IT leaders need to make the case to successfully bring quality and speed with IT deliveries. Here are a few angles to see it through in order to make the right decisions.

IT Dilemma: Is Customer Always RIGHT: IT has always gone through this dilemma of "customers is always right" vs. "rational approach in designing a solution". If IT always see this as two conflicting forces pulling in opposite directions, you are most likely to get caught and always fall short of expectations. So what’s the right attitude in the face of such customer dilemma?

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.3 million page views with 2500+ 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. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking; 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 your voice, deepen your digital footprints, and match your way for human progression.

Three Questions to Assess a Person’s Intelligence

11:17 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Whether someone is "intelligent" or not depends entirely on what you are asking them to accomplish with their brain.

"Intelligence" is from Latin word “intellego” -Inter-lego: Bind together, read between the lines, or connect the dots. Intelligence has been defined in many different ways such as in terms of one's capacity for logic, abstract thought, understanding, self-awareness, communication, learning, emotional knowledge, memory, planning, creativity and problem solving. Intelligence is indeed multidimensional, so how to assess a person’s “intelligence”?

What is your raw intelligence? Generally speaking, everybody has certain “raw intelligence,” independent of their formal education or accumulated experience – an inherent intelligence and an area they're good at or even excel. All humans have their innate capabilities or intelligence: Just like a kind of tablet, one already completed and preserved inside you. Whether they are aware of it and can express it, or not, is a different question. Intelligence is fluid, like fountainhead flows within you, moving out. And such raw intelligence, just like the rough diamond can be sharpened via continuous learning, to shape the differentiated capability which can be both useful to ourselves and benefit others as well.

What makes a person intellectual? In order to get "intelligence," a brain (a dynamic, evolving network of interconnected neurons) must have a certain minimum amount of complexity (complexity is a function of structure, the topology of that network of neurons, and entropy). What makes a person intellectual is the use of his/her intellect, which is the rational, analytical mind. When things are perceived intellectually, then they are looked at from the conscious mind and ordinary awareness, which means a quantifiable, logical, external perspective involving a lot of mental "doing" = thinking, comparing, concluding, reasoning and planning, knowledgeable, articulate, and curious. It's how you think, and how others view your thoughts! Then, you need the intellectual integrity to use that knowledge wisely rather than for your own ends.

How to apply intelligence to solving complex problems? It is our connectedness to the world around us that makes whatever intelligence we have truly useful to ourselves and to others; connected, by a sort of resonance between our cognitive and affective dimensions and the actual world we co-inhabit with those around us. The Intelligence is mainly comprised of two parts. The first part is the brain ability to preliminarily understand the extent of any problem or condition. The people with what being referred as highly intelligent have a strong aptitude to understand the "complexity" of the given problem. It's like a rating scale of complexity. Some people get the whole picture as opposed to others that can't seem to get a grasp on the problem. Now the second part of intelligence is the brain’s ability to call on as many neural circuits and work with as many areas in the brain it needs to solve the given problem.

Intelligence is the quick and clear perception of any situation, plus ability to adjust to any circumstances. It is contextual and multidimensional. Whether someone is "intelligent" or not depends entirely on what you are asking them to accomplish with their brain. Intelligence is continuing with life no matter what, and never allow what you can't do interfere with what you can.

Five Aspects in Closing IT Gaps

11:14 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

IT can be an integral part of the business, by identifying the blind spots and close the gaps.

Organizations large and small are on the journey of digital transformation. The overly rigid business hierarchy with command-and-control management style came through the industrial revolution with the perspective that everything, including organizations, can be viewed as mechanical in nature. In the "Birth of the Chaotic Age" with explosive information abundance and the dawn of digitalization, it makes a very strong case that command-and-control organizations with bureaucratic culture are inherently incapable of handling, processing, managing the sheer volume of information we are faced with. IT as the information steward of the business, how to close the gaps, and help to build a hyper-connected and highly innovative digital organization?

Be aware of blind spots: “Blind Spot” is due to a lack of sufficient resources or silo thinking. The senior leader should have the ability to see the big picture, to complement the team’s viewpoint. Most teams operate with an incomplete and relatively small view of the world. IT often gets criticized because it does not deliver value to the business and its focus is not on the business where it should be. Many companies are trying to do more with less. Unfortunately, the IT department seems to be one of the first teams to be impacted by any budget cuts, and many IT organizations get stuck at the lower level of maturity as an order taker. This results in a team that has to spend all their time to “keep the light on” rather than focusing on developing STRATEGIES that advance the business and give them a competitive edge in the marketplace. If IT departments are going to move up the maturity curve, they have to be aware of the variety of blind spot (either in performance management or talent management, etc.) They must alleviate themselves of the mundane, daily tasks that weigh them down. High performance cannot be achieved unless the IT department improves their act and must engage the business, not the geek in the tech tower. IT must engage the business more to avoid blind spots and bridge the gaps.

Outside - in customer viewpoint: The majority of IT organizations are pushing inside out, which could create the gaps between what the customer needs and what IT really delivers. When looking at the customer experience from the inside out, there is nothing wrong with that, because you are the ones that can change the inside. However, the outside-in view is more important, because the customer's experience is about how they encounter, observe, or undergo a company's events or stages. You layout a journey that is helpful, positive, and sharing experience with customers. They may not like, appreciate, or really care about the journey, or simply may not go through the journey in the "correct" way. If the sequence of events is based on "outside-in" data, and the end result is to transform the company or organization to increase its customer-centric maturity and build a culture to focus on creating value for their customers, then you can call it a sequence of experiences or simply a strategic plan which helps to mind the gaps and build a customer-centric IT organization.

Cognitive difference: IT talent capability/skill gaps are fact, not fiction. to bridge the gaps, it starts from the mindset. IT needs both agile generalists with business acumen and dedicated specialists with technical excellence. It's about both aptitude and attitude. It’s best to bring a group of people together with the cognitive difference such as different backgrounds, capabilities, strengths, etc. together in order to obtain such a way of divergent thinking for sparking innovation, convergent thinking for common understanding, and solving complex IT problems with flexibility. It will better go more convergent to really hone in on the "why." Once you figure out what the true problems are and ready to ideate that needs to be divergent thinking. Finally, when down-selecting ideas and eventually prototyping that would be more convergent thinking. Innovation. So, to a certain degree, the process to transform a novel idea to the business value, is a combination of divergent and convergent thinking, the systematic and synthetic processes. It all comes through bridging the cognitive difference and managing innovation in a structured way.

Change readiness: Most of the organizations today are the “sum of functions,” not yet being a cohesive whole. To close the gaps and optimize operational excellence, Change Management becomes an ongoing business continuum. Change readiness can be determined via a validated instrument, the change profile-scan. Too many organizations are mechanistic, control, and command hierarchies. If your organization fits the description, get out fast, or initiate change within. It's not the change that needs management. It's management that has to change its paternalistic view and give space to what the professionals they hired for the works. Companies don't think about change. People in companies do, from different positions. Mostly the management wants to see a different (better) result of all combined efforts. So dynamic and changing organizations cannot operate with stable unchanging people. Most people are quite willing to put the effort in to change. What they don't want is 'to be changed by others.' So let them be part of the direction, speed, and way you are heading.

Contextual understanding: The business system is complex and the organization is contextual, without contextual understanding about people, process, and technology, the blind spots and gaps are inevitable. Context aids us in understanding what’s relevant and what’s not. From a practical perspective, 'seeing' the context you are 'part' of, allows one to identify the leverage points of the system and then 'choose' the 'decisive' factors, in the attempt to achieve the set purpose. Context needs to be split into two dimensions in terms of understanding the scope - functional and physical, and a third aspect (to assist planning. risk assessment, etc.) is to understand the environment in which the "something" will be developed and then operate. Hence, to manage a high-performing IT organization or the business as a whole, IT leaders and managers need to have a contextual understanding about the interconnectivity of the business success factors underlining the surface and focus on building cohesive business capabilities in which IT as a key enabler.

At a lower maturity level, IT is aligned to support the business with a lot of gaps in between. However, when moving up to the next level of the maturity, IT can be an integral part of the business, by identifying the blind spots and close the gaps, IT can become the game-changer and innovation driver to bring the new opportunity for business growth; nonetheless, that enablement and its effectiveness can be measured and value attributed which the business recognizes and endorses. IT is the business.

Three Principles for Communication Effectiveness

11:20 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Effective communication should be authentic to touch the hearts and deep enough to connect the minds.

Communication is always important, although it is the means to the end, not the end itself. The end is for problem solving and idea brainstorming. A great communicator doesn’t need to be “the everyone’s cup of tea,” but in order to communicate effectively and avoid the miscommunication symptoms such as “lost in translation,” you have to follow the right set of principles and deliver the messages persuasively and creatively.

The authentic and candid communication to harness trust and encourage problem-solving: Lack of trust is an often overlooked barrier to communication. If communication has to develop fully and authentically, it is essential that the person communicating should also be equally aware of what he/she wants to communicate, how he/she communicates and above all ensure that he/she has communicated correctly. Either heart to heart conversation with employees or touchy-feely chats with customers, either the strategic presentations at the roundtable or the tough negotiations with vendors, the reality of messages is that they have to be "real." Though being candid doesn’t mean being rude or lack of empathy; it means to point out the issues or share the insight, but also be thoughtful to apply the good communication style and business manner skillfully. Most of the organizations today are process and control driven. Emphasis is on compliance with the result people forget to think freely. It is so important to develop an atmosphere with effective and candid communication. It is also important to foster an environment where feedback and communication are based on reality and not simply what senior management wants to hear. It is equally important to discourage unprofessional communications such as gossiping or rumor-mongering, with the very goal to make communication as the media to amplify fresh POVs, not the channel to propagate negativity.

The creative and empathetic communication to convey contextual intelligence: Communication is the tool to solve problems, and languages are the tools to make communications. Languages are whereas alphabets are compound within themselves. Symbolic representation becomes dynamic because of combinations and permutations. We can't treat language just as a system of words (and grammar) being just names of things. It means speaking fluently or articulating well are still not sufficient to have effective communication skills or being a great communicator. You need to understand the whole statement or even the complete article or books- all words together in common sense, not in their particular ratio 1:1 (meaning one name, symbol = one thing), you may say the same about metaphors. It means effective communication needs to be creative and convey contextual intelligence. Although not every great communicator is multilinguistic, being a multilinguistic absolutely helps you to be a great communicator. If you take into consideration more than one language, such as translating something from one language to another, there is not always ratio 1:1. When you tried to use some internet translators or computer programs, you would know that it doesn't work in this sense of understanding. The computational approach in some cases is failed, at least not fully mature yet. Contextual intelligence is absolutely critical to avoid "lost is translation" symptom and enhance communication effectiveness.

Strike the right balance between “Over Communication and “Less is More”: Some communication gurus advise to always “over communicate,” and others suggest about “less is more!” We live in the digital era with continuous delivery (either communication and other management practices) as a new normal. So it’s all about striking the right balance to communicate effectively and achieve the end goals. Thinking before you speak is an ongoing conscious effort. If you can develop the habit of perfecting in practicing patience and remain silent and spell/spill only when you must do think, use wisdom and logic and properly confirmed. There is a time to say and there is a way to say. There are certain things which must be said, although we must say it in a proper way. If your saying can stir the debate for innovation, or stimulate the energy for constructive criticism, and it may be worth the effort if you can express in the right way at the right time to the right audience.

Still, you don’t need to be everybody’s cup of tea. Effective communication is not just for gaining popularity, but to convey wisdom. Communication is the leadership style to amplify your positive influence. Create a working atmosphere to allow free expressing the creative potentials. The emotional well-being in the workplace allows everyone to express the best of themselves, encourage authentic and creative communication, but always keep the end in mind. As Einstein wisely put, you can’t solve the problem with the same thinking you created it. Through communicating problems with words clearly to other minds, and reframe the question with the new level of thinking, the fresh mind with a cognitive difference and creative communication style can perhaps solve the big problems facing humanity seamlessly. Effective communication should be authentic to touch the hearts and deep enough to connect the minds.