innovattiveagileboard

Agile is more a "direction," than an "end," a philosophy and mindset at Board level.

Many forward-looking organizations are shifting from doing Agile to being Agile. Agile is more as a mindset, a set of principles and a type of digital culture, rather than the methodology or technology only. 

Corporate Board as one of the most important governance bodies in the modern business, defines governance principles and practices, oversees business strategy, provisions resources, and sets business culture tones as well. The agile shift is one of the most significant aspects of digital transformation, but how to build an Agile Board that help lead the business toward the right direction?

Agile philosophy: Agile is more a "direction," than an "end." At Board level, Agile needs to be the philosophy to perceive multidimensional business values. Make the effort at the leadership and portfolio level to qualify and quantify value in terms of both strategic value and tactical value; direct revenue and indirect (mission/vision/values) terms is the first step to crafting high-level strategic intents. Transforming to Agile culture means the Board set the right tones and advise the business on the direction they want to go on, and as the people start “putting on” the agile mindset, discover new ways of working, collaborating, delivering value, they inspect and adapt in that journey by overcoming the frictions and challenges. Transforming to Agile culture means that the business knows the direction they want to go on, and definitely measure and test the direction continuously to make sure the business is on the right course. As the people discover new ways of working, collaborating, delivering value, they inspect and adapt in that journey. In order to manage a smooth agile culture shift at Board level, consider such factors as Mindset, Communication, Technical Maturity, Capabilities, Culture, Collaboration Tools, etc.

Agile leadership. The Board and CXOs have to be able to articulate where the company is now headed and what is required from employees. Hence, the foresight is essential. To do this, a director must anticipate the conversational direction and decision-making voices in a dynamic boardroom brainstorm. An interesting exercise is to ask Board members to recite the company ‘elevator speech’ – what do they say in less than 10 seconds in the elevator when someone asks, “What does this company do?” Surprisingly, few can do it unless they have been through some kind of ‘culture change’ program. However, without clarity at the top, it’s hard to expect agile transformation would be shifted successfully. The Agile leadership at Board level also means the BoDs will continue to learn the latest digital trends that could have a huge impact for business’s long-term growth, being learning agile to adapt to changes. Then communicate them often – a strong and cohesive leadership can sprout them easily and often. Repetition = penetration = impact.

Agile GRC: At Board Level, what the top management concerns is all about “Being Agile,” via effective risk management and governance practices. The board considers risk in order to ensure that the risk appetite applied by management is consistent with its views. That resources are applied as required. That management is actually managing risks. The high-level Agile framework is a tool which should provide visibility, alignment, ensure resource allocation and provide an aid to management. It is not risk management itself. Risk management comprises the actions that people take every day. Risk management involves competency, systems, processes, culture etc. And it is done every day by all employees and every day. But the board monitors it. And at the tactical level, follow Agile principles to deliver customer value is the core in Agile management and methodology.

Agile is the mindset and the philosophy. An Agile Board advocates the multidimensional business value, once the values have been impregnated into the corporate culture, the next step seems to come naturally for the whole organization adopting and scaling agile seamlessly, with strong agile leadership and clearly annunciated values comes higher staff morale. When the Board follows the Agile principles, sets the positive tone about the culture of learning and customer-centricity, people will feel good about ‘the way we do things around here.’ The good thing about ‘feelings’ is they can be measured, benchmarked and measured again. This step is more a benefit than an ingredient. If people ‘feel’ good about the company, they deliver more. That’s the beauty of being Agile, to unleash both talent potential and business potential.

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Goals vs. Objectives

Ask the big WHY and discover the PURPOSE behind either goals or objectives.
Business strategy, goals, and objectives are all relevant and important concepts in business management, usually, the goals and objectives are set to achieve business strategy step by step in a measurable way. According to businessdictionary.com, “business goal is an observable and measurable end result having one or more objectives to be achieved within a more or less fixed timeframe. Synonym: object, aim, intention, end, purpose. The objective is a specific result that a person or system aims to achieve within a time frame and with available resources. Synonym includes goal, aim, intention, purpose, design.”

Goals tend to the where they want to end up, the objectives tend to be the stepping stone to get there. Goals are high-level and Objectives are a part of the goal. They can be called subgoals. Most people who are not used to this language would always argue the pedantic position. Now, very likely there will be something else out there will argue the use of the words and that's ok. The point is that words mean different things to different people. Whether it be a goal or an objective, the most important thing to the businesses is that we can create a strategic plan of action that will be the foundation for growth and success. For example, if your goal is to be the best customer services organization in the world, the objectives will be to have the best customer service teams; to have high-rated customer satisfaction consecutively for x number of years; to have an international accreditation for Customer Service; to participate and win global surveys for Customer Service. To get the top rating from 90% of the customers as compared to competitors. Objectives are a finer definition of a global statement. Goals are the ultimate targets. Goals are split into objectives. Goals are much broader either from individual, team or organization's perspective.

A goal is not necessarily measurable, and an objective is measurable. A goal itself is not necessarily measurable, even though it is a described future state. An objective, by definition, is both always measurable and always an outcome that has the purpose of supporting a goal. An objective is always a subordinate of a goal. A goal can be unchanging while many of its subordinate objectives are changing both in type and in execution. Also, objectives are meaningless if they are not assigned directly to a goal. In general, objectives are more specific and easier to measure than goals. Objectives are basic tools that underlie all planning and strategic activities. They serve as the basis for creating policy and evaluating performance. Some examples of business objectives include minimizing expenses, expanding globally, or making a profit. It is best to find out what the organization/team/department uses and work with that. Goals are - in most cases - expected to be less specific and/or less time-bounded than objectives. The DRIVE Criteria is for Goal setting. The SMART Criteria is the objective setting.

Ask the big WHY and discover the PURPOSE behind either goals or objectives: When are Goals and Objectives different thing? When do the Goals have a relationship with Strategy, and the Objectives have a relationship with Strategic Goals. Goals are more associated with the end results, and Objectives are more associated with a specific result. When are Goals and Objectives the same thing? When the organization or business doesn’t have any formal strategy, goals, and objectives are the same things. In short, Goals and Objectives are the same or different thing depends on the aims of organization or business and depends on the leadership and maturity of owners & executives. So perhaps we could clarify it by focusing on the end result. But something's still missing and worth throwing out there for a future discussion point. The often overlooked element is "PURPOSE" when defining a goal or objective. Asking the question "WHY" we are pursuing something before and during our pursuit will always test whether the goal or objective being worked towards is a valid one. For the purpose of management, however, differences in meaning are entirely purposeful and should not be allowed to just colloquially wander and morph. When you're not concerned about managing, then maybe you don't need to consider the differences.

The term OBJECTIVE really starts out in the publication of "The Practice of Management" by Peter Drucker. He defines the term ‘objective as the larger 'end point.' He further defines OBJECTIVES as being achieved through a sub-collection of 'supporting goals' - the children of the parent objective; and then the story further illustrates that 'objectives' are 'owned' by the 'institution - 'the team' and the corporation, the organization. Goals are owned by individuals as personal contributions to the 'collective achievement' of the Objectives. Either setting goals or managing objectives, don’t forget the very PURPOSE of business, to create customers.

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Are you an Analog or a Digital Thinker?

From a management psychology perspective: the analogy to digital thinking shift is about transforming thinking from linear to nonlinear, from binary to Systems Thinking.

The analogy to digital conversion is an industrial evolution to change our daily life significantly. Analog-to-digital conversion is an electronic process in which a continuously variable (analog) signal is changed, without altering its essential content, into a multi-level (digital) signal. Digital signals propagate more efficiently than analog signals, largely because digital impulses, which are well-defined and orderly, are easier for electronic circuits to distinguish from noise, which is chaotic. This is the chief advantage of digital modes in communications. Computers "talk" and "think" in terms of digital data; while a microprocessor can analyze analog data, it must be converted into digital form for the computer to make sense of it. Analog is still a machine concept, it is the capturing of signals from the environment and the spectrums that have been cut into the plastic. (Whatis.com). To expand the lenses from the technical perspective to the management viewpoint, what're the difference between analog thinking and digital thinking though?

From technology advancement perspective, the "Digital Thinker" thinks much toward capturing the natural analog world around us and recreating it in digital form. Analog is either a noun or an adjective. It means "thing seen as comparable to another" or "relating to or using signals or information represented by a continuously variable physical quantity such as spatial position, voltage." From the Greek, it means "proportionate." Human beings have been designing machines & tools for 6000 years, perhaps much longer. Archimedes designed water screws and there were automatic door openers over 2000 years ago. So the argument can be made that there is analog thinking (the machine signals), just as there is digital thinking; one has to re-orient or change their thinking when selecting or deselecting systems. Since we are talking about both types of systems, there are many more that have been in use for a lot longer span of time. So analog is a form of capturing spectra via machines. It can be sound, light, heat, etc. how we as being ( not machine capturing) interpret these spectra is still a mystery. We still capture spectra via the old way in machines just convert that to digital using digital converters.

From a management psychology perspective: the analogy to digital thinking shift is about transforming thinking from linear to nonlinear, from binary thinking to Systems Thinking. Analogy thinking is analogized as a type of binary thinking, just like the analog signals: 0, 1. A binary thinker is often embracing the two opposite sides of viewpoint, and take the two-dimensional lenses to perceive the multi-faceted world, they perceive things either good or bad, right or wrong, black or white, there are no shades in between; such extreme thinking can limit your view to observe the world more objectively; distort the picture of reality, restrict the scope of your thought process, and cloud your mind to make good judgment either in decision making or problem solving. The leaders or business professionals with binary thinking are resistant to listen to the diverse viewpoint; have no intention to understand the other side of the coin; push the people to take the side, many times, they become the part of problems which they try to solve. In order to adapt to the new digital way, they need to adopt digital thinking, to increase their cognitive agility and cultivate empathy by exploring alternative viewpoints and cross-disciplinary interpretations.

From a talent management perspective, the digital minds are a full set of thinking processes that go beyond the analog signals, and embrace the full spectrum of colors (the different thought processes): from creative thinking to Agile critical thinking; from Systems Thinking to paradoxical thinking; from multidimensional thinking to hybrid thinking, etc. It’s the condensed human intelligence to adapt to the complexity of the world, see things differently, understand things profoundly; learn things via a holistic view and manage things and people via wisdom.

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Negative Feedback: Is it Constructive or Destructive

The quality of feedback is dependent on the QUALITY of feedback giver.

Nobody is perfect, we should always self-aware, including our flaws and shortcomings. We need always to welcome the constructive feedback which helps improve our professional growth and personal maturity. However, how can you discern which feedback is constructive, and which one is destructive? And what can you learn from it?

Accept feedback that is truthful and accurate, constructive with good intention. Those who give negative feedback on correctly assessing your flaws, should receive your gratitude and respect. However, those who give negative feedback based on ignorance, misinformation, misjudgment, or even rumors, envy or revenge, earn the scorn and contempt. As a feedback giver, you should take the responsibility of the words you say, and at the positive business atmosphere, those negative intentions or misjudgment needs to be discouraged or even penalized in order to build a healthy working environment and create a culture of learning and innovation.  

It depends on how sensitively the negative feedback is delivered and the mindset of the person receiving the negative feedback. Sometimes it works and has a good outcome, however, in other cases, the outcome is not positive and sometimes can even do irreparable damage to relationships. Negative feedback for its own sake can be utterly destructive, particularly to the bright, ambitious but not so political-savvy recipient. It all depends on how the feedback is given and what the intention of the feedback is. If the intent is to help the person grow, and information is given with empathy and as a conversation, it can be helpful. When it is given in a critical tone and with no opportunity for real communication, then it is only destructive or distracting. In a coaching and supportive atmosphere, the person has the opportunity to grow in a positive way and to be grateful.

It also depends upon who the person is giving the feedback. If the person is someone you trust and is a person who you know has only the best for you in their heart, you will accept it, and really try to ascertain the truth in what the person is saying - and use it to improve yourself. If the person is not well known to you - often you will not appreciate the negative feedback. That being said, the QUALITY of feedback giver is crucial to the quality of feedback being given, the QUALITY is about the person’s reputation, cognition, character, integrity, insight, and intention., etc. The quality of feedback also depends on which emotional status both sender and receiver have at the moment. So, there is a responsibility for both parties to consider the intention and attitude for sending and receiving. You do not have to say everything you feel, as a potential sender, as old saying goes: It’s not just about what you say, but how you say it matters. As a receiver, the responsibility is to try to understand the sender’s intention. So, if everyone tries with good intention, it is good, always, with input. There is a cultural element to consider as well, not only about corporate culture, but also about the metropolitan culture, national culture as well. Different cultures have different approaches to feedbacks, always understand the context besides content, and always capture the insight and wisdom from the knowledge.

The best thing about negative feedback with positive intention is that it calls to make a person much more self-aware and can fuel professional progress and personal growth. This is why mentors are so important at work. But the feedback must come from a trustworthy and valued source and high-quality givers. So treat feedback as information and their perception, but you have the choice what story you put to it. The excellent feedback gives you accurate information to improve; great questions to self-aware; positive intention to care with empathy and keen insight to help you grow and mature.

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The Dynamic Thinking Mind

A dynamic mind takes more time to self-reflect, not less.

Everything is composed of energy, even our thoughts, and feelings. We can't see oxygen, but it is essential to life. We can't see our thoughts and feelings, but only the effect thoughts and feelings have an impact on our life on a daily basis. The result of all these activities is the mind: without the brain, there can be no individual mind, yet it is conceivable that the brain produces something that is greater than itself, and this is the 'mind.’ Metaphorically, the mind to the brain is like the music to the instrument. Nowadays, we live in the era with information explosion and knowledge abundance, the static mind which only stores the limited, or single domain knowledge and applying the linear thinking to reasoning, is no longer effective enough to adapt to the velocity, complexity, and ambiguity of digital paradigm, so what is dynamic thinking and how to leverage it in problem-solving and decision making?

Dynamic thinking is a good combination of “Thinking Fast” - intuition, and “Thinking Slow” - analytics & synthesis. It runs multi-threading thinking processes such as creative thinking (to connect the dots), critical thinking (to think the other side of the coin), and strategic thinking (to keep the end in mind), also synthesizing multidisciplinary knowledge to create the new context with in-depth contextual understanding. A dynamic thinker is a person who continuously invests in adopting and adapting new habits of mind that allow them to think and respond to challenges critically and creatively. In doing so they are able to think profoundly about themselves, their team, their relationships with others, the organizations to which they belong, their work, and the environments in which they live and work. They are truth-seeking, willing to see the other side of the coin, change their point of views if needed and are accountable for their actions. Furthermore, they are robust and judicious in pushing down barriers to achieve the best possible effects.

The dynamic thinker is at a continuously curious mode, to make intellectual inquiries all the time. Change is the business new normal now. The static “we always do things like this” mentality is no longer effective to solve the complex problems and overcome the thorny challenges in the journey of digital transformation. We need to develop the "ASK mode" which is: First, the attitude means that you will create a new mindset of being curious, then just wait for what things to happen; because by then, often it’s too late to respond to the circumstances. Digital professionals have to proactively accumulate the updated knowledge, be able to determine the skills that are required for them to deliver their outputs and finally develop the right set of capabilities to enforce the agility to adapt to the changes.

A dynamic mind takes more time to self-reflect, not less. Dynamic thinking doesn’t mean you make your brain saturated or keep your hands always busy, on the opposite, you need to take time for being quiet, doing self-awareness and self-reflection. The paradox of technology is that, on one side, technology has enabled humanity to become aware of its thinking, now knowledge is only a click away; we are becoming hyper-connected through the power of the internet. As our connectedness increases, society is awakening, and we are becoming one again. On the other side, technology has been so effective to place in a complacent mode that no longer are we keen in being CURIOUS on what is happening and what might happen to affect an awareness that will lead to critical minds and therefore, emerge with constructive and creative thinking. Our lives have become so busy that we do no longer have time to sit still, reflect and contemplate our place in the universe. But a dynamic mind flows with calmness and run fast and slow accordingly.

If we can learn to think more dynamically, then we’ll be better equipped to adapt and thrive in the ever-changing, increasingly unpredictable and uncertain world in which we live. Our beliefs not only affect our own physiology but also affect the people and the environment around us. Our thoughts/beliefs, even though we can't see them, influences change and lead digital transformations. Therefore, think positively and think dynamically.

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Three Aspects to Harness Employee Experience

Digital is the age of people.

Although every forward-looking organization intends to build a customer-centric organization, very few of them see the interconnectivity between Employee Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction. People are always the most invaluable asset in the business, Employee Satisfaction (ES) is a company’s ability to fulfill the physical, emotional, and psychological needs of its employees; and then, Employee Experience is to treat employees as internal customers, engage employees at every touch point and delight employees via empathy and understand them deeply. What are the principles and practices to build a people-centric organization with high engaging employees via tailored talent management approach?

Both employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction are indispensable elements of an organization’s "strategic information architecture": It also represents KEY "sensing" processes of an organization - a vehicle for "sensing" the external customer environment and "sensing" the internal employee environment. It is crucial to focus on the Employee Experience in the work. This helps orient your thinking and ensure business leaders develop strategies that are integrated across the employee lifecycle and have the right impact on employees, so people are engaged both rationally (systems and processes) and emotionally (mindsets, attitudes, and behaviors). The goal is to breaking down the silos and refocusing the attention of employees on the purpose of the business and putting that at the top. Under awareness of the purpose, focus on which delivers the opportunity for increased productivity, greater efficiency, and better engagement, you give the staff the opportunity to thrive and as long as the roles of the functions remains clear, empower the staff to get on and do what they do best in the way that they do it best.

A proactive talent management approach could be to provide an easy platform for employees to communicate with HR. It includes the knowledge base, asking questions, sending feedback- tracking questions, and clicks in the knowledge base might be insightful to discover areas of concerns or communication gaps. This is good for a couple reasons. One, employees feel as though they have a voice and that upper management is listening to their concerns. Two, it allows upper management to see what the employees think of the company and gives them an idea of how to improve certain factors. You can also ask employees to provide feedback on how you can improve during a roundtable discussion. Surveys are always a good idea to take the “pulse” of your workforce to link workforce effectiveness dimensions to drive change and business improvement. It should be presented to employees as a mechanism for collecting meaningful feedback since the organization values their opinions and perceptions. Questions would focus around assessing and measuring the positive experience of their workforce. As a best practice, follow up should occur immediately following the reporting/analysis/readout of the results with the senior leadership team.

-Identify the gap

-Analyze the gap

-Analyze the things in the gap

-Identify which things are internal and which are external (outside of anybody's control)

-Analyze each thing within your control - What can we do to change it? Can we change it? Who can change it? When can it be changed? If it doesn't change or cannot change, what are other options?

HR people are marketing the company from the beginning of the HR cycle till the end. And they should be very focused on the Employee Experience. And in the meantime, they are the ones making the values of the company very visible, but also the future vision and strategy. Internal culture must be aligned with the external brand to ensure a complete "user experience," the new approach focuses on the employee. Branding has become a compass for new generations, and they seek to join an organization that makes them feel they belong to something bigger than themselves. It is a natural evolution of HR based on the changing marketplace. Millennials will continue to drive much of the change over the next decade. As long as employees represent the single largest asset for most companies, HR will play a vital role in shaping the future of the workplace. There is potential in the new model for HR to really step away from the more operational HR practices and into the strategic leadership role. The challenge comes in ensuring that as each department does their own recruiting and talent development that the Employee Experience is consistent across the board. This means a focus on developing the HR skills of every manager across the business who now takes on these responsibilities to improve Employee Experience.  

The important factors to affect Employee Experience include leadership effectiveness - do they have clear visions and strategy to lead the organization toward the right direction; the process management - can employees work seamlessly via robust workflow, not over-rigid business processes; and the innovative culture- is creativity encouraged and free thinking inspired. From the outside-in viewpoint, the customer is the focal point; from inside-out, employees are the key to executing strategy, the successful organizations should look at both lenses, and leverage management practices in exploring cause & effect, and build a truly people-centric organization.

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From Systems Thinking to Systems Understanding: Why things are the way they are?

The System, being dynamic, is always already in the flow.

Things are complex; people are complex, and nature is complex as well. Particularly when you look at a situation and wondering how on earth things could have evolved in such a way, this is the clue that you should first seek to understand. Otherwise, there's a great danger that the new "better" solution will fail because it runs straight into the same underlying factors that brought about the old state. So in which circumstances “WHY things are the way they are” matter more than the other situations? And how does it help you with problem-solving or decision making?

From a management perspective, it's important to make sure the cause vs. symptoms is being acted on to sustain desired results: The WHY can also inform lessons learned as we progress with similar activities the next time for continuous improvement. That said, the WHY may never be fully known so while the intervention seeks the best information it can move toward a consciously derived resolution, we often have to act to test the assumed solution and then, of course, gauge its response. The System, being dynamic, is always already in the flow. Hence, certain pre-existing systemic flows have brought about the situation. There are two opportunities for intervention whenever a problematic situation is discovered. Firstly, tracing the dynamics of these flows backward to their upstream origins helps isolate the most promising points for intervention, to avoid or prevent future cases of the situation. Secondly, there should also be an attempt to mitigate the negative effects of the situation's dynamics flowing further downstream in cases where it could not be nipped in the bud at its upstream source.

In fact, there might be many negative and positive vector to a decision and each is weighed against each other to arrive at a satisfactory way forward: A negative way forward may be chosen, given it leads to a more positive vision, where the positive path may be declined, given it is calculated that it may ultimately lead to an unsatisfactory conclusion. From some participants point of view in a complex system, things might be working just fine. It might be worth asking: How am I looking at this? Is there another way/another understanding? How come things are the way they are? The combinatoric details of how they got that way are often unknowable to an adequate level, but the abstracted principles may be sufficient to understand the dynamics. What does this have to do with systems thinking? It provides a starting point for investigation. The other part of this is whether you are focusing on processes for themselves or their results. Sometimes, the reasons why things are the way they are, whatever they may be, can get set aside or ignore because of preponderance is given to process design innovations for its own sake.  

It depends on the problem, how and to what extent it is manifesting in a way that cries for fixing, from where it emanates the greater context. If you understand the origin of the situation, where you want it to go, and how to get there, you would understand the specific WHYs to dig through the root causes. It matters a lot if cost-effectiveness is important in developing solutions in bridging the gap between how things are and how they ought to be instead, this would be the analytical approach necessary in the course of value engineering exercise applied to identify critical elements. Either way, it's never a bad idea to revisit from time to time the assumptions embedded in the original system design to check for latent or accomplished obsolescence or, for originally invisible errors. Obsolescence or errors in foundational embedded assumptions in principle would make for obsolete or erroneous outputs. So the question boils down to figuring out the cost/benefits matrix of correcting or not correcting outputs and what cost/benefits factors get internalized or excluded from the analysis.

It's worthwhile considering why things are the way they are for, in doing so, one may challenge automatic assumptions that something needs 'fixing.' To 'just go ahead and fix it' carries assumptions, Particularly assumptions about something wrong, limiting, or not working in some way that requires 'fixing.' If you don't understand all the causes, or most of the causes of the situation and also the context of the situation, then intervention maybe worse than non-intervention. Even Systems Thinking may not be enough, perhaps you need Systems Understanding to intervene, also you need to narrow what type of situation you are considering. As the situation depends on how many people, objects, systems, subsystems, cultures, geographies, times are involved.

Why things are the way they are matters more when you work from the “problem solving” paradigm:  On another angle, people dealing with complex systems first observe them very deeply, then they apply minimal perturbations to see how the complex system behaves, aiming to mitigate a non-desired behavior. If a system is not so much broken, but it is no longer fit for purpose, and so it needs to be replaced, it becomes very helpful to know what purpose the obsolete system was built to fit, and how that purpose has changed, when figuring out how to change the system to make it fit for a changed purpose. If you work from the "problem solving" paradigm, then it matters to figure it out why thing are the way they are, If you work from the "strength" paradigm, then it matters less, if at all, provided you that you trust people to have ideas and glimpses of times when it worked better, and coach them to investigate the causes of WHY it worked better. One could say it's a way to understand the system though it's a side effect of coaching people toward whatever will work for them. If a system is broken and needs fixing, it can be helpful to know what caused the system to break down so that the repairs can also prevent further system failures.

As humans, we have a natural curiosity to ask the big WHYs. People's knowledge of ourselves and the world increases over time through a process of change and co-creative, an evolutionary adaptation to change  - in the sense of automatically self-regenerating and endlessly ongoing - the pursuit of better. From System Thinking to System Understanding, continuously asking “why things are the way they are” does challenge the assumptions and the “old way doing things,” it’s the good start pointing to see beyond the surface, understand the context, and capture the insight for human progression.

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How to Build a Dynamic & Bold Digital Workforce to Encourage Free Thinking

A positive learning culture is associated with successful digital companies in which people can be creative and express themselves openly!

The business world is constantly evolving with emergent strategies and new technologies. Successful companies have employees that understand and lead with these new emerging trends. The business today can no longer be running as a static organization which keeps silo thinking and extremely hierarchical structure, with command-control management style and order-taking type of employees only, today’s digital businesses must design for change, and do more with innovation. But how to build a dynamic workplace to encourage free thinking?

The tone is set from the top management level, the leaders need to free their mind first: They have to be the life learner themselves, continue to learn the new trends and updated knowledge in order to build a clear vision and craft a good strategy. When you have the vision and later the as-is, then it's a lot easier to "see and connect the dots" to make strategic plan deliverable, and perhaps even adjust, modify or change the mission. Business involvement is essential as markets are continuously developing. If a business does not adapt and evolve it will be disappearing soon. How to evolve and adapt is the real question. As a top business leader, you are capable of thinking "out of the box," looking at it from the advanced level of technology, always challenge yourself to free your mind on what and where to change, when and at what cost/benefit. Starting with your current as-is situation will often limit (restraint) you in thinking far enough out of the box.

The culture of the organization must nurture free thinking: Most of the organizations today are process and control driven. Emphasis is on compliance with the result people forget to think freely. Why organizations are not realizing that the very process and controls instituted are emanated from the thought process of people; and to be robust and helpful, you must allow people to think and contribute to the design and restructure the process. But to enable lateral thinking, opportunities must be created for learning both within and outside. When it comes to learning that takes place by people in organizations, it really depends on the strength of the culture in the organization. What is not so evident is the factors that shape up an organization's culture? What are they? How to change organizations for embracing a learning culture, and for that matter societal culture needs to become more " human well-being nurturing" as well?

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Model summarized five tiers and self-actualization was at the top of the triangle: Self-realization is a desire to experience ever deeper fulfillment by realizing and actualizing more of own potential, and later the 6th tier was added to the top of the model: Self-transcendence; which is to experience, and unify with and serve that is beyond the individual self. Employees are already paid to put their time, effort and skills for the company to make the contribution to the organization's success, and at the same time, to climb Maslow’s pyramid, for discovering purposes, achieving self-actualization, cultivating capabilities and mastering skills.

A positive learning culture is associated with successful digital companies. In such organizations, people can be creative and express themselves openly, employees are fully engaged, enjoy the changes, and not fearful of challenging the status de-facto standard. And a major focus by the senior management team to establish in the organization's DNA would be a fantastic step in the direction. For that, top management will have to proactively create such a culture of learning and innovation, to strike the balance between leading and following, pushing and pulling, changing and stability.

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“VUCA” Talent in VUCA Era

Creativity is emerged as one of the most desired qualities for digital workers.

Digital age has the “VUCA” characteristics - Velocity, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. The combination of ever more rapid technology changes, information abundance, and a multi -generational workforce will have more influence over our collective way of life than any time in memory. Therefore, the future of talent management also needs to be changed. The age of disruption has taught us to be nimble in our ability to assess the environment. With so much data available and with the reconstructed definition of "talent," organizations are facing increased pressures to be adaptive. The future of work will involve those associated with hiring to gather more pertinent information on talent and evolve from the mentality of making "safe hires" via search for keywords in the resume, and more toward the social hiring - track the digital footprint of talent people to discover who they are and "who can make a difference to our organization." And some say, today’s digital professionals also have such “VUCA” traits:

Value - Value is multidimensional but also very specific. To really recognize value, we must value everything. People’s mindsets, skills, capabilities, emotions and weaknesses, our professional goals, our relationships, nature, society at large. Only then can we strike a balance without compromising the value of any person or anything. If you treat everyone and everything as valuable then deal with your own biases, everyone starts with a level playing field. Value is very specific. It depends on how one would define value and interpret it to fit the mold or apply criteria to create the desired value. Value is also multidimensional, such as personal value, ethical values, principal values, and cultural values, etc. You can not determine a value of someone based on observation, statistics, or assumptions. However, you can experience the value of someone directly or indirectly through engagements or interactions with that someone or a group of people. Since we now have the most diversified workforce ever, Managing diversity in the workplace is one of the most important issues now and on future.

Understanding -The ability to understand is due to the intellect present within the person to recognize patterns and create meaning. Understanding requires a person's ability to grasp or comprehend information. Too often assumptions and prejudices get in the way of understanding. It is the responsibility of each to examine themselves and to make sure they are open to true understanding. Assumptions and prejudices are due to lack of deeper understanding. So far wisdom and knowledge has evolved in humans with their eyes and ears open to understanding. Understanding has happened to human, which is a reflection of the intellect that has evolved. An understanding mind has better ability to adapt to changes and make fair judgment and decisions.

Connecting - At today’s always on and always connected workplace, it’s also more important for digital professionals to fully engage the work by connecting the heart, the head, and the hands, be holistic and authentic. Creativity is emerged as one of the most desired qualities for digital workers, and creativity is all about connecting the dots. Creativity to some extent is the nature of seeing the patterns that already exist, and then being able to predict how they change, and sometimes manipulate them in a direction that fits our needs or that of our objective.

Adaptation - With increasing speed of changes, the ability to adapt to change also becomes more crucial than ever. An adaptive mind has better learning capability, being resilient, like water that can flow. Each person has a different level of knowledge (the consciousness about a problem) and reacts to environmental changes, with behaviors that are strictly linked with the information they have and with the way other people share and collaborate with them. Therefore, knowledge management will be a huge factor in the workplace of tomorrow. With all the access to information that is available, and becoming more accessible by the year, managing knowledge from that information will be crucial. The future looks to have more real-time sharing of information and knowledge across industries and professions of the likes we have not seen yet. Sifting that information and capturing what's value to the organization will take savvy and speed to be on the leading edge.

With "VUCA" characteristics of digitalization, Talent Management will see the urgency of being innovative - because the frequent digital disruption is inevitable and ideally, "hiring for digital minds" with “VUCA” traits discussed above should be common practice for talent managers to take innovative initiatives, set the course for people management, culture management, and business growth in a digital way.

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How to Develop Executable Strategies

With the rapid speed of changes and explosive information, digital disruptions could happen overnight, Strategy-Execution is no longer linear steps, but an ongoing continuum.

Strategy making is perhaps one of the most challenging tasks in organizations today, and more than two thirds of the strategy execution fail to achieve the expected result. What are the principles and practices to make a good strategy? What are the underlying assumptions people contributing to scenario planning are making, and where are these people coming from? Are these strategists internal to the organization or involving also outsiders? Which school of scenario planning are you most fond of? The deductive school, the inductive one or "La Prospective" school? The underlying assumptions from different schools imply different methodologies and approaches. Or to put simply, how to develop an executable strategy?

Strategy and execution are not as a different processes but as an integral part of strategy management. It is broadly contextual. There are circumstances where you do not have the time to "plan" or rescue the firm because of external shocks that are difficult to envisage, or because the strategic decisions made in the past are irreversible. In a turnaround, you must act fast and make some tough decisions, whether you have the support of all the organizational functions or not; your goal is to survive and it is inevitable that resistance will emerge. Some other times, it is more feasible to adopt a more collaborative approach that makes the organization aligned with the broadly shared goals. Everything depends on (1) the context (external and internal; (2) the dimensions you and your organization want to focus on and; (3) how you go about it.

Most companies are very poor in communicating. In many cases, the problems are in fact caused by management myopia, hubris, organizational inertia. A great strategy tool exists that, used correctly, will more than adequately address that problem, especially in companies that have become a bit too comfortable with their past success. And before any of that can happen, organizations need to make sure they have a robust and shared view about Why? Why they are here and what is their real intention, ask "what if” questions as well. Believe in your plan and convince everyone else to believe in it as well. With all employees aligned behind a plan execution. Strategic plans are about change and changes will challenge some employees status quo, jobs, prestige. Expect them to undermine your strategies, so find a way to work around them, believe in your plan, communicate it widely, neutralize naysayers, vet all business decisions against the plan and adjust as necessary. Then maybe success will come your way.

"Developing Executable Strategies" is what needs to happen - not developing "Strategic Plans." If strategies are formulated in the first place to deliver on vision and mission, or specific outcomes connected to the mission, and they take execution into account from the beginning, 'success' can follow. If they are formulated to tick a box and then just sit in the bottom drawer until next time, not much is likely to be achieved. The top leader should have the comprehensive competencies, not only hard skills but also balancing with soft skills, to manage strategy with agility. Otherwise, the "strategy" is only the document in the drawer, respectively, binary or silo thinking has had its day at industrial age. No organization can be successful anymore with such thinking any more. And continuous check-up is necessary as well: Are you running the risk to force the mental maps into the strategy making process and apply "rigidity" at a time when market dynamics require more flexibility?

A Scenario-Based Strategic Planning does not start with extrapolating the past but starts with imagining possible future. Scenario-Based Strategic Planning, is an approach that acknowledges there can no longer be a singular path to a prosperous future for today’s companies. Scenario-Based Strategy does not start with extrapolating the past which is a pitfall of traditional planning processes. Rather, it starts with imagining possible futures without the constraints of the past, a necessary condition for companies who want to successfully plan for the future in the disruptive environment we are in today. A Scenario-Based Strategy is a bit more demanding to manage, but it not only better engages management teams and their direct reports, it also leads to the needed agility that so many companies talk about but rarely can operationalize well. When Scenario-Based Planning is done right, it forces management to consider what will happen to their business, and how they will response ina proactive wayy.

Ownership could be key. The more focus needs to be on what is realistic and how the expectations of the business and its employees can grow. Executing strategies should be a doddle if the actual planning is spot on, listen to your employees, listen to the market , listen to the competition, be realistic, believe in the plan , more to the point is to make sure everybody else believes on the plan too and last but not least, be innovative. How many employees involved in the Strategic Planning process really feel full ownership? Probably not as many as top management would believe. The best way to do this is to bring to the process the same level of motivation and energy they had when they first took on their leadership role. Because with that comes the willingness to be unattached to what's come before, the freedom to not need to justify any prior decisions, and the freedom to ask the hard questions and see things as they really are. They make the time for it because they believe it will set the path for their leadership. An effective process allows the right decisions to be made, with a sufficient understanding of the impacts of those decisions. The elephants in the room get tamed, because leaders make it their mission to do so. Leaders who are just 'surviving' the planning process will struggle. Leaders who see the opportunity to shape the future of their organizations will jump in. Leaders who haven't been making as much progress as they'd like, always have the opportunity to look for new ways to do their strategic planning.

Strategic Planning is a term thrown around a little too easily and sometimes with very little thought going into the actual strategic bit. As the old saying goes: it’s not a plan, but planning that matter. Nowadays, with the rapid speed of changes and explosive information, and digital disruptions could happen overnight, strategy-execution are no longer linear steps, but an ongoing continuum.

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