Sunday, January 3, 2016

“Digital Master” New Year Tuning Chap 8 - How to Manage Digital Workforce Effectively?

11:00 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Digital is the age of continuous delivery.

People are always the most invaluable asset in organizations. However, the varieties of industry surveys continuously show that more than two-thirds of employees do not feel engaged in the work; and more than 50% of senior executives across industries believe that their organizations have not fully leveraged the power of digitalization in HR and talent management. Thereby, it is emphasizing the strategic imperative and critical need for changes. So what’s the People 2.0 all about to drive a behavioral, cultural, and educational transformation by new technological paradigms and fine tune the true Digital Masters?

Employee Engagement 2.0: With the abundance of information and the blossom of digital technologies and social platforms, many traditional activities such as monthly town halls or annual retreats are no longer sufficient to keep employees satisfied or motivated. They seek more visibility and involvement in achieving strategic goals of the organization to drive constant engagement. Social listening with an organization is another digital trend that is gaining traction. Leadership who listens well and provides ample room for the career development and staff managers who actively partners with HR to develop and promote a clear, simple plan for career progression sounds almost too simplistic, but it is indeed the most efficient and inexpensive route to higher employee engagement. It’s also the time to reimagine the fundamentals of how organizations work. The reality is that the organizational structures and relationships with and between employees were designed for a very different age, so it’s the time to reimagining digital workforce and workplace, don’t make the rules or structure too restrictive, and leave the room for management innovation, to strike the right balance between orders (structure) and "chaos (sparking innovation), between team setting and cross-functional communication and collaboration; between "old ways" and new ways to do things, in order to improve employee engagement and overall business maturity.

Continuous Performance Management: Digital is the age of continuous delivery, and digital strategy execution is an iterative continuum. From employee performance management perspective, there is a danger of not having a process to "develop and nurture" performance, bias and favoritism are common in the workplace. Waiting until once per year or even every six months to evaluate workers is also not enough to know key performance nor should it be. if the company's culture is democratic and that the evaluation is given on the effectiveness and efficiency of people based on the strategic plan and the routine duties of persons. How about real-time appraisals that take place consistently and can be tracked accordingly. A change in focus from evaluating the individual to partnering with the employee to evaluate the quality of the interactions the employee has started with the manager and employee. Each objective has milestones that the progress can be tracked by either the employee or manager and recorded in the talent system.The idea is to get away from the annual event based on stale data and poor record keeping. The basic premise is that every conversation a manager/supervisor has about project status or feedback is recorded as an assessment of current performance, with the goal to map every individual's performance and potential with business strategy execution more closely and seamlessly.

Digital Talent Management: Talent Management is about building talent competency of the business, it comes with the set of practices of identifying, acquiring, developing, deploying, and retaining well-qualified people throughout an organization and managing & refining business culture as well. Digital Talent Management or Talent Management 2.0 now is all about transparency, active listening, and trust in the wisdom of the team, and constant experimentation. For example, digital learning is about combining traditional face-to-face sequences with digital platforms to train and develop talent. And Digital collaboration today is less about mere information or document sharing and more about leveraging collective wisdom to break down silo thinkings, build interactive and multichannel communication processes to help accelerate and secure workforce buy-in to achieve an optimal business result.

So the digital organization of the future is designed openly for anyone with ideas on how human organizations ought to be contrived in the face of challenges and strategic imperatives of the 21st century. The work is not just the place you go and paint only a small piece of a large puzzle, but an experiment lab you can connect the future dots. And digital organizations today have the blurring borders and uncharted frontiers, growth and innovation are heavily dependent on having the right talent with growth mindsets in the right places at the right time. So it’s important to create a positive, hybrid, and dynamic working environment where talent can develop and learn more rapidly and unleash employees’ potential to accelerate business growth and digital transformation.

The CIO's Agenda: Go Digital, Like a Pro!

11:14 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

It’s the beginning of the New Year, also the dawn of digital age!

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.2 million page views with about 2300+ 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.

It’s the beginning of the New Year, also the dawn of digital age; and it’s the time for companies to step in and catch up, proactively and effectively build core digital capabilities based on digital cognizance to adapt to digital normality, gain unique competitive advantage and execute with speed. Go digital, like a pro!

Go Digital, Like a Pro!

How to Manage Digital Transformation in A Systematic Way: Organizations large or small are on their digital transformation journey, although there is no one size fits all solution to ensure success, but what’re the principles or logic steps they shall follow in managing such transformation in a more systematic way?

CIO Must Go Digital, Like a Pro: Due to the changing nature and continuous disruption of information and technology in business nowadays, CIOs seem to be always at hot seat, the saying about the demise of the internal IT has been around for years, the fact is that because of the pervasiveness of technology within the enterprise and radical digital transformation facing in majority of organizations today, there is now a greater need for a CIO to understand business drivers and apply digital technology to speed up IT and build business competitive capabilities. So CIO must go digital, like a Pro!

Enterprise’s Digital Fitness: Digital is the age of change, there’s an abundance of information and emergent digital technologies such as SMAC (Social, Mobile, Business Analytics, and Cloud) around, but it doesn’t mean organizations will become a high mature digital business automatically; many organizations have got the symptom of “data obesity,” "information misleading," or “technology addiction,” what’re the root causes and how to achieve enterprise’s digital fitness?

How to Break Down Bureaucracies in Digital Transformation. Digital is about changes, closer to reality is that 'change' is continuously happening in such a dynamic environment of a company. The desires of stakeholders, clients, and employees are evolving naturally, not to mention that many of organizations today are facing a more radical digital transformation. What is the digital leadership all about, how to cultivate digital attitudes to break down bureaucracies in accelerating digital transformation in organizations or our society?

Change Agents for Digital Transformation: Many organizations are at the tipping point to digital transformation journey, but what’re the most effective factors to transform businesses? Is it sponsorship, change agent, public relationship or incentives? The most successful organizations have a very clear vision and understanding of why they exist and the value they bring to customers and the very reason for transformation. They also clearly communicate such vision both internally and externally. And then, people are always the weakest link in any Change Management effort. Therefore, change agents are critical, as they have been an invaluable source of knowledge, business direction/insight, and support etc. But more specifically, who are the change agents or champions and why are they so critical in business transformation?

Three Elements in Digital Transformation: Digital transformation represents the next stage of business maturity which will improve how the enterprise works and interacts with its ecosystem, with the customer at the center of its focus. Digital transformation or Digital shift means change. Are these changes more extensive and intensive than what we have experienced in the past? What are the key elements behind the “digital transformation” that we are now experiencing?

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.

Digital Master New Year Tuning Chap 7: Information, Knowledge, and Insight Management

11:10 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Information Management is about to achieve the value of information which is defined uniquely, qualitatively, and, measurable.

We live in the world with the explosive data and the abundance of information. Every day, more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created through a range of activities. And the average business expects to spend $8 million on data-related initiatives in recent years. So how to manage data, information, knowledge, and mind flow, to build a high-intelligent and high-effective organization - The real Digital Master?

Information Management: Data is simple, random, and unorganized, and information is processed data. Information is structured and present facts in context to targeted situations and conditions that enable the business to make the right decisions at the right time. Different information is required at different points in the decision and operational delivery change. Digital organizations must manage data effectively, and bring to the table innovative solutions that meet customers’ needs while reducing the cost to market. If done well, information achieves its value. The art and science of Information Management are to optimize its usage and achieve its value as well as its full potential. The potential value of information also depends on how the information will be used again in the future. So Information Management is about to achieve the value of information which is defined uniquely, qualitatively, and, measurable.

Knowledge Management: Information is processed data, and knowledge is processed information. Knowledge is information in use, that support the decision-making process. Knowledge is an intangible resource that can be converted into tangible content and that can be utilized to produce measurable advances or tangible progress of the business. Knowledge is an expression of understanding - relating information and experience accumulated over time. Knowledge Management involves the usage of technologies and processes of capturing, developing, sharing, and effectively using organizational knowledge, with the aim of optimizing the value that is generated. It is a multidisciplinary approach to achieving organizational objectives by making the best usage of its knowledge. So Knowledge Management safeguards full understanding business processes or tools that can be used to optimize business effectiveness, efficiency, and agility.

Insight Management: Insight is the abstracted knowledge. If knowledge is power, and then insight is like “superpower” - it’s the vision through “mind eyes,” insight of the situation requires in-depth understanding information available. and there are multilayer meanings upon insight: Insight is being able to identify the root cause of a problem or the core issues of a situation that lead to understanding and resolution. Insight is an understanding the cause and effect based on the identification of relationships and behaviors within a model, context, or scenario. It is also about penetrating and often sudden understanding of a complex situation or problem. If knowledge can be taught, insight can not be told completely, because it comes from each individual’s cognitive understanding, connection, discernment, penetration, and perception. But surely insight can be shared, that's the Insight Management about, and the ultimate goal of business Information Management is to process raw data, abstract information from it, then gain knowledge, insight and foresight to spin the wheel of business growth with optimal speed.

All forward-thinking organizations are claimed that they are in the information business today, but the Digital Masters are those who are mastering such information shift, a shift that organizations will take advantage of information to gain knowledge and insight, a shift to transform business culture from silo to data-based and customer-centric and a shift from playing the smart gadgets to being a truly intelligent Digital Master.

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The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO” 1/1/2016

10:02 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

The world not just starts the New Year, but also step deeper into the Digital Era.

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.2 million page views with 2300+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Here is the first weekly insight of the “Future of CIO” blog in 2016 - to celebrate the New Year.

The Weekly Insight of the “Future of CIO” Blog 1/1/2016

Ring in the Year of 2016: Is Integrated Leadership the Digital Trend? It's the first day of the New Year - businesses and the world are moving deeper and deeper into the digital world of VUCA -Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity, while digital companies have blurred boundaries are uncharted frontiers, and the world is so hyper-connected and overcomplex, who leads whom? The inspiring way to characterize the types of leadership needs to dig deeper, hunt for the character, look inside charisma, verify the authenticity, as well as pursuit the purpose: How can leaders make a positive influence? How can they harness the creativity and passion of the workforce in pursuit of competitive advantage & unique difference in the global stage? Is integrated leadership the digital trend? What are the most important ingredients in great leadership?

CIO’s Digital Agenda XXIII: Information & Knowledge Management Back to fundamentals, CIOs are Chief Information Officers, IT is the steward of business data and information, and one of the most important responsibilities for IT is to ensure the right people getting the right information, extract to sufficient knowledge to help them make the right decision at the right time and location. Digital IT is also shifting from “T” oriented support center to “I” driven value creator.

Digital Master Holiday Intense Tuning Chap 3: Five Points of Digital Strategy : Strategy is the art of designing a way of navigating and effectively utilizing available resources to attain a clearly defined objective. However, in many business contexts, the word strategy is demotivating. Some organizations have strategy meetings days and weeks only to go around in circles. Now businesses step deeper and deeper into the digital era, in which everything is touched by digital technologies, but how do they put effort on reshaping the digital version of corporation strategy?

Holiday Dots Connection: Sympathy vs. Empathy: Once again, it is the holiday season and it’s the end of the year and the beginning of the new one, it is not just the time to spoil your appetite, but also, the moment to open your mind, and connect more dots to discover the new meaning of holidays - Are you sympathetic to give more to others, or are you empathetic to understand better of the world? Are you compassionate about many man-made disasters; or are you passionate to overcome the challenges facing human society? What’s the further dot-connection between sympathy and empathy?

A Sociologist’s Mind: How to Manage Changes Effectively in Broader Scope : Sociology is the study of human interaction, usually within the context of organized groups, communities, or "societies." It is the systematic study of human society, especially present-day societies. Sociologists study the organization, institutions, and development of societies, with a particular interest in identifying causes of the changing relationships among individuals and groups. Sociologists have a different language, but does that language offer any substance not offered by the other disciplines? And does a sociologist’s mind help to manage change more effectively in a broader scope?

Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking and innovating the new ideas; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify diverse voices and deepen digital footprints, and it's the way to harness your innovative spirit.

The Spotlight on Digital CIOs Part III Jan. 2016

10:00 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Modern CIOs have many personas and face great challenges.

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.2 million page views with about #2300th 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.

Modern CIOs have many personas and face great challenges. It is not sufficient to only keep the light on. Regardless of which industry or the nature of organization you are in, being a digital leader will need to master the art of creating unique, differentiating value from piles of commoditized technologies, but more specifically, what are the digital-savvy CIOs doing to run IT as a value creator and innovation engine?

The Profiles of Digital CIOs III Jan. 2016

CIO as Chief Interface Officer: How to Delight Customers: CIOs are getting involved in building products for external/internal customers, but unfortunately, creating great user experiences continues to be a struggle. “UX — short for User Experience — refers to the experience a given user has when using a piece of software or technology, rather than the purely technical capacities of that device.” Because customers' loyalty depends in large part on how they feel about your digital product or channel. CIO as ‘Chief Interface Officer,” what’s your strategy and tactics in building up superior development teams, so you can deliver the innovative apps, to delight customer via an intuitive interface and optimal processes?

CIO as Chief Interpretation Officer. CIO needs to play multiple roles, to make positive influences as a Chief Influence Officer, to deliver the right information/insight as a Chief Intelligence Officer or to orchestrate the seamless integration as Chief Integration Officer. But first of all, CIO needs to play as a Chief Interpretation Officer to convey the vision, to bridge the gap and to enforce the multi-layer, multi-dimensional communication. But what does it take to be an effective ‘Chief Interpretation Officer”?

CIO as Chief Inclusiveness Officer: People are still the weakest link either in IT or business overall. While there’re so many brainstorms upon how CIOs need to lead the business transformation and move up IT maturity, one of the most difficult goals facing CIOs is perhaps still about people, can CIO play a critical role as ‘Chief Inclusiveness Officer’ to shape an open and innovative enterprise culture and enforce talent value chain seamlessly?

CIOs as Chief Intrapreneur Officer: Three “C”s in Intrapreneur-Executive Leadership: Intrapreneur-executive leadership is an emergent trend, if entrepreneurship is to look for changes, deploy it as opportunity, then, intrapreneurship is about creating new venture from within an established company- There are three “C” leadership traits intrapreneur-leaders can bring to board.

CIO as Chief Inspiration Officer: Too often the perception is that the CIO is a glorified geek. The reality is that the CIO is one of the most important executive roles in the organization, the person in that role must be business savvy and not only understand the vision of the company but also be able to help formulate it.

CIOs as Visionary: The best vision is insight, the most-wanted vision is foresight. Being a visionary is a character or perspective. But, is vision “must have” or “nice to have” for CIOs and other C-level executives? Here are nine collective insights upon the “vision thing.”

CIO as Change Agent Change is the second most popular word in the 21st century. Why is change so tough and what really keeps (C-suite) executives from embracing organizational transformation is FEAR: fear of letting go of heroic leadership, fear of losing control, fear of navigating through uncharted territory, fear of chaos? But change is inevitable, due to the CHANGE nature of technology, CIOs shouldn’t get pushed for the change, they are actually in a better position to play such a role as change agent in leading organizations’ transformation.

Is Creativity an Addiction or a Phenomenon?

9:52 PM Pearl Zhu 1 comment

True creativity has an inner origin. It keeps surfacing from within and keeps expressing.

Creativity is an innate ability to create novel ideas. Creativity has many dimensions, with multi-faceted truth and myth, and manifold knowledge. Creativity is infused with an inner cohesion and comes from a vision of uniqueness. So can creativity be taught, is creativity nature or nurtured? And is creativity an addiction or a phenomenon?

Creativity is addictive because it's a kind of a flow - not the repetitive patterns to do the same old things. It could also be a desperate need or habitual actions to keep doing something new. You create one thing; you are on the lookout for creating another; you do become restless if you are not able to, This restlessness to create is a sign of addiction. Creativity comes from dissatisfaction with the existing scenario and understanding the requirement as well as zeal to create or improve the things.

Creativity is fresh and new every time. The negative connotation about addiction is when you want to repeat the old pattern and seek comfort. You avoid " new.” Because it gives uncertainty and insecurity with new and change. Creativity loves the challenge, the courage to see the new; creativity is fresh and new every time. It does not fear. It has that emotional or affective strength to trust the process of creativity. Engaging in creativity inevitably creates tension, conflict, and emotionally charged debates and disagreements because we need both control and predictability, creativity and change. Creativity needs encouragement as the spirit of food, and conflict to spark it. Conflict makes the mind think differently leading to creativity. The combination of good chemical balance is reinforced, because it does not go for repeating due to helplessness but due to fun and the joy of life.

The creativity is instinctive which keeps changing with dynamism. Another thing could be, Addictive people run from boredom, so that is why they tend to seek variety. Creative people always look for new challenges. They don’t create out of boredom. They overcome the boredness, and sometimes creativity is to retune the known things into the new ideas.
Creativity is internal and instinctive.
Creativity is a passion for some on an artistic level. Creativity is a passion for some who are inquisitive and want to explore new possibilities.

Creativity is a solution to a problem.
Creativity is to find better ways to do things. Creativity is the discovery of what has not yet been seen nor manifested.
Creativity is not an addiction. It is a beautiful phenomenon…

Creativity is both nature and nurtured.
Creativity can not be taught completely, but definitely, it takes practice and practice to make one’s mind more creative.

True creativity has an inner origin. It keeps surfacing from within and keeps expressing. It means that creativity needs a problem to solve, and a creative mind needs a purpose. Creativity a is a phenomenon, creativity is all around us, we just need to get connected with it. So being addictive to creativity is perhaps not a so bad as a New Year’s resolution.

Ring in the Year of 2016: Is Integrated Leadership the DIgital Trend?

11:57 PM Pearl Zhu 21 comments

The digital leadership is more integrated, innovative, influential, and insightful!

There are only minutes away from the New Year - businesses and the world are moving deeper and deeper into the digital world of VUCA -Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity, while company boundaries are blurred and the world is so hyper-connected, who leads whom? The inspiring way to characterize the types of leadership needs to dig deeper, hunt for the character, look inside charisma, verify the authenticity, as well as pursuit the purpose: How can leaders make a positive influence? How can they harness the creativity and passion of the workforce in pursuit of competitive advantage & unique difference in the global stage? Is integrated leadership the digital trend? What are the most important ingredients in great leadership?

Collaboration: Integrated leadership isn't one person at the top with prestige and value higher than the subordinates/followers underneath. Integrated leadership isn't looking only at work and the challenges we may encounter currently or locally; rather, integrated leadership includes all the relationship dynamics we have going on the surroundings to include the future perspectives and global community. We're all in this world together. It's basically some form of collaborative leadership, meaning to listen to those around you to help make decisions that (ideally) impact all positively. When collaborating, not dictating, it is with the intention that you respect and value each person as a human being and want to listen to their perspective/input breaking down barriers and working together towards common goals and for the greater good for all.

Wisdom: Knowledge tends to be linear, but wisdom is often multidimensional. Integrated leadership leverages the collective wisdom. The wise mind is not full, but free; not about cleverness, but about humbleness; not about system or boxes, but about out-of-box; not about informativeness, but about openness, not about dictation, but about direction. It is a leader's role to foster a culture of open-mindedness, to the best of their ability, and that may take time and effort, but the long-term results can be very rewarding. Cross-cultural / intercultural integration is about inclusiveness and bringing new thoughts & ways of doing things, and wisdom into an organization

Adaptability: It is characteristic makes someone better at almost anything in an ever changing environment. This doesn't mean changing things for fun or impulse but assessing an environment and adjusting to it (person, thing, event, etc.). Integrated leadership is more about adaptation to change, and flexibility to think alternatives. Adaptive leaders inspire cross-disciplined thinking, iterative communication, and cross-functional collaboration, cultivate and embrace the cognitive diversity that underpins adaptive organizations. They are more insightful to be capable of pulling past, present, and future together to pursue wisdom.

Digital leadership becomes more open and omnipresent in the digital era because the hierarchy of an organization is flatter due to the latest digital disruption, the digital leadership is more integrated, innovative, influential, and insightful! "Leadership is the art of getting someone else do something you need to be done, and they want to do it!" (Eisenhower).