Seven Strategic Dual Roles of Tomorrow’s Recruiters

The swift horse are usually found, but not the same as ‘Pak Lok" (the person who has good judgments to spot ‘Long Distance Running Horse’.
Oriental Proverb

Like the Pak Lok, every recruiter intent to hunt for the right talent, but with different approach: yesterday’s recruiters are busy searching for the keyword, evaluate the right horse with their outdated methodology, personal judgment, old channel and fitness on the surface, most often they spot the short distance running horse, bring in the candidate with the short-term perspective or similar mindset to many organizations, that might be the deep reason for the leadership failure in Great Recession and the root cause for How the Mighty Fall


Tomorrow’s recruiters will learn from Pak Lok, see through their clients’ character and courage, walk through their soul and heart, to become the superior talent master and visionary soul hunter.

Here are the seven strategic dual roles defined for the futuristic recruiters, to inspire more discussion:

1.The Visionary & the Change Agent

Most of today’s recruiters treat candidate like mechanical component with standard functionality, move them from company A to company B horizontally, then the organizations assemble them into the same old machine (framework) with the same old CPU (mindset).

The true change agent recruiters or entrepreneurial recruiters not only exploit the traditional talent pipeline, just like energy sector, it’s a strategic imperative to explore the renewable talent energy: no matter it’s solar panel (the sunshine type talent, with positive mindset, not too much shadows), clean tech (the water flow type talent, desire to move on & up, with transferrable strength), or biofuel (the nature made raw talent, their specialties to make impossible possible., etc).

Tomorrow’s recruiters are not only the change agent in their own industry, but also have the deep vision for their clients’ industries (anyway, we have so many troubled industries around), help build up the dream team with inspiring mind & culture, and shake up those traditional industries.

The progressive global talent is the best product in recruiting industry and the human society overall.

2.The Soul Hunter & Talent Master
That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks…. Aristotle

Today’s recruiters are called headhunters: try to hunt for the right head based on the static keyword searching, through their limited talent pipeline and old-fashioned recruiting channels.

However, in this post recession era, change is the only thing won’t change in the future, globalization, diversity, and the culture thing will last forever.

Tomorrow’s recruiters are hunting for the GOOD HEART: the purpose & mission, the MEGA MIND: the whole-brain thinker,& the thought leadership; and the BIG GUT: the courage & character.

Tomorrow’s talent masters like gardener, treat the talent like viable plants, help the tree grow taller, stronger, also watering the grass to make them greener, fresher, the talent master work with the executives from top down, to build up the positive learning culture and talent landscape, full of sunshine and pleasant aura.


3.The Strategist & the Practitioner
When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills. 
Oriental Proverb

In the last decade, many recruiters make the strategic move to transform the business model from offline to online, the pros is online platform bring up the convenient interface for technical job hunting activities such as searching position open (mainly mid-level or lower) or submitting resumes., etc. however, the cons is: it seems build up the new wall between the employer and candidate.

The future of recruiting approach should be more hybrid and tactical: keep online automation and convenience, also have more transparent offline process and face-to face interaction and activities, take more initiative to fill up the talent gap, grow, renew and expand the talent pool.

4.Organization Architect & Human Engineer
The future of recruiters are both “soul hunter” and “soul engineer”

Today’s recruiters are more like administrative function inside the organization or outsourced HR solution. Tomorrow’s recruiters are the best strategic partners to work with the executives or the clients shoulder by shoulder, head to head,, they take action as the enterprise HR architect, take advantage of the latest technology such as enterprise 2.0 and social network, to breakthrough the hierarchy & bureaucracy, frame up the learning organization, and share the unconventional success story.

The recruiters and talent coach can also be called the human “soul engineer”: using engineering perspective, pivotal talent segment, dealing with talent risk, building up HR governance, implementing talent diversification, digging into multiple talent channels and exploring the alternative talent pipeline.

5.The Artist & Scientist
“ Good artists copy, great artists steal” Picasso

Today’s recruiters may just try to “steal” the talent from the competitors. Tomorrow’s recruiters are brighter with more holistic nature: cycle the talent cross the industry, even cross the global.

The future of recruiters are the great artists, treat each talent as a piece of art, to appreciate the master piece, and to master the innovative talent via connecting the dots:

“I am not a physician and a storyteller, I regard the two things as linked..”
Oliver Sacks (Professor and Writer)

The future of recruiter is also the scientist, with the right technology such as advance analytics, HR metrics, Performance Management, the talent could be observed, experimented and explained in the respected and humanity way.

The future of recruiter develop the right process and value system to “harden” the soft skill such as leadership, entrepreneurship., etc, and “soften” the hard skill such as the engineering and financing. They are framing the new HR discipline with the artistic perspective and scientific methodology.

6.The Philosopher & Philanthropist

“Just as there is a blueprint of a building or a circle, so to there exist blueprints of courage, of justice, of humankind, of all living things. Western Philosophy

From philosophical perspective, the recruiters may have one of the most meaningful careers in the world: to hunt for the very best blueprint: the courage, the justice, the humanity., etc., to architect the blueprint of the great organization, the city, the nation and whole human society.

From philanthropic point of view, the recruiter may also have one of the most valuable professions: help human reach the full potential to advance the humanity. Besides help human out of poverty and illness, talent management is truly the next level of philanthropy, if we connect the dot again, the advanced education and talent management system could naturally speed up the human’s advancement from the basic survival demand. The charity effort in many large organization may also need connect with their talent strategy, since the charity is truly beyond tax saving or public relationship, it’s the blueprint of organization’s purpose.

7.Enterprise Surgeon & Pharmacist


Great Recession left us with many struggling industries and troubled organizations, plus the large available talent pool. It’s the perfect timing for the recruiters and all HR professionals to make a difference with more bold initiative, aggressive roadmap and innovative approach:

The future of recruiters like surgeon to help fix those sick enterprises with new blood, open mind and fresh eyes; The visionary (who can see the others can not), the next generation of leadership and talent will be the right panacea (possibly made of the West Medicine & East Medicine magic combination).

In summary, Pearl are everywhere, but not the same as the eyes, Like the Pak Lok, to spot ‘Long Distance Running Horse with the insight, The future of recruiters will have audacious attitude, the sharp eyes, the open mind and the big heart, to fit in this seven strategic dual roles, to hunt for the right souls in the 21st century.

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Entrepreneur CIO

Being an entrepreneur is one of the most critical and inspiring experience and preparation to become the CIO in 21st century, to fit in Gartner well-defined 6 styles of "money-making" CIOs: entrepreneur CIO, revenue search CIO, business development CIO, cost-optimization CIO and Innovation CIO, and the last one: public-serving CIO (even you are not working in public service, every CIO could be the natural leader to serve the public and the world for better), why:

1. Being entrepreneur, you have to wear different hats, which teach you to think from different angles, from customer's perspective, take vendor's shoes, be thoughtful for the employees and many more;

2. Being entrepreneur to inspire you think without border: since you have to work cross the function, cross the organization, many of us may also need work cross-industry, and cross-culture, cross-nation, etc.

3. Being entrepreneur to make your skin thicker: "Thicker skin is God's gift", every entrepreneur may have the experience to approach the customer boldly, not necessarily shameless though, so either your pursuing Martin Luther Kings "I have the dream" or Steve Job's "Sell the dream", it truly provoke your courage;

4. Being entrepreneur, you have not only surviving but also try to thriving, so the revenue search, business development and innovation are your daily job, that's great preparation for becoming the unconventional CIO today, but it will be the new normal for tomorrow's CIO and many other senior executives in larger enterprise.

In summary, no matter what CIO stand for: chief information officer, chief innovation officer, chief integration officer, chief inspiration officer, chief implementation officer., etc, the shining spot is the entrepreneur's spirit, even it stand for: the career is over --it's also not so scary, since being an entrepreneur CIO could refresh your dream, rekindle your energy and rebuild your asset.

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Brainstorm the Process Revolution: The Art or The Science?

The focal point of the next generation of BPM will be innovation-oriented, customer-centric, GRC enhanced, cloud-based, module-designed, with a broad vision of transforming to the real-time, extensible enterprise.

Economy recession makes business process management a hot spot to grow: software vendors try to repackage themselves as BPM providers; Organizations intend to rejuvenate themselves through BPM solutions. 

Today’s BPM solutions layout the solid foundation to define, automate, control and monitor the business processes to improve the quality and reduce the cost, it intends to build up the responsive enterprise with firm control system tools; However, today’s BPM may not adapt to the new demand and technologies at the new decade in the 21st century.

The future of BPM needs to respond “changes ”more promptly, such as the globalization, the social computing, and the cloud strategy., etc, to transform into the future of enterprise with real-time, extensible, proactive analytical capabilities.

How to REFINE the art of next generation of BPM:

1.Reframe the Enterprise Architecture via Enterprise 2.0 collaboration tools:

People, process, technology are the tangible building blocks for modern enterprise; strategy and culture are the intangible fabric to weave around it, so the future of BPM will:

-Refresh these core business processes to make sure the changes are not only
predicted but also fully prepared;

-Restructure the organizational framework or flowchart to ensure the right people
in the right position at the right time;

-The next generation of BPM will naturally integrate enterprise 2.0 collaboration tools into the software suite, not only implement automation but also enhance the learning as a process, and enable knowledge sharing.

2.Rekindle the Business Innovation via Cloud & Social Computing

The innovation process re-engineering is about nurturing innovation skills, ingraining innovation culture, embracing innovative technology, and developing the updated metrics.

Cloud Computing allows organizations to experiment on new innovative ideas with a limited budget, fast setup, and expand their product or marketing niche to create a new business model and revenue stream with scalability.

By aligning cloud strategy without a cloudy look, an enterprise may reinvent itself as a growth engine, and the purple cash cow.

The process on the fly (the future process) is all about building up the business cloud infrastructure to implement the deep integration of eco-system, with the chance of having agility, modularization, fungibility (cloud standardization).

3.Realign the Business Priority and Enterprise Resources & Supply Chain

How to build up the customer-centric, employee-inspiring culture is the priority for today’s organization.

Unified communication, social computing, and many latest technologies help optimize the supply chain, streamline the enterprise resources, and improve customer service.

The future of BPM will enable MashUp, crowdsourcing abilities :

-Encourage the customers to co-design the products, service, and communities, to share the thought and feedback, to enhance customer responsiveness and satisfaction.

-Inspire the employees to make more contributions, toppling hierarchy barriers, and breakdown the conventional boundary, to encourage the culture of learning and embedded it into the business process and strategy seamlessly.


4.Revitalize the GRC Enforcement

The Great Recession may be partly caused by the failure of effective governance, risk control, and compliance process.

In the post-recession era, the effective questions we may ask to enhance GRC are:
-- How to define more global universal business cases?
-- How to revitalize the regulation change, GRC enforcement into processes?
--How to optimize the process design with advanced analytics and BI capabilities

Today’s BPM still focuses on control and the problem at hand, a tendency toward tunnel vision.

The focal point of the next generation of BPM will be innovation-oriented, customer-centric, GRC enhanced, cloud-based, module-designed, with a broad vision of transforming to the real-time, extensible enterprise.

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The Food For Thought: The Spirit of Turkey from Thanksgiving Holiday

Americans consume about 48 million turkeys in Thanksgiving. What exactly can we learn from this elegant, vivid creature:

1.Self-Sacrifice Spirit: turkeys sacrifice their life to make a symbol at human’s holidays, to unify the family and lift our holiday spirit.

2.Self-Respect Attitude: turkeys’ colorful, metallic feather not only offer them survival capability: keep warm and dry, help fly., etc, but also remind us of respect: Appearance are important to self respect and also respect for others.

3.Take advantage of Good Resource & Talent: Turkeys eat nuts, berry, insects., etc, any food available in their immediate terrain, not waste resource and talent

4.Leverage Short Term Goal with Long Term Strategy: Turkeys can fly short distance powerfully, however, they have difficulty to maintain the same energy power with long distance journey, so as human, we can learn to leverage the passion and energy for continuous growth.

5.Symbolize the Renew and Rebirth: Turkeys are bred to grow faster and bigger, it may symbolize the life renewal and growth blossom.

Those may be the reasons the President Franklin Benjamin wanted to name turkey as national bird to replace the eagle.

From Thanksgiving tradition, we may also learn American Indian and pilgrim were sharing the food and culture to celebrate the harvest, the same legacy could be carried on today:

Citizens by birth could learn from citizen by choice: the courage, the new culture, the restless pursuit of new land and exploring the fresh development;

Citizen by choice could learn from citizen by birth: the tradition, the belonging, the value, and the open attitude to welcome the newcomers.

Besides Turkey diner, either you go shopping spree to fill up your handbag, or you chose hanging around in Borders to enjoy free coffee and books to refresh your mind set, the touch point of holiday is truly about lifting up the energy and spirit, hopefully also help blackout the businesses' balance sheet and speed up the economy.

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The Future of Enterprise: Seven Excitement from Enterprise 2.0

The Enterprise 2.0 meeting held last week has not only brought out quite a few of passionate software vendors with their emerging collaboration tools, more importantly, it inspired the imagination about what the future of enterprise looks like: Spider ( still center based environment) or Starfish (more distributed, informal enterprise).


Here are 7 Es to evoke further exploration :

1. Engage –both the employees and customers communication more seamlessly: enterprise 2.0 tools are truly about collaboration and engagement, to stimulate more effective communication cross the boarder, and engender the collective wisdom. It more easily filled up the communication gap between business vs. IT, c-level executive vs. front-line employees, and organization vs. customer or suppliers. The future of enterprise is all about collaborative social business

2. Energize-the innovation and fresh idea everywhere: from product/project management, to human resource management , from supply chain to customer service, the future of enterprise is truly about innovative business

3. Experiment—the new organization infrastructure: beyond the traditional functional department with silo view, the future of enterprise is composed with many mash-up, cross-functional talent teams: HR Center of Excellence (may not just people form HR), BI Center of Excellence (may not just people from IT), Customer Center of Excellence., etc. The new shape of enterprise may not look like pyramid, more weaved as enterprise grid, with both vertical communication and horizontal interaction in more effective fashion.

4. Embed –the business process management and change management into the blood of the enterprise via collaborative enterprise 2.0 tools, BPM is not just the top-down strategy or bottom-up business cases, it’s the daily journey for every employee encircling the organization, the future of enterprise is a progressive business.

5. Empower –the best talent: the visionary architect, the business transformer, the thought leader, the idea conceiver, the customer evangelist, the HR strategist, the sales &marketing genus., etc, enterprise 2.0 tools shake up the traditional performance evaluation, allow each star shine in the sky. The future of enterprise is about talent intelligence, so the future of career path is more approachable like lattice than the ladder.


6. Execute-the strategy and operation with more collaborative and transparent way via open communication tools, with integrated GRC (governance, risk control and compliance) methodology & perspective. The future of enterprise is about executing better, faster and cheaper.


7 Encourage—the learning culture, enterprise 2.0 is about sharing, sharing the knowledge, thought and experience from outside (customer) in to insider (employee) out, then optimize the process, and embrace the change, the future of enterprise is the learning organization.

It may take years for enterprise 2.0 tool to become more mature and cognizant, but the future of enterprise is about there: like the garden in the Spring, to make every plant shining under sunshine, with greener style. Winter is here, Spring is no so far away…

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Refine the Future of Female Leadership

A Company Achieves Uncommon Excellence by bring together Uncommon People for a Common Purpose. (Give Uncommon People a Uncommon Identity)
-Gandi

Today’s turbulent economic macro-environment , multi-center global landscape and overwhelmingly new technologies offer the female executives and leaders unprecedented opportunities and responsibility to make significant positive impact in their organization and even the whole world.

1. Be a Transformational leader than a micro-manager

Innovation is a new way of doing things that results in positive changes.

The statistics from many prestigious academia or media co. (Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business school, Mckinsey ., etc) has proved the female leaders bring better solid performance for their organizations in the long run.

In this post Great Recession era, though as minority at the whole leadership team, the female executive leaders should standout to standardize the management infrastructure, breakdown the hierarchy and bureaucracy, enhance the corporate governance, take initiative on sustainability, reframe the business model and transform the corporate culture

Not only become the role models for their employees; but also set up a fresh example for their male peers; It’s the historic transformational moment to become an innovative female leaders and make a significant difference.

2. Be a natural magnet than a perfect superwoman

The last thing a competent leader wants is a company consisting of yes people who have identical skills and cooking-cutter thoughts.

Female leaders usually takes much more effort and make more sacrifice than their male peers to climb the ladder, so the nature of “perfection” takes them to the leadership position may not be the unique charisma to make them become the effective leader.

It’s more critical to be a natural magnet to attract the best and diversified talent to work for the organization, rather than you are the best in every perspective. As matter of factor, being a stereotyped superwoman may create a distance or gap between the leader and the team.

3. Be a Game-change strategist than a power player

Our Value are Reflected in Everything we say or Do.

Be a power player is no fault as long as taking advantage of power for good.
Beyond that, the female leaders are the nature strategist as many roles:
--The visionary in your domain and industry;
--The practitioner to exercise the true art of modern management
--the wise mentor and cheerleader to embrace the diversity
--The magnet to attract the best;
--The logic predictor (not necessary a fortune teller though) to prepare the future with scenario planning
--A judge to bring back the common sense and fair value
-A fighter to fight the prejudices or hubris.
-A constructor to reshape, resize or rebuild the corporate ladder..
--A thought leader to voice for those without voice
-A Colorful change agent, a rainbow bridge, and so on…

The tipping point of female leadership in the 21th century:
The more diversified female leader grows, the more organization that will be attracted to the top talent, to help human achieve the full potential and accelerate the new revolution to advance the human society.

Above are some thought after reading the article from HBR:
http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/oct2010/ca20101012_599532.htm

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Leadership Innovation: 7 Game-Change Mind Sets for the Future of Leadership

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function “
F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Today’s downturn economy, accelerated globalization, energy shortage and many other uncertainties make the world become a complex, unpredictable macro-environment ever.

The future of leader may have to play “the Big Brain Game”, see through the problems with many different angles, and solve the problems with all possible alternative steps and solutions, more counting on the collective wisdom rather than a dominance voice or absolute right or wrong answers.

The silver bullet in digitized global world is innovation.


1.Be Authentic
Only through the truth, do we come to grace. The value proposition for tomorrow’s leader would be authentic, unique and diversified. Being authentic also means to inspire innovation, to become the change agent, and to make positive influence.

An authentic way to stand out is to have a point of view.

2.Pursuit the Life Purpose Greater than Self
In today’s world of “Pull”, wikipedia and web 2.0 technologies provide unprecedented opportunities for any individual to build up a strong professional and personal brand, and become the leader in his or her own domain.

3.Curiosity Imperatives
Curiosity is a critical piece of raw intelligence, curiosity may even keep people look younger, think fresher and act more flexible. Curiosity is the original drive to motivate people explore broader, learn deeper and help us step out of comfort zone and achieve bigger. Curiosity nurtures the lifetime learner and creative thinker.

4.Cross-Boundary Leadership
The world has been interwovened through the internet and the latest technologies, cross-boundary  such as cross-cultural, cross-industrial, cross-functional leadership innovation  is becoming the new normal, the new leadership is a bridge to connect cognizant difference, engage the diversified talent and reframe the new business model.

5.Unconventional Thinkers

To be unconventional is to be strategic; to be strategic is to be innovative and beyond; the future of leaders need cultivate 4 “I”s (Insight, Imagination, Innovation and Improvement); From Sunzi 36 stratagems to poetry of Tagore “Stray Bird”, multi-cultural wisdom is the hotbed to be unconventional

6.Ask Effective Questions
The question about future is more critical than an answer about yesterday. If today’s executives try to answer and micromanage the short-term concerns, tomorrow’s leaders would more focus on asking the effective questions to lead the future, and draw others into solutions.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning.” Albert Einstein

7.Add Some Fresh Styles
Fashion fades, but style lives: entrepreneur’s spirit, the green lover,  or a global mindset are more than welcomed, no matter which color is your parachute, the beauty of diversity would be essential to the future of leadership.

The management of previous generation have brought authority, idealism and efficiency, sometimes hierarchy, greedy and arrogance, their philosophy might be the game of “WIN”; then the future of leader could be more open, colorful and collaborate, The nature of leadership is more about pursuing the life call of purpose,  to lead through influence.

Please also enjoy the leadership videos from HBR:

http://www.youtube.com/HarvardBusiness#p/u/1/j8WRz3CxafE

http://www.youtube.com/HarvardBusiness#p/u/4/kb2PI0LaxGE

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The Purpose of Enterprises

Enterprise just like an individual should find the purpose bigger than itself, not only for the pursuit of profit but also for exploring the mission and purpose to the society, that’s the yin/yang of the visionary enterprise.

Here are mission statements from a couple of industry leaders:

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Kimberly-Clark: To enhance the health, hygiene and well-being of people every day, everywhere.

Nike: To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If you have a body, you are an athlete."

Microsoft: We work to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential

The legacy industries such as airline were built on human’s pride and imagination, however, they were suffering economically for the last decade, as a loyal customer and warm advocate for many great airlines, I believe beyond pursuit of different revenue streams which is fair, how to explore the great customer experience catches the insight from this perspective: We are in the customer service business, and we happened to be in transportation industry. That’s why they are doing better)

What other BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) the airline could pursuit beyond profit, or even transform the industry from “surviving mode” into “thriving prosperity”:

1.Inspire the diversified culture and global wisdom: Since airline is the privileged industry to touch the world from the sky, how to understand the world deeper and better may help serve the world best.

2.Take the leadership on the new technology battleground: Bio fuel, energy efficiency, and the latest information technology have great potential to make the industry thriving, the airline should make a splash to become the leader.

3.Rekindle the passion and imagination for the sky: the airline could become the incubator for nurturing the colorful leadership, space science lover, and travel adventurers.

Now United airline and Continental airline merged as the biggest airline in the world. What’s the fresh mission statement for the new carrier to pursuit the purpose such as:
Unite the best, to build the smartest enterprise in the world, and inspire the human to reach beyond the sky

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Cultural Insight from The Moon Festival

Today, 10:00pm, September 22nd, just look out of the window, there’s bright full moon hanging right on the sky, shining in the solitude. The Moon festival (also called the Mooncake or Mid-Autumn festival) is right here..

Moon Festival vs. Thanksgiving
What is the Moon festival? Every year on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when the moon is at its maximum brightness for the entire year, the Chinese celebrate "zhong qiu jie." It is the most important festival after the Chinese Lunar New Year. A full moon is a symbol of togetherness. As such, the Mid-Autumn Festival is a time for family reunion. It's also called "Reunion Festival", just like Thanksgiving in United States. Instead of eating turkey, mooncakes are inextricably linked with the Moon festival, mooncakes may be filled with everything from dates, nuts, and fruit to eggs, sausages. More exotic creations include green tea, Haagen-Daz has even gotten into the act by introducing a line of ice cream mooncakes in Asian markets.



The Philosophy of Life
There have been numerous poems about the Mid-Autumn Festival since ancient times, the most famous piece below comparing our life’s up & down to the four moon phases (new moon, first quarter moon, full moon, and second quarter moon):

"Men have sorrow and joy, they part or meet again;
the moon may be bright or dim, she may wax or wane.
So let us wish that man will live long as he can;
though miles apart,
we'll share the beauty she displays."

The philosophy of our life is not because it’s perfect, it’s more like a colorful journey to enjoy the nature such as sunshine & moonlight and pursue the purpose.

Ying and Yang of Change Management
The moon and sun reflect the notion yin and yang in Oriental philosophy, also means different ways of looking at a world that may be experienced in a variety of different ways. Yin, or 'the shady side' is contrasted with 'the sunny side' yang, and the idea is that everything has at least two aspects to it.

In today’s multi-polar world, the modern management need absorb energy from both sunshine and moonlight, digest the difference, to create the multi-cultural laser and explore the quintessence of ying and yang.

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Information is Power : 5 “I”s in 21th Century

“I never worry about the future. It comes soon enough” Albert Einstein

However, many of us may worry about the future, especially in this downturn economy, today’s enterprise also feel uncertain about the future, that’s why “How the Mighty Fall” is the latest hot management guide from Mr. Jim Collin.

In the future, the digital information is expected to double in size every 18 months, how to collect, analyze, optimize information are the foundation to build up the best businesses; for humans, the information-synthesis brain is the 21th century mindset to create insight, help make the right decision, and bring up the long-term perspective, to avoid the leadership failures we just experienced in this BIG recession.

The five “I”s are the essentials in this explosive information age:

“Information”: Information is King & Question, how to get the right information at right time in the right place would become the most critical factor to run today’s business and personal life; Internet and search engine are those power engine to stimulate this new age.

“Insight”: Information is the phenomenal on the surface, insight is the core value to differentiate the capabilities; Many cool technologies such as BI and predictive analytics are the tools to open the “insight” door;

“Innovation”: Innovation could be the prettiest flower in the information tree, innovation is the intersection of insight and invention, the hottest companies these days are innovation-driven: Apple produce the innovative products; Google create the innovative business model; Amazon build up the innovative business process., etc. Innovation is the key to lead both breakthrough and incremental progress in human society.


“Interaction”: the social network and Mashup are the hottest tools to inspire people’s interaction, to connect innovation with the imagination.

“Imagination”: "Imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited; imagination encircle the world." Albert Einstein (again)

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Hopefully the 5 “I”s power soup could help us turn around from this unusually uncertain economy.




,

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Open Leadership to Execute Innovative Turn Around

I did get opportunity to participate the “Predictive Analytics” seminar in San Francisco this week, is it the latest technology crystal ball to bring us the new insight, especially the economy has just been through the Great Recession in our life time: many great companies disappeared forever nd many named brands got tarnished and acquired by others such as SUN Microsystems and Merrill Lynch.

Mr. Jim Colin’s latest book “How the Mighty Fall” may clarify the reasons to cause those Giants fall; To inspire the economy recovery, let’s also share some turn around stories to discuss the futuristic leadership in the new decade.

1.Game Changer’s Courage

Mr. Barack Obama became the first black President in US history; the media titian Oparah Winfrey makes significant impact beyond the entertainment industry; Steve Job changes the business models in the multiple industries and keeps making splash in Silicon Valley, they are definitely the game changers; not only in main street, we desperately need more game changers in Wall Street and all those troubled legacy industries such as airline, auto, bank., etc, since they are the infrastructure backbone of modern society.

2.Entrepreneurial Innovation

The government in Japan invited Kazuo Inamori , a Japanese entrepreneur and the founder of Kyocera Corporation and KDDI Corporation (two Fortune 500 companies) to become the CEO of JAL Airline, when it enters bankruptcy protection on January 19, 2010, and lead the air carrier through its restructuring. Mr. Kazuo Inamori is the perfect role model with the entrepreneurial innovation, persistence and enriched life and business philosophy.

3.Cross-Industrial Fresh Eyes

Mr. Idris Jal led the state-controlled carries Malaysia Airlines from the brink of bankruptcy to record breaking profits, brand it the “five-star value carries”, Mr. Idris never worked in airline before he took a leadership to turn around the troubled airline.

It’s the other impressive turn around story: beyond the knowledge, the open mind, the fresh eyes, the big gut, and the warm heart, those are critical leadership charisma to instill the passion, stimulate the hope and make a difference.

4.Cross-Cultural Creativity

Mr. Carlos Ghosn is a Brazilian born businessman of Lebanese origin, he is the current CEO and President of Renault of France and Nissan of Japan, he is largely credited with turning around Nissan. As an outsider in charge of one of Japan's largest companies, Ghosn has been extremely successful

Mr. Carlos’s multiple cultural background provides him the unique insight about the corporation culture and purpose, he is a true global leader with competitive accent.

5.Unconventional Thinker’s Common Sense

The Futuristic leaders will focus on asking the right questions instead of just crafting the old-style answers; The futuristic leaders will be the systematic thinkers with global perspective, engineering logic and artist’s imagination; they should be natural communicators with cross-culture, cross-industrial, cross-functional understanding.

The latest technologies such as: Cloud, BI or BPM are the power to bring up the efficiency; But it’s still the human, the open-minded new leaders inspire the effectiveness, nurture the change cultures, and make the positive influences.

Mr. Lee Iacocca, the legendary turn around master in auto industry defined the 9 C's of Leadership: Curiosity, Creative, Communicate, Character, Courage, Conviction, Charisma, Competent and Common Sense in his book “Where have all the Leaders Gone”. Those qualities are still the best leadership criteria fit in 21 century with broader, deeper insight in the latest multi-polar global landscape.

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Culture Eat Strategy For Breakfast: Discuss Cultural Innovation in Global Economy

By opening up people’s mindset and taking advantage of the emerging technology, the forward-looking multi-national organizations will become the natural incubator to embrace the difference, inspire the creativity, improve the fair judgment and empower the right management.

The internet and globalization make unprecedented impact in modern human society, it will be superficial if the culture discussions are still base on recognizing the basic custom such as the ‘fork” vs."chopsticks," the true global strategy will embrace the cultural difference, absorb the philosophical quintessence, and integrate cross-cultural creativity with the best technology into the global organization’s mission and purpose.

Culture is one of the most intangible and strongest fabric weaving inside the human society and organization, it’s the critical ingredient to orchestrate the globalization  benefit for both emerging economies and developed countries.

Western style management is rational, scientific and logic, more like western style medicine, take the right pill to fix the ill in specific, usually it’s efficient (doing things right with the measurable result, but sometime at short term), it may cause some side-effect either (the necessary questions could be asked: is it doing the right thing for the long run?); Eastern style philosophy and management are more spiritual and integrated, maybe like herb, tea or acupuncture, try to boost your immunization, and enhance your energy, but the problem is how efficient they are, lack of the right benchmark to measure the performance and immediate results.

Western style leadership is more hands-on, managing in front of group, and inspiring by delivering the great speech; Eastern style of leadership is more natural, walking behind of the people, acting properly to attract the followers. Western communication is “talking is golden” and Eastern style could be “silence is golden”.
Even the red hot technology such as predictive analytics should refer two sides of coin:
“Study the past if you would like to define the future” Confucius;
“You can never plan the future by the past” Edmond Burke

Actually in today’s post crisis era, the most successful organizations in US are already learning deeper and faster from both sides and all angles; and the latest technologies such as internet, mobile computing, social network are the great catalyst to exchange the cultural essential and accumulate the collective wisdom, the diversified corporate leaders are the indefatigable ambassadors to glorify the world-wide cultural intelligence.

By opening up people’s mindset and taking advantage of the emerging technology, the forward-looking multi-national organizations will become the natural incubator to embrace the difference, inspire the creativity, improve the fair judgment and empower the right management.

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Seven Imperatives to Improve Leadership DNA in post-Crisis Era

Diversity and globalization are the most critical imperative in this multi-polar world, for any forward-looking global enterprise.

In the first decade of 21st century, we’ve been through the Great Recession in US, the tough time like this make many of us more humble, also bring some deep thought about how to develop the crucial new leadership in the upcoming decade.

 

The essentials of leading in post-crisis should have some significant distinction from before: the Western “heroic style” leadership will integrate with Eastern “Servant model”, the outgoing extrovert executives need mix up with logic introvert thought leaders; the business expertise will and have to touch base with IT and engineering specialty and analytics….

1.Multi-Dimensional thinking:

The leaders will be both humble and self-confidence, systematic thinker with articulation capability, executive’s responsibility, authority with entrepreneurial mindset, budget making…..

2.Scientific & Independent Decision Making Process

Today’s high performance leaders have the capabilities to see through the bias and see around the corner. Any guess work or “gut feel” like decision making process may be the true root cause of the leadership failure in the current economic crisis, how to build up the structured decision making process will test leaders wisdom and accumulated knowledge and expertise.

3.Competitive Accent
Diversity and globalization are the most critical imperative in this multi-polar world, for any forward-looking global enterprise, no matter it’s the board room, the executive team and middle management, the diversified voices with competitive accent would be the latest fashion and identity for the post crisis leadership.


4. Standardized and Structured Incentive Package

The image of executives in the last couple of decade are always contradictory in US, on the one hand, they are the heroes to inspire the world, on the other hand, they are overpaid, lost trust by their shareholders, employees. How to standardize the executive rewarding package with the reasonable structure should become the key to shake up the new leadership landscape.


5.Consistent Role Model Image In & Outside Workplace
People intent to look for the role models with positive impact everywhere, in main street, Wall Street, Silicon Valley or Hollywood, the leaders are the role models usually with simple and healthy life style, beyond star’s charisma persona.

6.Lifelong Learner

All the leaders should be the good and continuing learner with their own styles, in this world of information explosion: tireless learning capability would be another keep identity of new leadership

7 Streamlining Career Path

Groomed to become the leader are the part of strategic career planning and life scenario, today’s leader may need to think more about their post executive life: the entrepreneur, the adviser, the career coach., etc, career will be never over with the right support system and planning.

In Summary, the new leaders should have experienced the pain of normal American people in this economic downturn, they are not the isolated privileged class with silver spoon, the are the creative pioneers to bring up the new hope and blood for the corporate of America.

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Learning on Demand and Modern Talent Management

Lifetime learner has the new wings to learn on the fly. 

Web 2.0 technologies such as video, audio, blogs, wikis and social network craft the fashion of on-demand learning, and enhance the modern talent management and education system with the unprecedented open, creative style in the 21st century.


Lifetime learner has the new wings to learn on the fly. These cool web 2.0 tools encourage self-driven human beings to learn anytime, anywhere with any subject to evoke any dreams they may have at any age; and modern Talent Management has the new boundaries. HR in the old time is more like administrative function in the enterprise, now human resources could become the true strategic partner in the 21st century, HOW:

• Modern HR will evaluate the employee performance dynamically: the web 2.0 technologies become the efficient tools to manage with multi-dimensional focus, not only employee’s daily task delivery but also their drive, thought process and their value proposition, you may call it: Manage On the Behind;

• Modern Talent Management will enhance the on-demand learning curriculum to develop the talent pool, and take initiative on growing employees' transformable skill set to fit in the future.

• Modern HR not only make ‘Apple to Apple” comparison but also manage “Apple to Apple Pie” style insightful scenario planning: with these web 2.0 tools, the talent development is not just based on the past credential and experience, more counting on the talent’s potential, drive and time management skills

• The forward-looking leaders and managers are the corporate human architect to build up the business vision with their talent blocks; they are also the life coaches to help develop employees’ progressive careers; the human engineers to navigate the employees’ potentials, energize their spirit, and hunt their Mojo.

Learning on demand makes the learning process non-stoppable, fun, more efficient and effective, without border and limit, it brings the new perspective on individual growth, talent management, education revolution and the true globalization.

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Innovative Frugality

The Great Recession we’ve just been through has changed many of our perspective forever, both in business world and consumer’s life style, the businesses are struggling with cutting cost and improve the process efficiency, and the consumers are more sensitive to leverage the shopping price with the quality and brand.

The good news is: the emerging innovative technology such as internet and web 2.0 make frugality the new cool in 21st century.

Web conference is hot in enterprise world, to help company limit the physical conference and eliminate travel expense significantly, the maturity of web meeting and virtual trade show actually improves the event productivity and gain more audience base, the recorded version could be archived as educational resources for the future usage, it’s the vivid example of innovative frugality in the corporate world.

The ironic fact is: the web conference is such a innovative frugality machine for many industries, but it’s also the latest innovative disruption for airline, hotel and other hospitality industries in the last couple of years; fortunately, the same web 2.0 families such as social network, blogs, crowdsource could also bring up the new horizon for those struggle companies to expand the global landscape, especially lure the potential consumers with strong purchasing power in the emerging economies.

The webnar, virtual conference could also become the main stream of informal training for many companies in the most cost effective ways, help their employees upgrade the skill set, catch up the latest technology and industry trend, refresh their mindset and energy, those emerging technologies will inspire the lifelong learner to keep grow, make the learning scenario a new cool.

"Free: The Future of a Radical Price" by Chris Anderson may bring us the great perspective on how the internet technology craft the new fashion of the innovative frugality to change the world radically.

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