Showing posts with label Agility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agility. Show all posts

August 14, 2019

Goals Vs. Tactics

I liked this saying from someone in the IDF. 

Be "flexible in tactics, but stay fixed on the goals!"

There are many ways to accomplish the same thing. 

And different people have their own approaches. 

As in the lyrics: "You take the high road and I'll take the low road."

That's absolutely okay. 

In fact, that's one of the strengths and benefits of diversity.

We bring different ways of looking at the world to the table.

Hence, we can bounce fresh ideas off each other and come to a great way forward. 

The main thing is that we focus on our goals and progress to achieve them. 

Be rigid on goals and flexible in tactics. ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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August 11, 2019

The Humanity of Routine

People are creatures of habit. 

They form routines and function with relative comfort and efficiency within that. 

And for the most part, we can recognize our own patterns in life. 

Get up, brush our teeth, dress, daven (pray), go to work and so on. 

After a while, you can do it mostly in your sleep. 

We sort of become like automatons. 

Flip the switch and we go.

When routine and structure become so rigid that we can no longer improvise or innovate then we have a big problem in higher order functioning. 

But also when we break people's structures and habits, we find that they can quickly lose their sh*t. 

People need to control their time and maintain their patterns of life. 

Therein lies a certain safety and comfort in that repetitive doing.

You know what you're doing--you've done it before, so you can do it again.

If you strip a person of their control over their time and the structure of their behavior, they are truly naked and in much more than a physical sense.  (They articulated this in The Punisher, Season One, on Netflix)

All of a sudden they don't know what to do or how to do it. 

Do they go crazy, breakdown, or tell you everything you want to know. 

Torture is not just physical, but also mental and emotional. 

It is not hard to take away something so simple and a person is no longer a full person anymore. 

People need solid coping as well as survival skills to deal with the unknown.

Finally, appreciate when everything is more or less under control, because that's truly a blessing.  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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June 26, 2018

Super Cool Military Wheels



The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has come up with a Reconfigurable Wheel Track (RWT). 

The tires can switch shape from round tires for flat terrain to triangular tracks for soft or rugged terrain in just 2-seconds!

You can see in the screenshot the rear wheels in tire formation and the front wheels changed to tracks. 

The agility of this technology makes for better maneuverability and survivability for our troops and their transports and combat vehicles. 

I wonder if someday soon, they will commercialize this technology so rather than all season/year tires or snow tires on our cars, we have these gorgeous ruggedized military grade babies.

I for one would gladly pay extra! ;-)

(Source Screenshot: Andy Blumenthal from here)
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February 15, 2018

Change Everybody Loves To Hate

I thought this saying from a colleague was really astute.
"Everybody hates the status quo 
but nobody wants to change."

How's that for a conundrum. 

The question is are we more unhappy with the dysfunctional way things are or are we more afraid to make the necessary changes in our life?

I think that when the pain and dysfunction of the status quo are greater than the fear and inconvenience of changing, only then will people quite resisting and adapt to the new reality. 

Welcome to change!  ;-)

(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)
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November 20, 2017

Hammer and Nail

Often, we have a one size fits all orientation to life. 
"To a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

We try to solve fresh daily problems, yet everything we are going through is seen through our preset filters and mindsets. 

In many cases, we are simply and undeniably biased, mistakenly believing that what worked in the past or for particular challenges will always work in the future and for all our problems. 

We stereotype people and races and see them as either "the good guys" or "the bad guys"--but there's no grey in there to further differentiate.  

Also, we work in a comfortable zone of blind routine thinking that we wish it's all as simple as wash, rinse, and repeat.

But while some die-hard habits and lessons learned in life are very valuable and should be mentally recorded and referenced, seeing life through a single, or even a few handy-dandy, filters can prove disastrous when things or times change. 

For example, one big criticism of our dealing in Washington is that:
"Politicians, like generals, have a tendency to fight the last war."

Instead, if we evaluate the nuances of each person and particular situation, we can work to get a more detailed evaluation, and potentially be able to fine-tune approaches for what needs to be done, and how, with each and every one, accordingly. 

Chucking a batman belt approach to just using whatever tools are immediately available, can facilitate a broader and more creative approach to problem-solving. 

Sure, to a certain degree, we are creatures of habit--and we intuitively rely on what's worked in the past, and reject and shun what hasn't--but past experiences do not necessarily foretell future successes. 

If we don't stay agile and resilient, we can easily get blown away by the situation or the competition. 

There is always a new challenge to test us and someone coming up who may be better, faster, or stronger that wants to try and take us on or down. 

A shotgun approach, in lieu of a more precise surgical strike, can result in a lot of collateral damage and maybe even missing the mark altogether. 

Think, think, think. 

Focus on what needs to get done--apply lessons learned as applicable, but also look for new sources and methods to build a bigger and more versatile tool chest.

In the walking dead, a hammer to the head works fairly well on all Zombies, but sometimes there are too many zombies in the hoard or even more dangerous living people and situations to attend to. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to stevepb)
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June 16, 2017

It Takes A Village

I wanted to share some good tidbits about effective management, collaboration, and engagement that I heard this week at a Partnership for Public Service event.

It Takes A Village - No I don't mean the book by Hillary Clinton, but rather the idea that no one person is an island and no one can do everything themselves. Rather, we need the strengths and insights that others have to offer; we need teamwork; we need each other!

2-Way Communication - Traditionally, organizations communicate from the top-down or center to the periphery (depending how you look at it).  But that doesn't build buy-in and ownership. To do that, we need to have 2-way communication, people's active participation in the process, and genuine employee engagement.

Get Out Of The Way -  We (generally) don't need to tell people how to do their jobs, but rather develop the vision for what success looks like and then get out of the way of your managers and people. "Make managers manage and let managers manage" and similarly, I would say, hold people accountable but let people work and breath!

Things Change - While it's important to have consistency, momentum, and stay the course, you also need to be agile as the facts on the ground change.  "Disregard what's not working, and embrace what is." But you must stay open to new ideas and ways of doing things.

This is our world of work--our village--and either everyone helps and gets onboard the train or they risk getting run over by it. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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January 31, 2017

Born Or Forged To Lead

So are we born to lead or are we forged to greatness through adversity and lots of hard work?

Some people definitely seem to have innate leadership characteristics:

- Charisma

- Integrity

- Decisiveness

- Passion

- Determination

- Agility

- Intelligence

- Inspirational

- Confident

- Articulate

Other people maybe weren't born with it, but they learn to become great leaders through:

- Hard Work

- Willingness to learn

- Continuous improvement 

- Motivation to advance

- Finding a meaningful mission 

- Belief that they can make a difference

- Faith that G-d is guiding them

Like with most things in our life, it's a combination of nature and nurture. 

Good raw material starts us off on the right track and then forging it with fire and a hammer and polishing it off into a great sword with hardness, strength, flexibility, and balance. 

As Joanna Coles, Chief Content Officer at Hearst Magazine says:
"I'm an overnight sensation 30 years in the making."

Birth is just the beginning... ;-)

(Source Photo: Dannielle Blumenthal)
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April 13, 2015

| Go With A Winning Strategy |

So there was an office discussion the other day about something having a "checkered past."

And one of my colleagues said wisely about it, "I rather play chess!"

I though it was a smart retort, since chess is a game of strategy versus checkers, which is more a game of luck. 

Checkers is by far the more one-dimensional game with each piece moving or jumping in a similar fashion, while in chess, you deploy specific types of pieces (king, queen, rook, bishop, night, or pawn) for different manuevers. 

In life, when we deal with things that are especially challenging, double-edged, tricky, or plain dangerous, we need to handle it with a well-thought-out game plan and a solid strategy.

Having a plan and maintaining agility in dealing with the "facts on the ground" as they unfold is by far the better problem-solving approach than just trying to jump over the other guys pieces or block his next move. 

Chess in the only way to get to checkmate ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Florls Looijesteijn)
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September 11, 2014

Okay For A Drive By

So, having grown up in New York, I've definitely heard of a drive by shooting, but never a "drive by meeting". 

Until a colleague asked me, "Okay for a drive by?"

A little taken aback, but I was available (and figured not in any imminent danger by his type of "drive by"), so I agreed to meet for a few minutes. 

The meeting was quick, like a car whizzing by, but we discussed what was needed and accomplished the immediate goal. 

Personally, I prefer when someone is driving the meeting, rather than having a drive by meeting, but we all need to be agile to whatever the day brings. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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August 5, 2014

Go Quick And Far

I love this African proverb that I heard recently:

"If you want to go quickly, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together."


When we're alone, we are traveling "light"--we don't have to worry about or help another person...we can go quickly.


However, when we go together with another, we have a companion and support, and can endure more and go much farther.


In life, going it alone...is more of a "flight" response. When you have to run, you get away as quickly as you can.  


In the movie Last of the Mohicans the fleeing male character yells to the woman, "Stay Alive! No matter how long it takes, I will find you."  They disperse, each one moving as speedily as possible to survive.


Similarly, when we have to "fight," there is power in numbers. We are always stronger and more capable as a team.


Already from The Three Musketeers, we acknowledge the familiar refrain of, "All for one, and one for all."


Similarly, when a military force advances it does so in strength with coordination and in unison, but when it is under severe attack and is retreating, often it does so chaotically, running with "every man for himself" trying to save as many as possible.


Overall, while we need the strength of unity and the speed of an agile runner, in the end we have to have faith, hope, and perseverance to survive.


Ernest Hemingway said, "The world breaks everyone, and afterwards some are strong at the broken places." ;-)


(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

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June 10, 2014

I Like That Technology

Christopher Mims in the Wall Street Journal makes the case for letting employees go rogue with IT purchases.

It's cheaper, it's faster, "every employee is a technologist," and those organizations "concerned about the security issues of shadow IT are missing the point; the bigger risk is not embracing it in the first place."


How very bold or stupid? 


Let everyone buy whatever they want when they want--behavior akin to little children running wild in a candy store. 


So I guess that means...


  • Enterprise architecture planning...not important.
  • Sound IT governance...hogwash.
  • A good business case...na, money's no object.
  • Enterprise solutions...what for? 
  • Technical standards...a joke.
  • Interoperability...who cares? 
  • Security...ah, it just happens!

Well, Mims just got rids of decades of IT best practices, because he puts all his faith in the cloud.

It's not that there isn't a special place for cloud computing, BYOD, and end-user innovation, it's just that creating enterprise IT chaos and security cockiness will most-assuredly backfire. 


From my experience, a hybrid governance model works best--where the CIO provides for the IT infrastructure, enterprise solutions, and architecture and governance, while the business units identify their specific requirements on the front line and ensure these are met timely and flexibly.


The CIO can ensure a balance between disciplined IT decision-making with agility on day-to-day needs. 


Yes, the heavens will not fall down when the business units and IT work together collaboratively. 


While it may be chic to do what you want when you want with IT, there will come a time, when people like Mims will be crying for the CIO to come save them from their freewheeling, silly little indiscretions. 


(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

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February 9, 2013

Have Some Chutzpah


Nobody likes to get or feel rejected--whether asking someone on a date, applying for a job, coming up with a new idea...you don't want to get shot down...you want to be appreciated for who are you and what you "bring to the table." 

I used to have a teacher who used to tell his students "nobody appreciates how great you are like your mother does."

In other words, don't get overconfident and think your so smart, so good-looking, or so otherwise great--just because you received unconditional love from your parents--who tell you everything you do is so amazing and you are G-d's greatest gift to mankind--doesn't mean it's really true.

So get real about yourself!

Bloomberg BusinessWeek (7 January 2013) had an article about something called "Rejection Therapy"--where for 100 days, this guy--Jia Jiang--"makes at least one preposterous demand everyday" that get him "strange looks, rude comments, and outright dismissal."

He posts videos of this to his site entresting.com or "Hope from nope."

Jiang is trying to learn a little chutzpah and determination in the face of rejection--especially for landing some venture capital funding for a social networking app he wants to build. 

To teach himself to get out there, try his best, be willing to fall off the horse and get right back up again, Jiang now purposely seeks to get rejected every day--thinking that "Everybody has failures periodically. The people who are generally successful are the ones who bounce right back."

So he asks random people for crazy things...like a policeman, if he can sit in his/her squad car--just to see what happens and if he gets rejected whether he can brush it off--and generally be strong in the face of (repeated) failure and some accompanying adversity. 

It's a crazy experiment, but one that is getting Jiang noticed--maybe you've got to be a little crazy to stand out from the crowd. 
In the end, it's not about rejection, but about trying your best and being willing to take some bruises and bumps along the way to your goals. 

The path to success is littered with wounded and even dead bodies--to succeed you've got to have some chutzpah--plus a dose of resilience and perseverance--to get out there and try, try again. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

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January 15, 2012

Adapt and Live!

Train

The Times, They Are a-Changin' is a song by Bob Dylan (1964), it is also the reality of our times today, and how we react to all the change can make or break us.

Like with Agile Software Development, one of the main values is "responding to change over following a plan," to improve the success of software development, similarly in the world today, we need to be able to rapidly and flexibly respond to change in order to successfully compete.

Fast Company (February 2012) has two important articles on this topic--one is called "Generation Flux" and the other "The Four-Year Career."

Generation Flux is about how we are living in a time of "chaotic disruption" and that this is "born of technology and globalization." Generation Flux is a mindset of agility versus a demographic designation like Gen X or Y.

All around us we see the effects of this rapid change in terms of business models and leadership turned upside down, inside out, and sideways.

Recently, we have seen:

- Mainstay companies such as American Airlines and Hostess declare bankruptcy

- Some titans of the Fortune 500 companies ousted, including Carol Bartz of Yahoo, Leo Apotheker from HP to name just a few

- Others, like RIM and Netflix have fallen from grace and are struggling to regain their footwork--some will and some won't

At the same time, we have seen the ascension of companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon becoming the "kings of the hill"--driven in part by their agility to get in and out of markets and products:

- In 2010, Google was getting out of China; today Google is expanding its presence once again. In addition, Google continues to start up or acquire and discontinue services regularly; just last year they closed Google Desktop developed in 2005, Google Health Service started in 2008, and Google Aardvark purchased in 2010 (and more)

- Amazon, once an online book and music retailer has now become the premier e-Commerce company as well as the No. 2 in tablets and in the top 3 in cloud computing.

- Apple was slick in developing the navigation wheel on the iPod only to get rid of it completely with the touch-screen of the iPad.

- Facebook continues to adapt to security and privacy concerns, but still has more to do, especially in terms of simplifying choices for their users.

According to Fast Company, to survive, we need to be profoundly agile and "embrace instability, that tolerates--and enjoys--recalibrating careers, business models, and assumptions." The article points out that this is just as Darwin has professed, ultimately it is the agile that will survive--not the strongest or smartest.

For organizations, change, agility and adaptability is the name of the game, and they are depending on petabytes of information and the business intelligence to make sense of it all to make the right decision every day.

For individuals, "the long career is dead" (U.S. workers have a medium job tenure of only 4.4 years and have an average of 11 different jobs over a lifetime) and "the quest for solid rules is pointless" (with automation and robotics atrophying low- and middle-skill jobs and part time, freelance, and contract work all on the rise). Now, in an agile marketplace, "career-vitality" or the continuous broadening of individual capabilities is encouraged and expected, and the "T-shaped" person with both depth or subject matter expertise as well as breadth in other areas in becoming more and more valued.

Moreover, hard skills are important, but social skills and emotional intelligence are critical to get along, share information, and collaborate with others.

Of course, not all change is good, and we need to speak up and influence the direction of it for the good, but in the end, standing still in the path of genuine progress is like standing in front of a speeding locative.

While the quiet and serenity of maintaining the status quo is often what feels most secure and comfortable in uncertain times, it may actually just be the forerunner to the death knell for your career and organization. There are no short-cuts to continuing to learn, explore, and grow as the world around us rapidly evolves.

Adapt and live or stagnate and die.

(Source Photo: here)


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December 11, 2011

What is The Secret of Laserman

This is a terrific performance by Laserman.

He seems to break all the laws of physics and manipulates laser light beams as if it is both a vapor and a solid.

He stops and redirects it, yet at the same time he pushes and twirls it--huh?

While I am not a fan of the movie Tron--I think I actually fell asleep in the theater (and more than once), this performance more than makes up for it.

My favorite piece is at 1:39 when Laserman picks the laser light up out of the stage--people start yelling as no one can believe it!--and he starts twirling it around like a baton now.

Then at 1:48, he breaks the light beam in two and starts twirling both and sticking them back in the stage only to start bending the light again.

To me, this performance is really cool and inspiring--it makes me think of a bright future for all of us--one that is agile, high-tech, heart-pounding, and where natural laws are almost made to be broken.

Someone please tell me how he does this...I promise, I won't tell ;-)


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April 25, 2011

Turning IT From Frenemy to Friend

Fast Company (December 2008) describes Frenemies as a "thrilling intricate dance" of friend-enemy relationships.

Half a year later, CBS News (July 2009) reports that this words is added to the dictionary: "Frenemy--someone who pretends to be a friend, but is really an enemy."

Recently, I've heard the term applied to Information Technology, as in they they here to help (i.e. friend-like), but boy are they often an obstacle as well (i.e. enemy-like).

Obviously not the message any IT executive wants to hear about their folk's customer service and delivery!

Today, the Wall Street Journal (25 April 2011) writes about the "discontent with the [IT] status quo" and it calls somewhat drastically to "Get IT out of the IT department."

Why?

Based on responses from business and IT leaders, here are some of the key reasons:

- "IT is seen as overly bureaucratic and control-oriented" (51% business and 37% IT)
- "IT doesn't deliver on time" (44% business and 49% IT)
- "IT products and services doesn't meet the needs of the business" (39% business and 29% IT)
- "IT consists of technologists, not business leaders" (60% business and 46% IT)

Therefore, the WSJ states "both for competitive and technological reasons...business unit leaders need to start assuming more control over the IT assets that fuel their individual businesses."

This is being called "Innovative IT"--where "IT shifts to more of a support role. IT empowers business unit self-sufficiency by providing education, coaching, tools, and rules, which allow for individuals to meet their needs in a way that protects the overall need of the enterprise."

The result is rather than delivering IT to the business, we deliver IT "through the business."

In this model, there is an emphasis on partnership between the business and IT, where:

- IT provides services to the business (i.e. through a service-oriented architecture of capabilities)--systems, applications, products, tools, infrastructure, planning, governance, security, and more.
- The business exploits these services as needed, and they innovate by "dreaming up ideas, developing prototypes, and piloting changes" that will most impact on-the-ground performance.

I believe this is consistent with stage 4 (the highest) of architecture maturity--called Business Modularity--as described by Ross, Weill and Robertson in Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: In this stage, we "grant business unit managers greater discretion in the design of front-end processes, which they can individually build or buy as modules connected to core data and backend processes. In effect,managers get the freedom to bolt functionality onto the optimized core." The result is a "platform of innovation...[that] enables local experiments, and the best ones spread throughout the company."

Related to this are interviews in the WSJ today with 3 CIOs, that all bear out this IT leadership direction:

- Frank Wander (Guardian Life Insurance)--"We have IT embedded into each business and we have a seat at the table. We're partners."
- Norm Fjeldheim (Qualcomm)--"We're structured exactly the same way Frank is. IT is embedded in the business. I'm only responsible for about half the IT budget."
- Filippo Passrini (Proctor & Gamble)--"Our business partners are people outside IT....in the past we were always in 'push' mode...now...there is a lot of 'pull'."

So one of the goals of IT and business is to transform from a relationship of frenemies to friends and genuine partners; this will leverage the strengths of each--the expertise of our technology professionals and the customer insights and agility of our business people.

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November 15, 2009

Cloud Computing, The Next Evolution

On November 4-5 2009, I attended a good CSC Leading Edge Forum on Cloud Computing.

The kickoff by W. Brain Arthur was a highlight for me (he is the author of The Nature of Technology). He provided an excellent conceptualization of cloud and it’s place in overall technology advancement and body of world innovation. Essentially, he sees cloud in the 2000’s as the next evolution from the Internet in the 1990s. As such, the cloud is computational power in the “virtual world,” providing a host of benefits including easy access, connectivity, and cost efficiency. He sees the cloud coming out of the initial frenzy and into a industry sort-out that will result in a stable build out.

Another great speaker was David Moschelle from CSC who talked about the myriad benefits of moving to cloud such as scalability, self-service, pay as you go, agility, and ability to assemble and disassemble needed components virtually on the fly. With the cloud, we no longer have to own the computing means of production.

Of course, we also talked about the challenges, particularly security. Another speaker also spoke about the latency issues on the WAN with cloud, which currently limits some usability for transactional processing.

Over the course of the forum numerous examples of success were given including Bechtel achieving a 90% cost advantage by moving storage to the cloud. Others, such as Amazon were able to put up new web sites in 3 weeks versus 4-6 months previously. Also, Educational Testing Service as another example is using cloud bursting, since they tend to run data center at known cyclical peaks.

Others connected cloud with social computing: “the future of business is collaboration, the future of collaboration is in the cloud.”

In terms of the major types of cloud, I thought the relationship between responsibility and control was interesting. For example:

  • Software as a Service -- more “freedom” from responsibility for service, but less freedom to change service (i.e. less control)
  • Platform as a Service – (Hybrid)
  • Infrastructure as a Service – less freedom from responsibility for actual end-user services, more freedom to change service provision (i.e. more control)

In all cases, the examples demonstrated that organizations do not have a lot of leeway with SLAs with cloud providers. It’s pretty much a take it or leave it proposition. With liability to the vendor for an outage being limited to basically the cost of the service, not the cost of lost business or organizational downtime. However, it was noted that these mega-vendors providing cloud services probably have a better availability and security than it’s customers could have on their own. In other words, an outage or security breach will either way cost, and where is there a greater chance of this happening?

Sort of a good summary was this: “Leading companies are moving development/test and disaster recovery to the cloud,” but then this will reverse and companies will actually move their production in the cloud and provide mainly a back up and recovery capability in house. This is similar to how we handle energy now, were we get our electricity from the utilities, but have a back-up generator should the lights go dark.


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April 24, 2009

To Invest or Not to Invest, That is the Question

There are scarce dollars for investment purposes and many competing alternatives to invest in. Therefore, organizations must make wise investment decisions.

Common sense dictates that we invest in those technologies that will bring us the greatest return on investment. However, investing in IT is not only about seeking to maximize profitability or superior mission execution, but also about mitigating risk.

MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring 2009, discusses the need to balance between two types of investment risks.

The first, and obvious one is financial risk—“the failure to achieve satisfactory returns from an investment;” those organizations that load up on too much financial risk, can actually put themselves in danger of not being able to stay financially solvent i.e. too many poor investments and the company can be sunk!

The second risk is competitive risk—“the failure to retain a satisfactory competitive position for lack of investment.” Organizations that are too conservative and don’t invest in the future put themselves at risk of falling behind the competition, and may be even out of the race altogether.

So how do we balance these two risks?

On one hand, we need to make critical new IT investments to stay competitive and become more effective and efficient over time, but on the other hand, we need to manage our money prudently to stay on solid financial footing.

Managing financial risk is a short-term view—similar to looking at the daily stock market prices or quarterly financial returns; if we can’t meet our financial obligations today or tomorrow, game over. While managing competitive risk is a long term perspective on investing—we need to remain agile amidst our marketplace competitors and outmaneuver them over time picking up additional customers and market share and building brand and satisfaction.

In information technology management, we must manage both the short-term financial risk and the long-term competitive risks.

What tools are in the CIO’s arsenal to manage these risks effectively?

Enterprise architecture planning is a strategic function that takes a primarily top-down view and assesses organizational requirements (including competitive needs) and drives IT investments plans to meet those needs. In this way, EA manages competitive risk.

IT governance or capital planning and investment control is a bottom-up view that helps us manage shorter-term financial risks by providing a structure and process for vetting IT investments and prioritizing those. Sound IT governance helps us limit financial risk.

So we attack the risks from both ends—from the top and from the bottom.

While we cannot entirely eliminate the risks of failed IT investments or of missing opportunities to knock the competition off its feet, we can manage these by architecting our enterprise for long-term success and by appropriately scrutinizing the selection, control and evaluation of our investments so that we safeguard our financial resources.

So the CIO can err by going too far in either direction:

So a balance needs to be maintained.

“More specifically, a balance should be maintained between errors of omission and commission.” Fail to invest and modernize the organization’s technology and you commit the error of omission. Invest overly aggressively and you commit the error of commission. “A balance must be struck between the error of pursuing too many unprofitable investment opportunities as opposed to the error of passing up too many potentially profitable ones.”


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March 21, 2009

Challenges of a Change Agent

I have always been fascinated by leadership and how to grow an organization in spite of a broad variety of obstacles to change and maturity.

Indeed, as I have studied, read, watched, and practiced leadership and change initiatives for over two decades, I am always intrigued at the role of the change agent.

Certainly, it is hard to be a change agent for so many reasons. It is hard to change yourself let alone to get others to change. It is hard to exist in an environment where you see new and different possibilities, but others see only their way or the highway. It is hard to see others jockey for power and revel in the humiliation and shame of their peers. Change is only for the strong-hearted.

It’s interesting to me that change agents are often alone in the enterprise. They are specifically brought in fix highly ingrained problems that very often culturally rooted and that are damaging to the continuing maturation and success of the enterprise. But the change agent is coming in with “fresh eyes” and accompanying toolkit of best practices from outside the insular dynamics of the dysfunctional organization.

But the change agent is alone, or relatively so as they may be others who are “bucking the trend,” to try to bring a new openness and flexibility to the stagnant corporate culture and decaying ways of doing business that descend like death over complacent or arrogant organizations that think that once on top of the world, always on top.

Applause to the organizational leaders who are aware of processes, products, and ways of thinking that are broken and recognize the need for change and attract the agents of change and agility.

But the change agents run against the tide. They are new and are viewed as not knowing anything about the organization. Moreover, they are perceived as a danger to the comfortable long-standing held beliefs and ways of doing things. And moreover, they are seen as a threat to the incumbents. So from the incumbents perch, the change agents need to be shamed, humiliated, thwarted at almost any cost. And the change resisters in the established hierarchy “revel” in every obstacle they throw up.

There is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, 21-22 March 2009 about a website where people “revel in each other’s humiliation.”

The French site www.viedemerde.fr has 70,000 readers and it has “become a phenomenon in France…it receives a thousand or so new stories a day from which three young men who run it pick a dozen or so to post…the site now has 7,200 vignettes picked from nearly 400,000 sent in.”

It started a couple of years ago by the founder who “started posting stories online about the frustrations of modern life.”

The stories of life difficulty that are shared and read by others is closely aligned with Schadenfreude, a German word which means “One’s person’s misfortune is another’s happiness.” Or another version for the popularity of the site is that “one person’s misfortunes reassure another.”

Whichever explanation you adhere to for the popularity of people posting and reading about other people’s misfortunes and shame, points to people’s need to open up and release thoughts and feeling that are shameful and painful; people have a need to share, commiserate, and gain acceptance and to know that they are not alone.

Now there is an English language version of the popular website www.fmylife.com and “stories are flooding in. But the content is often similar. ‘It’s like there is a kind of solidarity among all countries when it comes to misfortune. We are all in a big, international pile of crap—but we’re in it together.”

The enterprise, its diehard stalwarts, and the change agents are also in it together. And they will either sink or swim. Hopefully, they decide on the latter.


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