The Change Agent CIO: The CIO’s Dynamic Role of Leading Digitalization

The Change Agent CIO

The CIO’s Dynamic Role of Leading Digitalization

Pearl Zhu

Copyright @2018 Pearl Zhu

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means –whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic –without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punished by law.

ISBN: 978-0-359-10301-0  (E)

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Digital CIO as Change Agent

Chapter 2 The Pervasive Change and Digitalization

Chapter 3 The Digital IT Change Agenda

Chapter 4 The Digital IT Change Practices

Chapter 5 IT Innovation and Intrapreneurship

Chapter 6 The Digital Change Agents

Chapter 7 Avoid Pitfalls to Run Dynamic Digital IT

Chapter 8 Play the Number Game Wisely

Conclusion: The Digital Profiles of Change Agent CIOs

Acknowledgment

About the Author

Introduction: The Digital CIO’s Vision, Passion, and Digitalization

Digital CIOs have both vision and passion, capability and capacity for entering into the new world of the change and innovation.

Figure 1 The Change Agent CIO Introduction

Information technology is like the growth engine of the company, CIOs are accountable for the critical part of the business that is constantly changing and evolving. Contemporary CIOs should be capable of evolving leadership skills to not only match the pace with changes in technology and the pace at which an organization can effectively manage these changes but also proactively drive digital transformation based on their vision, passion, and leadership practices.

Traditional CIOs are often perceived as tactical managers, controllers, or order takers. But digital CIOs need to be the constructive disruptors to break down silos and break through conventional wisdom. The purpose of this book "The Change Agent CIO: The CIO’s Dynamic Role of Leading Digitalization" is to share insight into the multifaceted CO leadership disciplines and multidimensional change agenda of IT. The digital CIOs are in demand to disrupt, inspire changes and accelerate digital transformation. They are change agents to reinvent IT as the business growth engine, optimize business processes and structures, rejuvenate the corporate culture and communication, and raise their intellectual voice to lead change interactively, innovatively, and relentlessly.

Chapter 1 The Digital CIO as Change Agent: Change is inevitable, and the speed of change is accelerating. Often information abundance catalyzes changes, and technology is the disruptive force behind major changes. Hence, in digital organizations, CIOs shouldn’t get pushed for changes; they are actually in a better position to play a role as the change agent.

Chapter 2 The Pervasive Change and Digitalization: Information is fluid, and digitalization is complex. It becomes complex if things do interact, particularly in the case of non-linear interaction and interdependent relationship. As the matter of fact, the pervasiveness of changes and the effects of an increasingly digitized world are now reaching into every corner of businesses and every aspect of organizations.

Chapter 3 The Digital IT Change Agenda: Digital businesses become more dynamic and hyperconnected, change is the new normal with faster pace and higher velocity. IT faces an unprecedented opportunity to refine its reputation, also needs to take more responsibility as a true business partner. CIOs have to get IT change agenda ready, have access to both internal and external resources for achieving the desired ROI and running high-performance digital IT organization effortlessly.

Chapter 4 The Digital IT Change Practices: The digital era upon us is about increasing pace of changes and continuous disruptions, IT is in a unique position to lead changes because they can oversee the whole organizational processes and they should have the management skills to implement digital transformation programs successfully. Thus, in forward-looking organizations, IT has become synonymous with the change department. Change Management needs to be the mechanism embedded in the multitude of IT management disciplines, in order to run IT as a change agent.

Chapter 5 IT Innovation and Intrapreneurship: Nowadays, IT is the business in the business and the digital engine of the entire organization. The role of CIO continues to evolve rapidly in the midst of the information abundance and technology-driven digital disruptions. Forward-looking IT organizations should practice intrapreneurship for running IT as a software startup, promote and sustain organizational performance, renewal and corporate competitiveness.

Chapter 6 The Digital Change Agents: Change is the new normal with increasing speed. Change Management is about mentoring the human side of the business through the profound and unsettling changes. Therefore, change agents are critical, as they have been an invaluable source of courage, knowledge, business direction and insight. They are the business influencers and the company brand advocates.

Chapter 7 Avoid Pitfalls to Run Dynamic Digital IT: The world is becoming more complex but smaller every day and as the consequence, every successful business has to sooner or later step into the uncharted water and blurred business territories. It brings both significant opportunities and unprecedented risks to the business’s surviving and thriving. The CIO as the digital leader needs to understand and overcome pitfalls on the way in order to run a high-performance digital IT organization.

Chapter 8 Play the Number Game Wisely: You can’t manage it if you don’t measure it is an old adage for modern business management. A performance measurement system is a necessary foundation for continuous improvement. Because without measurements, it can be hard to tell whether attempted improvements make the situation better or worse. In fact, it is dangerous to impose metrics just because the focus on what’s measurable is manageable. It is not the measurement that is important; it is what you do with the data obtained from the measurement.

The expectations for CIOs have grown multi-fold, digital CIOs have to keep evolving and playing the situational leadership all the time. The success of IT leadership has to do with the definitions or scope of the role that the CIO is playing.

Figure 2 The Vision, Passion, and Orchestration of Change Agent CIOs

●       Shape the vision: Leadership is all about future and change. Leadership vision is to serve as a compass and enabler for steering the business in the right direction. To clear the path of digitalization, whether that is the elimination of obstacles or providing coaching and guidance or making leadership influence, CIOs and their teams can play a large role in shaping a vision of the firm as a place where passionate individuals want to connect with and learn from one another. Vision should have a direction which sets clarity. As IT leaders, CIOs need to have the technological vision and awareness, as more often than not, technology becomes the game changer and innovation driver for running a digital business. No matter where you are in IT, the world changes with accelerated speed. IT is in the middle of a sea change, CIOs need to have the capacity to learn, relearn, and adapt. CIOs are expected to constantly propose new ideas and challenge the status quo, have the willingness to try something new, to test, to learn what you knew again, with the new perspective, to listen and remain balanced. A CIO’s technological vision should be an attainable subject to current time and its ability to adapt and help the business gain the competitive advantage for the long term.

●       Ignite the passion: The need for change is obvious. The range of emerging digital technologies fosters a deeper sense of digital connections and vision to changes. Simply put, IT can no longer just be about numbers and algorithms; it has an opportunity to be a significant catalyst for passion and a tool for encouraging questing and connecting the innovation dots. Passionate CIOs dare to practice out-of-the-box-thinking, introduce new business concepts, develop cross-functional systems, platforms, procedures, and tools for efficient use of natural resource and investing human capital to maximize collective potential. The digital setting and tools necessitate a new way of thinking, a creative way to do things, and a flexible way to work smartly to ignite latent worker passion and bring together disparate parts of the organization to achieve digital harmony. CIOs need to become the passionate change agents to retool the organization culture, build up a positive emotional environment, communicate relentlessly, inspire passionate employees, and foster collaborative business relationships. If a digital leader like CIO has a clear vision and is passionate about a certain goal, and then, it has the potential to be contagious and spread throughout the team. Keep in mind though, CIOs are senior leaders, their passion should never take precedence over making sound judgments. Following the passion also requires a good sense of judgment that you are on a right path to the vision you set. Passion enables determination, creativity, strategy, and talent. Passion aligned with focus, capabilities, and meaningful work is a destination for both individuals and businesses.

●       Orchestrate the digital ecosystem transformation: Digitalization implies the full-scale changes in the way business is conducted so that simply adopting a new digital technology is insufficient. Thus, the CIO as a change agent not only touches his/her own function but also needs to make a significant influence on the entire organization and the emerging business ecosystem. Digital Transformation is the change, but on a grand level, at the level of the system, differentiates in terms of the end result on a systemic level. Thus, it takes strategic planning, structural methodology, and continuous practices in orchestrating such a digital paradigm shift. The pervasive digitization requires both business and technology professionals to rethink how things are done in their organization and how to align the different parts of the business ecosystem to adopt more digital points of integration. You have to transform the company's underlying functions and the organization as a whole with adjusted digital speed. To effectively respond to the new dynamics, companies must begin thinking about ways to broaden their ecosystems and revenue streams while becoming more responsive and innovative. The CIO should run IT as the linchpin to orchestrate a high performance and high-innovative digital organization.

IT continues to grow in importance to organizations, both operationally and as a competitive advantage. The priority for CIOs is to genuinely position IT as an integral and inseparable part of the business to lead the digital paradigm shift. CIOs are change agents, for IT to enable and catalyze business transformation, for IT to have an oversight of the key business processes and influence of the organizational culture. Digital CIOs have both vision and passion, capability and capacity for entering into the new world of the change and innovation, build a comprehensive change agenda with a few crucial highlights to drive changes with focus, and practice leadership influence through their unique insight and intellectual voice.

Chapter 1 The Digital CIO as Change Agent

As businesses change shape, size, expansion, and transformations, CIOs too need conditioning and improvement.

Figure 3 The Digital Portraits of Modern CIOs

In the world moves too fast, with the exponential growth of information, leadership, marketing, finance, technology, etc, are all intertwined. IT leadership is strategically important. What C-level executives really want is a partner that works both on the business and in the business, not just for the business; someone who knows what they want before they know themselves; someone who can contribute to the top line business growth. Thus, the digital portrait of modern CIO is different from the traditional CIO who often thinks and acts as the tactical IT manager. The important thing is that the digital CIO as the top leadership role must have the strategic mindset, interdisciplinary knowledge, unique personality, and a clear idea of what needs to be done, yet creative enough to not hold the company back from growth, and ideally becomes the digital change agent. Here is a set of digital portraits of modern CIOs.

●       An innovative outlier: Traditional CIOs often live in the box, take the reductionistic management approach (business is the sum of parts) to manage IT. Outlier CIOs are the ones who can step out of a conventional thinking box, connect nonlinear dots interdisciplinarily, and leverage Systems Thinking to ensure IT as an integral component of the company. Nowadays, technology becomes the game changer and innovation driver for businesses. Digital CIOs are often innovative outliers because they have technological vision and awareness, eager to share their fresh perspectives on how IT can bring opportunities to the business for either revenue growth or business transformation, help C-Level leaders understand the possibilities of how new technologies can enhance creation or improvement of products, services or solutions. Further, CIOs have to provide business optimization and innovation execution services to the fellow business peers. The focal point is business, not on the technology itself, to become customer-centric and risk-intelligent. IT is the business.

●       A change agent: CIOs are accountable for critical part of the business that is constantly changing and evolving, with increasing pace. To reinvent IT from a change laggard to the change organization of the company, CIOs shouldn’t get pushed for the changes; they are in a better position to play a role as the change agent. The more complex the change, the more complex the solution. It takes a multi-stepped process to get ahead of change curves. Change should be viewed as an opportunity, and deep engagement usually accelerates changes. Change Management needs to craft and most importantly, deliver clear and cohesive messages at both the individual and group level, and more critically reinforce these statements through consistent actions. IT should ensure its strategy implementation allowing for digital speed, and responsiveness to be seen by the business as an enabler and even an accelerator. The business-engaged CIO is the right type of digital leader to run a proactive IT and keep navigating during rough sea journey of large or small changes.

●       A policy maker: The tactical IT managers often take orders from businesses and spend most of their time and resources on keeping the lights on. However, to improve IT leadership maturity and shape digital master CIOs, IT leaders should have a seat at the big table to co-set digital policies and co-develop business strategy, as well as provide the unique business insight to lead change proactively. The role of the digital CIO needs to move towards the business end of the spectrum, as high mature businesses treat IT organization as their partner and often engage them in situations of even no real technological need in the short term. CIOs need to reinvent their leadership reputation from an inflexible controller to an insightful policy maker and a change agent, leverage the advanced digital platforms and technologies to build the digital-ready workforce. It is easy to get caught up in the race toward being at the cutting-edge, but foresight and careful thought are required to truly understand the implications of new technology. The best CIOs understand what current technology-driven innovations can add business value and transfer this to the business seamlessly. They get engaged in the business investment process prior to the decision already being made, and keep IT running flawlessly at the prevailing level of organizational sophistication.

●       A gapminder: Nowadays, information is permeating into every corner of the business and technology is often the disruptive force of digitalization. The CIO is not a static management role, but a dynamic leadership role due to the changing nature of technology and the overwhelming growth of information. Especially now more and more enterprises are leveraging IT for revenue-generating initiatives. The IT leader of the future and the exemplar of today must move away from pure IT manager, and becomes a trustful business partner and an insightful strategist to bridge the gap between IT and business, and between the industrial age and the digital era. As the gap-minding role, digital CIOs should have know-how attitude about the business and strengthen IT as a business partner. Take an objective look at the relationship between IT and business: Is the gap enlarged or shrunk? Often business and IT have evolved digital at a different pace. In some cases, businesses still do not wish to learn about enterprise IT or deal with the IT department. Nevertheless, technology intricacies are increasingly hidden by smart interfaces that make possible for its direct operation and management by business people, avoiding as such as the IT department involvement. In other cases, IT still does not care much about the many types of business processes and methods. The key point is to take an objective look, enforce cross-functional communication and collaboration to bridge IT-business gaps.

●       A simplifier: By nature, technology is complex, and the information is overloading. However, the purpose and advancement of IT are not to complicate things, on the opposite, simplicity is the optimal level of complexity. Ultimately, IT needs to make things as simple as possible, simplicity should rule the day. CIOs need to take business problems, find solutions for them, increase value propositions, simplify operations, processes, and be better partners with the rest of the organizations. Therefore, the IT organization shouldn't just be stocked with technologists. You need visionary, problem solvers, change agents, customer champions and innovators, and those who can think forward, dig deeper, see through the issues, look around and beneath the corner and work smarter. Further, IT has to walk the talk, in many situations, IT manages information on a business, but, refuse to run them and deeply analyze IT itself. IT knows a lot about how to make applications better, more reliable, less maintenance, easier to change, but it doesn't seem to want to make that a reality. So IT has to look at itself, improve its own agility and effectiveness, simplify the way it does things, and amplify best practices into the enterprise scope. 

●       An intrapreneur: The heart of innovation is change and innovation is the heart for improvement: Intrapreneurship is about creating a new venture from within established organizations to leverage the startup culture for catalyzing changes and inspiring innovation. The heart of entrepreneurship is about changes, and organizations no matter large or small, all face the unprecedented change, uncertainty, velocity, and accelerated business dynamic. Practicing IT intrapreneurship means to harness changes, cultivate innovation culture and learn to generate more novel ideas in diverse teams. To run an innovative IT organization, the more difficult challenge is not just launching successful teams, but maintaining their motivation and focus, cultivate a positive attitude and build a culture of risk tolerance and do more with innovation. Innovation is the heart of improvement, the intrapreneurship activities can improve the organizational growth and profitability, depending on the company’s dynamic environment, their impact will increase over time. Traditional IT is lagging the change, but digital IT organizations need to become the change agent to make continuous improvement. Not every change is innovation, but innovation is always the most wanted change for either driving business growth or delighting people. Running IT or the business as a whole is fundamentally an iterative business change continuum.

●       An accelerator: IT leaders can envision of future of business, empower talent with effective tools, enable cross-functional collaboration, enchant end customers by optimizing every touch point in customer experience, standardize and simplify end to end business process. IT needs to be proactive, not reactive, with another clear aim of being a digital accelerator. In many organizations, IT is setting back and waiting for the request. To reinvent its reputation as the business partner, IT has to be configured in a way to understand the business and set the architecture to deliver the business and market need. IT has to be a consultant and advisor to business to maximize the revenue. IT needs to engage with the business units to find out how the department is perceived, what the pain points are and to identify opportunities for developing new services or improving/optimizing current ones. CIOs as IT leaders need to become business strategists and relentless change agents, to proactively co-create business strategy and execute it seamlessly. The CIO has a role in selling the merits of IT to the business