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CIOs Continue Being Held in Low Esteem – The CIO Report – WSJ

April 17, 2012 By brenda michelson

Wow. Can the CIO escape the chief infrastructure officer corner? Or, has that ship sailed?

“New research suggests chief executives don’t consider CIOs of their companies as partners in managing either strategy or innovation. This data could go a long way towards explaining why so many CIO jobs are advertised as strategic, but end up being largely operational.

According to Gartner, which conducts an annual survey of CEO attitudes towards technology, only 4% of the chief executives of some of the world’s largest companies consider their CIOs as leaders of innovation management within their organizations, or as supporting them in making strategic changes to the business.

Mark Raskino, who conducted the survey, added that 35% of CEOs named the CFO as their main strategic partner in the company, but didn’t mention CFOs at all when it comes to managing innovation either. “In this world of digital disruption, this overall equation is almost a systemic map for creating a blind spot… Strategy and innovation are held separately, and the CIO is held nowhere near any of them,” he told CIO Journal.”

…

“It reflects the extent to which CIOs are under-appreciated by the rest of the executive suite, in large part because “too often, IT leaders see themselves, and CEOs see them, as custodians of the tools” used to drive innovation. High says CIOs can change this perception by leading conversations about how IT can support initiatives for human resources, legal and compliance and marketing departments.

Gartner surveyed 381 companies for this report, 16% of which generate revenues of $50 billion or more, 23% of which earn between $5 billion and $25 billion, and 36% of which earn between $1 billion and $5 billion. Seventy percent of respondents were CEOs, president or board members, and 30% were CFOs. More than half employed more than 10,000 workers.“

via CIOs Continue Being Held in Low Esteem – The CIO Report – WSJ.

Another article on the survey result points to short CIO tenures as a detriment:

“CIOs are seen as employees that move from company to company, never rising to a more senior role and never staying longer than their next job offer, added Lopez.“

Regardless of the cause, the impact is significant. I’m not advocating that the “I” in CIO becomes “Innovation”, but in the now (and forever) digital business world, the CIO needs to press the innovation agenda. Directly, or via a strategic hire.

Filed Under: CIO, innovation

Its Not What You Sell, Its What You Believe – Bill Taylor – Harvard Business Review

April 5, 2012 By brenda michelson

“Cook did not respond with a detailed review of the products Apple made or the retail environments in which it sold them. Instead, he offered an impromptu, unscripted statement of what he and everyone at Apple believed — “as if reciting a creed he had learned as a child” in Sunday School.

“We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products, and thats not changing,” Cook declared.”We believe in the simple not the complex…We believe in saying no to thousands of products, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us,” he added.

“We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in ways other cannot…And I think that regardless of who is in what job those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well,” he concluded.Its not what you sell its what you believe.”

…

“In a provocative and saucy book, It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For, Spence explains the unique beliefs behind many of the one-of-a-kind organizations he has studied or worked with over the years, from BMW to Whole Foods Market to Southwest Airlines. Sure, these and other organizations are built around strong business models, stellar products and services, and (of course) clever advertising. But Spence is adamant that behind every great company is an authentic sense of purpose — “a definitive statement about the difference you are trying to make in the world” — and a workplace with the “energy and vitality” to bring that purpose to life.”

via Its Not What You Sell, Its What You Believe – Bill Taylor – Harvard Business Review.

Filed Under: business architecture, innovation, leadership

This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business | Fast Company

April 3, 2012 By brenda michelson

“In a big company, you never feel you’re fast enough.” Beth Comstock, the chief marketing officer of GE, is talking to me by phone from the Rosewood Hotel in Menlo Park, California, where she’s visiting entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. She gets a charge out of the Valley, but her trips also remind her how perilous the business climate is right now. “Business-model innovation is constant in this economy,” she says. “You start with a vision of a platform. For a while, you think there’s a line of sight, and then it’s gone. There’s suddenly a new angle.”

Within GE, she says, “our traditional teams are too slow. We’re not innovating fast enough. We need to systematize change.”

…

“The business community focuses on managing uncertainty,” says Dev Patnaik, cofounder and CEO of strategy firm Jump Associates, which has advised GE, Target, and PepsiCo, among others. “That’s actually a bit of a canard.” The true challenge lies elsewhere, he explains: “In an increasingly turbulent and interconnected world, ambiguity is rising to unprecedented levels. That’s something our current systems can’t handle.

“There’s a difference between the kind of problems that companies, institutions, and governments are able to solve and the ones that they need to solve,” Patnaik continues. “Most big organizations are good at solving clear but complicated problems. They’re absolutely horrible at solving ambiguous problems–when you don’t know what you don’t know. Faced with ambiguity, their gears grind to a halt.

“Uncertainty is when you’ve defined the variable but don’t know its value. Like when you roll a die and you don’t know if it will be a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. But ambiguity is when you’re not even sure what the variables are. You don’t know how many dice are even being rolled or how many sides they have or which dice actually count for anything.” Businesses that focus on uncertainty, says Patnaik, “actually delude themselves into thinking that they have a handle on things. Ah, ambiguity; it can be such a bitch.”

…

“Technology forces disruption, and not all of the change will be good. Optimists look to all the excitement. Pessimists look to all that gets lost. They’re both right. How you react depends on what you have to gain versus what you have to lose.”

Yet while pessimists may be emotionally calmed by their fretting, it will not aid them practically. The pragmatic course is not to hide from the change, but to approach it head-on. Thurston offers this vision: “Imagine a future where people are resistant to stasis, where they’re used to speed. A world that slows down if there are fewer options–that’s old thinking and frustrating. Stimulus becomes the new normal.”

via This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business | Fast Company.

Filed Under: change, economy, innovation, leadership, talent management

Thought for the New Year: Before you can Create, you must Forget

January 3, 2011 By brenda michelson

Thinking I might find some fodder for my business architecture research, I read The CEO’s role in Business Model Reinvention in the current issue of Harvard Business Review.  While I didn’t find my “CEOs are the Business Architects” smoking gun, the article’s central point stuck with me:  “Before you can create, you must forget”. 

In the article, co-authors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble discuss three equally important areas of responsibility for CEOs to ensure business success in the immediate term and relevance over time. 

“For companies to endure, they must get the forces of preservation (box 1), destruction (box 2), and creation (box 3) in the right balance. Striking that balance is the CEO’s most important task, but most companies overwhelmingly favor box 1. Forces of preservation reign supreme. Forces of destruction and creation are overshadowed, outmatched, and out of luck.

To be sure, the work of preservation—the day-to-day execution of the existing business model—is vitally important. CEOs must get box 1 right or their tenures will be short. They must concentrate daily on performance excellence and continuous improvement, as companies such as Wal-Mart and Southwest Airlines have done for years. The best box 1 companies are sleek and efficient, like a well-designed automobile. They coordinate an astonishingly complex array of human actions like so many gears, pistons, and camshafts.

But CEOs are not just responsible for box 1 [preservation]. They must also get boxes 2 [destruction] and 3 [creation] right. Sadly, most chief executives ignore destruction and creation until it is too late. They bow to a myriad of short-term pressures: intense demands for quarterly earnings, risk aversion, discomfort with uncertainty, resistance to change, linear extrapolation from past experience, and unwillingness to cannibalize established businesses. As a result, many companies fail to transform themselves.”

This tendency to win-the-day at the expense of tomorrow isn’t unique to CEOs.  It’s a common trait across professions and roles.  And while it might not be your trait, as a forward-thinker, it certainly becomes your obstacle as you navigate an organization.

What’s the answer?  As the authors share, CEOs (and everyone else) need to operate in all three boxes simultaneously.  More importantly,

“They must recognize that boxes 2 and 3 are not about what the business will be doing in 20 years; they are about the preparations it must make today…The CEO must also know exactly what to destroy and what to create.”

In regards to destruction (box 2) the authors emphasize the need to go beyond product, line-of-business and general portfolio pruning.  An even greater inhibitor of creation is organizational memory:

“It’s harder to take a knife to a less-evident box 2 menace: organizational memory. As managers run the core business, they develop biases, assumptions, and entrenched mind-sets. These become further embedded in planning processes, performance evaluation systems, organizational structures, and human resources policies. Organizational memory is particularly powerful in companies that tend to promote from within and to have homogeneous cultures, strong socialization mechanisms, and long track records of success. Such deeply rooted memory may be great for preservation (box 1), but if it is not tamed sufficiently (box 2), it gets in the way of creation (box 3). That’s why all box 3 initiatives must start in box 2. Bottom line: Before you can create, you must forget.”

As the new year starts — and you contemplate the flood of (additive) predictions and watch lists — ask yourself the following:

  1. What am I willing to forget, in order to create long-term value and success?
  2. What preparations do I need to make today, to achieve the longer view?
  3. How can I free up organizational memory to embrace creation and change?

Filed Under: business architecture, change, creativity, innovation

BEI Conference Preview: Chris Curran on the Innovation Expectation Gap

October 13, 2010 By brenda michelson

[Update November 2, 2010 – Unfortunately, the Optimization for Innovation Conference has been postponed until 2011. However, don’t let that stop you from watching Chris Curran’s video below, or following his work.]

Did I mention that Chris Curran, CTO of Diamond Management and Technology Consultants, is the opening keynote for the Optimization for Innovation conference I’ve been working on? Below, is a video preview of Chris’ session.

To see the full Optimization for Innovation program, go here.

[Disclosure: The Business Ecology Initiative is my client.]

Filed Under: business ecology, business-technology, innovation

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Brenda M. Michelson

Brenda Michelson

Technology Architect.

Trusted Advisor.

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