Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

The simple reason we cannot see (or perhaps refuse to see) a paradigm shift upon us is because we tend to look at the world through the old paradigm. So perhaps all we need to do to meet tomorrow’s problems is to stop using yesterday’s thinking. This Executive Update is a call for the acceptance of complexity and the introduction of interdisciplinary thinking to all aspects of life, starting with software engineering as the guinea pig. By seeking to understand complexity instead of hiding it, we can build better-quality software with less stress.

As companies adopt Agile as their standard for software development, they usually encounter resistance from several directions — from other parts of IT as well as from the business. We often see organizations struggling with cultural change, insufficient business involvement, and other aspects of scaling. To overcome these challenges, some organizations use ways that worked for them in the past, but in an Agile context this results in counterproductive outcomes. These anti-patterns are hard to root out and tend to reappear. In this Advisor, we highlight two of the most common Agile anti-patterns.

Data governance, a broad and very expansive subject, potentially applies every time there is a transition between data states (i.e., contextual, temporal, or geographic) or when data is accessed. Currently, adoption of data governance policies tends to be passive and non-active rather than overt or proactive. In other words, data governance is the default, out-of-the-box governance that requires no action. But today we have the opportunity to create more individualized overt and proactive data governance policies that meet the specific needs and requirements of a corporation. Indeed, the issues of responsibility and liability for keeping data while it is at rest or in motion are beginning to dominate many conversations about data.

Here, in Part VII, we continue examining industries and domains where organizations see AI having its most significant impact.

Participate in our study on how organizations are adopting or planning to adopt CX management practices and technologies and what they see as the possible impacts on their businesses. In particular, we want to determine the actual current status of CX efforts within organizations and what their plans are for utilizing CX in the future.

In this Advisor, we identify five key success factors for realizing the benefits of a Breakthrough Incubator implementation.

Discover how an organization can truly engage its people by understanding their behaviors, and how balancing empowerment, vision, engaged leadership, tolerance for failure, tangible incentives, and the belief that transformation can actually happen and can ensure successful digital change.

The path to becoming a digital company is difficult and the challenges are multifold. It means ensuring customers remain connected even with the drastic changes that may be needed and overcoming resistance to new business models. Becoming digital does not simply mean implementing new technology; it also requires developing new leadership skills combined with connectivity among a company’s people, proc­esses, and data. Cultural changes may also be a challenge if the digital transformation must cut across silos in the organization. This Advisor’s case study examines the implementation of a digital change in a US community bank meant to retain its loyal customer base and to put in place newer ways of monetization.