ABC NET

From monochrome to multidimensional vision for re-imagining the future of the organization: In the digital era with “VUCA” characteristics, vision becomes so important to both capture business growth opportunities and predict risks. Digital leaders today must shape a clear vision and constantly visible by sharing their vision and encouraging others to share theirs as well. They can manifest a vision vividly by taking a broader lens and embracing the full spectrum of colors rather than just "black and white." Lack of vision, tunnel vision, monochrome vision, or the “vision existing on paper only” are all sorts of traps which could mislead management, make bad strategy, cause decision ineffectiveness, and decelerate the speed of changes. Metaphorically, A variety of traffic lights: Red, Yellow, Green, Which color should symbolize the visionary leadership? With conventional wisdom, if you see the green light, it implies that you can see further and drive ahead boldly; if you see the red light, it means you perhaps get some serious issues, need to be cautious and controlling - stop, wait and examine. In fact, to deal with “VUCA” digital new normal, yellow light is a good symbol of visionary leadership - having both courage and caution at the same time. When the yellow light is flashing, leaders have to make judgment calls, set widest range of strategic alternatives and take proper actions all the time. The other vision-related trap is that business executives think that somehow if they have a vision, magically it will become a reality. A passionate connection to vision doesn't mean you will always be excited about it, it means you need to live by it at the daily basis and will be willing to suffer for it as you realize you are responsible for the game-changing effects of its realization.

From micromanagement to macro-management for encouraging autonomy: Nowadays, many organizations suffer from overloaded information, rapid pace of changes and frequent disruptions, the “command and control” management style is gradually running out of steam because today’s workforce is highly educated and fluent with digital technologies, they prefer to make their own choice to communicate and do their work with freedom. To put another way, autonomy or self-management is an emerging digital theme. Therefore, it’s important to lay out the ground rules upfront as a team, make a real shift from micromanagement to macromanagement, set clear goals and measurement to guide the team without over-controlling. A team can be self-organizing in determining the best and most efficient method of delivering the commitments. Holding managers or staff to their accountability is key so that the whole team knows the significant details, the mechanisms, and goals to the annual and long-term goals are vital. If you are pulling the reins too tight, setting too rigid process, or undermining managers or staff to micro run or make a decision without collective input, you probably fall into the micro-management trap. Micro-management is often a culture thing, it can be diagnosed early on and fixed properly to encourage autonomy and improve the team accountability.


From monitor-driven to motivational style of performance management for unleashing talent potential: The purpose of managing performance is about setting performance metrics to make objective assessments and understand performance measurement result. In many traditional organizations, talent performance management turns out to be some practices to monitor people's daily behaviors or an annual routine to focus mainly on past performance. But monitor-driven performance management is not sufficient to nurture a culture of innovation and develop a people-centric digital business. The one way to find out whether the performance measurement and management are effective or not is by looking at the behavior and culture the KPIs are driving. If negativity or unhealthy competition is up, mediocrity is encouraged, and politics is becoming more and more dominant, then you know that performance indicators are perhaps set wrong and performance management evolution is a strategic imperative. Highly effective performance management should facilitate frictionless information flow and motivate people to accomplish their work creatively and achieve performance higher than expectations. Performance management is not just a silo management practice to monitor or measure the quantitative delivery of staff, a team or a function, but a holistic management discipline which needs to connect many relevant dots such as strategy management, change management, culture management, and people management to involve development, enablement, and enhancement.

The digital paradigm shift represents the next stage of business maturity which will improve how the enterprise works and interacts with its ecosystem. Reinventing the future of business takes both vision and strategy; it’s about setting out goals and working at them in a systematic way for proactively disrupting outdated mindsets, processes, technologies, or cultures, etc. It takes multifaceted approaches to unlock digital performance and catalyze change. Companies should experiment and learn, run, grow and transform business consistently and harmoniously.