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 change, 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 a 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 a 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 change. Therefore, change agents are critical, as they have been an invaluable source of courage, knowledge, business direction and insight. They are 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.
Shape the vision: Leadership is all about the 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. The 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 the current time and its ability to adapt and help the business gain a 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 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 the 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 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.
