Blowing in the Wind of Change

For the past 4 years, the wind of change has been blowing straight into my face. Different roles of job with some exercises of branch-outs, having to deal with a turbulent time. Getting used to a challenging moment of raising a baby kid turning to be a hyper-active toddler. Accepted a new job in a new company, only to find out that several months afterward a major merger was undergoing, jumping again into a different environment. Moved out to stay in an apartment-hotel, living on "high ground", less than a sixth of the size of my previous house.

I am pretty much OK with all those changes and, supposedly, still in a good shape. The people around me might not be feeling the same. This notion came into my mind, right after I delivered my presentation to a senior leadership team in one of our few business operating group. I am managing a project that would deliver a new business computing environment that would significantly change the way people work with business information. While in general they were aware of the upcoming inevitable future and the top leader was supportive at the end, I could sense great concerns from the audience and some blank faces. Yet, a voice of embrace was also present in conjunction with a faintest remain of old school of thought. A mixed of various degrees of angles in dealing with a technolgical wave of change.

Having been going thru a number of same presentations to various different groups, I was already on a high gear. On the latest session, I should have been back to a drawing board as it deals with field operations wit concerned focus on safety, operation excellence, and prodcution. Adressing a change management is becoming critical as it challenges the very basic of human nature: stability. It is natural that we would then be encountering some resistances.

When stuffs around us are in a state of flux, our established routines are disrupted. Consequently, we have to think of navigating our ways moving forward. And thinking is hard work, let alone going into an extra mile of efforts. However, when everything is in order, when going from any point A to any point B is straightforward, we would just need, as my old boss would love to say, a robot instead of creative human being, not to mention about highly paid managers.

Learning from past failures, corporations have been taking a serious stance on addressing change management in implementing any new major inititives brought in to an established business operation. It shall go two folds. People in charge of introducing new things that would shake out the business, have to be equipped with and wisely manage change management processes. It's not just a game of technical prowesness. Mastering techniques, financial matters, and "hard" stuffs are necessary but far from enough. Facts are that pace of adoption for people around us is and will always be not the same. If it's not managed correctly, it could screw up even great things, products, or innovation we are about to put in place.

On the other hand, leaders are expected to quickly and flexibly adapt and adopt - embrace change as a business fact of life. Sadly to say that we are witnessing many expensive managers not being able to cope with it. Even worse is to actively resist change. Last week, I had a chat with a Project Manager experiencing the case of resistance before. He noted that how much more productive we would be if those energy of resistant behavior be transformed and directed into efforts for adopting the change. Surfing the wave of changes, we shall be expecting some bumps along the road. A period of valley of despair would surface that needs to be dealt with and managed before reaching up to the summit.

"Be a good salesman", advised a colleague manager of mine in well knowing the business-technology innovation that we are about to bring. As the saying goes, the only people who like change are busy cashiers and wet babies!

Down to Gorky Park, sing Scorpions, listening to the wind of change. Blows straight into the face of time. The world is closing in. But there would be no magic of the moment. We strive to make it leap forward to share our dreams of tomorrow.

Mysteries of the Past

Last Sunday, I managed to go to the cinema watching Kung Fu Panda, a 2008 animated film about a panda named Po aspiring to become a kung fu warrior, despite his clumsiness, a fat guy working for his father running a noodle restaurant. As he worked to his destiny, he was chosen to be the Dragon Warrior to fight the evil snow leopard warrior Tai Lung. Dealing with "mission impossible" preparing from nothing to kung fu warrior to save the Valley of Peace, Master Shifu (or Grand Master Oogway ?) started training Po with an advice, yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, and today is a gift. That's why it's called a present.

It reminds me how precious is the present that we shall value every minutes of moment to be of something useful to prepare for the future, yet enjoyable and fun. A shed of light for a mystery tomorrow. How about a history yesterday ? Interesting to be aware of, yesterday's history remains to have a lot of msyteries -- the ones that, unfortunately, have been shaping our today and perhaps tomorrow.

I was reading the Alexandria Link, a fantastic fiction epic by Steve Berry, a New York Times best seller. As Da Vinci Code is with a wild imagination sourced out of New Testament, the Link is for Old Testament. The Covenant of Abraham in Genesis is talking about a promised land God gave to Israel thru Abraham. The piece of land Israel is now occupying, an area of Palestine in the previous past (well, depending on how long we go back in history), a source of conflict in Middle East since 1948. The story argues about "lost in translation" from original source in Old Hebrew to Latin to English. Reversing it back to Old Hebrew, studying the contextual meaning, and mapping out the current region in question, the promised land points to the current West Arabia, not Palestine! It's becoming a shocking "fact" that would impact the course of history with a great deal of interests at stake. The source can be traced back to the legendary Library of Alexandria, buried into thousands of old manuscripts. This most information cache of ancient knowlledge vanished without trace 1500 years ago...

As with epic novel like this, a mixed of research study ("facts") and fiction construct the whole story landscape. Steve Berry sourced the first part from a study conducted by a Lebanese scholar Dr. Kamal Salibi in a book The Bible Came from Arabia. I had been reading books sourced for Da Vinci Code and other stuffs related to history and old scrolls, biblical manuscripts, and civilization. It's quite overwhelming. Things strucking me are that: how well we know about ourselves, about human kind, our origin ? How little we understand about history as accepted facts with so much ancient writings buried into nowhere, or kept in custody that open up prospects for a completely new meaning, the stuffs that would de-construct our current civilization history as we understand today ?

As individual, we all, I presume, have a bit of dark side of the past that we would try to forgive and forget. And make peace with it to free up our soul and mind for the better journey of the future. But for things dealing with humankind, stuffs that provide foundation of some beliefs, historcial revealation that could change the future....and probably events that could trigger a new source of conflicts.... it's realy a serious matter, and sensitive to some extents. And I could not just comprehend it all yet.

Master Shifu and Grand Master Oogway, yesterday remains a big mystery, no less than the future. Until we have the technology and wisdom, it will remain so before we could have a real history of yesterday. Let the mystery be for the future only. A long quest for the real truth of humankind.

Best CIOs in Indonesia 2008

Early morning Friday this week, I got a called from my former boss. He was talking about the Best 10 CIOs in Indonesia as he saw on the coverpage of a national magazine here. One of them was before working for us. Knowing some top guys, the industry, the business, and the community at large, my ex-boss was quite curious and wondering where are those guys hiding.

I shared with him that we knew of many people that might (or certainly) be on the top list. Just bear in mind, this is a result of processes for those willing to participate for this particular magazine. A total of 12 people was short-listed from 21 candidates that were identified and participated. Also, one of the general requirements is that the companies CIOs belong to shall be headquartered in Indonesia.

Nevertheless, I congratulated our former guy to make to the top 10 list. We notices few familair faces on the list as well. While few mentioned about implementing business transformation, the majority is still struglling about applications and integration. The criteria is developed arounf current challenges (complexity, roles of IT) and Individual achievement. This is in light of the evolution of CIO roles as laid out by the Panel from operational transforming to strategic.

Some can be learned about this result and those challenges the CIOs are facing. The remaining big chunks are still on general, typical, and average IT shops trying to help the business. It would be interesting enough if Warta Ekonomi, the magaizine, can look at the angle as to try to portary that IT is (part) of the business and run IT as a business. IT Doesn't Matter -- a debate quite a while ago from an article on the Harvard Business Review. The author then further published again in response to many feedbacks - Does IT Matter ?. I would like to keep on saying to my collegues that the 'ultimate' measure of IT 'success' could be simply sensed: senior level managment (CEO or the executive team) is to have IT come into their mind when about to make strategic business decisons.

The gap between theory and practice seems very wide when it comes to the CIO role, wrote Edaward Cone in The Accidental Strategist, CIO Insight April 2008. New research from CIO Insight indicated that a sizebale percentage of CIOs identify themselves as more tactical than strategic in their day-to-day affairs. Fewer than half of responding CIOs say they "create or co-create business strategy". Sixty pecent say they "contribute" to their company's strategy. Cone put it that tactical and operational jobs still matter.

One of the finding on this annual survey the magazine conducted is on the role CIOs perceiving about their jobs. On the top lists are 1) Adviser on improving business processes across the company, 2) Technology visionary. On the bottom lists (rank 15 and 16) are 1) product or business process innovator, 2) discover of new business opportunities.

On talking about the new height of challenges, seems that CIOs are loaded with a heavy-weight busines expectation when CIO Insight describing that CIOs confuse operating a business with running a business. It's a tough job to be expected from the technoogy chief to really contribute to the bottom line, devising new ways to put more money in shareholders' pockets.

Would it be Career is Over if it's not delivering that way? Again, It would be quite a hot discussion if Warta Ekonomi could package it all with the above matters in spotting and selecting the next best CIOs of Indonesia corporations.