Friday, May 13, 2016

A Digital Savvy Board

The digital-savvy board has to gain digital awareness, shape the digital mindset, and master of digital fluency.



Organizations today have to live up with the business dynamic which is uncertain, ambiguous, complex and flux. The board in a high-level leadership position plays a crucial role in business advising and monitoring, as well as setting key digital tones in organizational culture style and leadership quintessential. With more and more organizations are on the journey of digital transformation, what are important perspectives to build a digital savvy board?



Digital awarenessDue to the abundance of information and fast-changing digital trends, BoDs have so much more on their plate now than before, and in most circumstances, it would be excellent for the job. It's also a role of the BoD to participate in the oversight of the company's digital strategies that reinforce its competencies in both digital and global vision of the business. Organizations have personalities in the same way that an individual does. More often, an organization's personality replicates the personality of its leaders, such as BoDs.' A digital strategy is a useful "qualifier" as a point of business competency and differentiation. It qualifies the areas of business you're going to review, the area of subject expertise and the types of solutions you're going to recommend. To gain digital awareness, digital BoDs should envision the emergent trends and inspire leapfrogging digital transformation. A digital-savvy board oversees strategy, and weave IT as an integral part of strategic plans. Many corporate directors and senior executives would like boards to have a more frequent and constructive role in digital strategy. Organizations need to have a comprehensive digital strategy with the first step to understanding the real business problems and gain full awareness of both potentials and perils. The toughest part of the strategy is trade-offs. The more you can front load and truly define the current state, the easier the journey moves ahead. Many organizations are still confused digital with general technology adoption. It is not just about any fancy digital technologies or pretty web presences. It's a significant shift from going digital to being digital. Being digital in one's business implies first going digital internally, culturally, and holistically. Digital savvy BoDs understand what's required and how as a high-level basis of going digital mean to the business.


Digital mindset: With the increasing speed of changes, it is in the BoD’s mindset to either adapt or embrace the changes. It has been said that to embrace change requires a change of mindset at every level and an understanding that things cannot stay the same. This is the groundwork that has to be done at all levels prior to initiating major change. Therefore, BoDs and top leadership teams make a significant influence on shaping the digital mindset of the organization. It requires that you move from mind SET to mind FLOW, from fixed mind to growth mind, from static mind to agility mind, so that it allows the mind to seek possibility or to make impossible possible. In order to change anyone’s mindset, the individual must have an open mind. Some say, "the most expensive thing anyone can own is a closed mind.” If the majority of organizations at the industrial age are manipulated by silo thinking and hierarchical style, and then digital organizations mean holism and interconnectivity. BoDs with digital mindset can both drive changes and adapt to changes effortlessly.


Digital context: Digital ecosystem is complex and volatile, for complex problem solving, understanding context is often the first and the important step in understanding, create the relevant context to make a more lasting solution - without it, you are working without any boundaries, or basis for understanding what you are doing. Contextual intelligence is a higher-level of digital fluency. It’s important for BoDs, business leaders and managers to learn how to think the systemic wholeness. This digital wholeness comprises various media that are each functionally contrary to the unitive, fluid and seamless nature of the whole. It’s about seeing interrelationships rather than isolated things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static “snapshots.” Context is of utmost importance. The art and the science are in the creation of the context, which some people will perceive immediately. Contextual Intelligence is a construct that involves the ability to recognize and diagnose the plethora of contextual factors inherent in an event or circumstance, then intentionally and intuitively adjust behaviors in order to exert influence in that context. BoDs with digital contextual intelligence can provide invaluable advice on digital transformation and make an in-depth influence on business strategy management.


Evaluation, analysis and strategic or long-term planning should top the list in the digital board’s agenda. A digital-savvy board has the advantage of pulling enough resources and pushing the business model of technology, trustworthiness, prepare, and launch change, innovation, and mastering at digital fluency to make profound leadership influence.

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