Tag: People

Unlocking innovation demands aligning talent strategy with organizational aspirations; an oil company’s overlooked compensation model discouraged risk-taking, undermining its transformation goals until leadership revised employee stock rewards.

You show me a successful complex system, and I will show you a system that has evolved through trial and error. —Tim Harford, Economist Read any contemporary article on organisations and within the first few sentences the word, “agile” appears at least once. Some articles suggest achieving agility with a new target operating model (TOM), […]

Some of us like to use the holiday season and early part of the new year to step back from day-to-day activities and reflect. It’s a good time to plan a bit for the coming year and catch up on what others are doing and thinking. For me it’s also a chance to work my […]

The emergence of generative AI has brought about transformative possibilities and the potential to benefit how we work, live, and interact with the world. However, it is crucial to recognize the responsibility that comes with such powerful technology. When I speak to executives today, there is a lot of enthusiasm and excitement to get started […]

I wonder if we’re overlooking an important implication of AI and generative AI for the future of the enterprise. If, as seems to be the case, many employees will use generative AI applications to assist them and interactively support their work, then a new style of work is emerging. Success for an employee will mean […]

Although still challenging and important, technology is often the easier part of digital transformation. As it turns out, the people part is the most critical and is often overlooked and under-appreciated. In an earlier blog post—‘The Why’—we discussed the goal of digital transformation and several critical attributes successful digitally-transformed organizations have in common. Many of […]

As Enterprise Strategist at AWS, one of the most common questions I get asked by enterprise leaders is how to close the talent gap within their organizations. That’s because although recruiting and retaining top technical talent has always been a challenge, today the challenge is even greater. The rise of cloud computing has companies globally—across […]

My detailed project plan won the war. — said no military commander, ever. In the chaos of battle, it is accepted military doctrine that highly centralised decision-making fails. Information cannot be rapidly assimilated from the front line and turned into timely decisions. To address this, a commander’s intent is communicated, guiding each platoon in their […]

“Nothing is more difficult than to introduce a new order. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.” – Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince A regular topic with customers is how they can approach transforming their […]

“Human behaviour flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” Plato As with many subjects, Plato was ahead of his time in understanding the challenges of a CIO. In many businesses today, we have excelled at the desire (“We will lead our industry with digital transformation.”) and the emotion (“I’m passionate about transforming our […]