CEO’s are playing either blitz or blind fold Chess…

- Mahesh Malkar, Founder, O2CATALYST. Jan 2, 2019

Chess is a game of strategy, an ancient game admired by all leaders across the globe even in the era of modern 21st century. To become successful chess player, one has to understand the Blueprint of the board and with every move on the board revisit your strategy and game plan. I relate this game with the corporate world and the CEO's are playing more and more blitz / blind fold games which is disastrous.

The two extreme forms of chess game are blitz and Classical.

Classical Chess Game is a time control long game. It improves players ability to see the complete picture and future plans in advance. The player’s ability to sustain in the long running dynamic game is the key for success. This type of game emphasize more on tracking the moves for analysis , keeping eye on opponents moves and reading his mind by virtue of understanding his game plan. Blitz chess demands playing 2 moves per second, as you have very little time to respond. Playing dozens of Blitz games maybe you will train your intuition somewhat, but your calculation technique, strategy and endgame will not improve at all. Blindfold chess is very similar to analyzing a position in your mind, the players do not see the positions of the pieces or touch them. This forces players to maintain a mental model of the positions of the pieces.

Both the game forms are very risky, as blitz demands high speed swift actions and in blindfold there is always lack of visibility. Players believe either on their mental map which is limited part of board or they believe their intuitions.

Now let’s check out the corporate world where CEO’s are under tremendous pressure as the business cycles are shrinking. The rate of change of external influencers is supersonic. CEO’s are bombarded with disruptive business models, loss of business due to shift in customer loyalty. There is no transparency and finding the consolidated information quickly is difficult. Digitalization has widened the business battlefield, understanding of modern assembly line is missing and workforce is fragmented. All departments are always running short of time, their targets are missing. Employees are so busy in catching up backlogs that they don’t even realize they are working in silos and the Enterprise wide view is missing. Users are unhappy with IT departments and suspecting the data integrity. On one hand regulators are becoming stringent and demanding whereas at the same time compliance time lines are busted. There is constant bickering between marketing and production teams. This is action packed chess game.

CEO decides to remain competent in the game by undertaking Digital Transformation project and they start playing either blitz or blind fold game. Companies have lost more than $900 billion worth on Digital transformations projects which are heading towards failure (as per the research reports in 2018).

The major findings for the failure are

1. CEOs do not take the front seat in the Digital Transformation project, rather they are still happy in following the periodic review model. There is no system of record for work, the statuses are prepared manually and hence there is no single source of truth for the Transformation project status.(lack of board visibility)

2. Enterprise Architecture practices are missing even if they are done, they focus more on the Technology. The Business architecture is missing or incomplete. (lack of planning and revisiting the game plan)

3. Team work is forgotten in transformations, only few teams drives the project not the entire organization. No synergy between the existing operations team and newly formed Digital teams. (focus on only some part of board)

4. Business functions do not consider the new way of doing business, the service blueprint is either missing or carry the legacy business model.

5. In order to fulfill the yearly goals transformation team focuses on the low hanging fruits which are mainly short term goals. There is always sense of urgency for showing the visible outcome (rolling out some apps) which compromises the need of detail design, redesigning the business process, long terms planning. It seriously damages the soul of the Digital Transformation project.(4&5 speedy decisions due to time pressure)

This list goes on…

In order to play Classical game, which helps in long run CEO’s have to seriously rethink the overall game plan. The way of handling the Enterprise wide Digital Transformation project should be refined,

1.CEO's should be leading the Transformation office by applying the modern approach, wherein all the transformation tracks are being govern through the system not manually.

2.Ensure the business vision and mission is fully understood by the entire organization.

3.Reimagine, evaluate and design new way of doing business through Digital assembly line. This should be carried out by leveraging the organisations strengths.

4.The organization speaks and understands a common language, even the last cadre employee should be aware of the Transformation goals, its status and there role to play.

5.Employees have to be empowered with appropriate skills functional, technical and most importantly behavioral.

The whole organization should be united together to make the Digital Transformation project successful….