Things can get busy, really busy for you and those you lead. As a leader, how do you rally everyone, from executive management to staff, to commit to getting the right things done? Besides the traditional rationalization and prioritization tactics, what are you doing to achieve this intended outcome?

Contributor

• • Georgette Kiser, Chief Information Officer, The Carlyle Group

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Transcript

Sanjog Aul [00:00:23]:

Hello, and welcome to this segment on CTN. To learn more, please visit ciotalknetwork.com, and the topic for today is Getting The Right things done, and our guest for today’s show is Georgette Kiser, who is the chief information officer with the Carlyle Group. Hey, Georgette. How are you?

Georgette Kiser [00:00:40]:

Hi. How are you doing, Joe?

Sanjog Aul [00:00:42]:

Very good. Very good. Could not be happier having someone like you talking to us because the topic is getting the right things done, and I’m pretty sure you are always looking to make that happen in your organization and so do many other leaders. Now the interesting part is given where we are in the day and age, you talk about digital, you talk about innovation, you talk about competitive forces. Frankly, there could be so many distractions, and we have to bring our focus back into doing things which are of most importance to the company, and they are essentially the right things to do, but it’s not as easy as I make it sound because you’re the one living it. So there are people who have issues and that’s why we wanted to tackle this topic. So, Georgette, let’s kinda put on the table the top challenges that you feel and have seen that prevent leaders from getting the right things done in a company?

Georgette Kiser [00:01:45]:

So I think, there are a few things that are major issues for getting things done. The one thing is people don’t like to say no, because they feel like they offend someone when doing that, where there’s a way to say no in a very tactful way, with respect to how you deal with your C-suite, your colleagues, your peers and everyone else. So I think that’s a big issue, and I also think that when it comes to, when people think about cutting costs, they think about optimizing things and dealing with it that way instead of going transformational and really thinking about the future and driving how to get things done with transforming instead of just cutting costs along the way. I have a good example for you about that one later. The other thing is that people don’t set out the strategy and vision appropriately because you have to kind of set the strategy and vision of where you’re going so that you can begin to kind of align your resources, and your time to that strategy and vision, and also realize with respect to change and change management that may change along the way, but you have to continue to keep up with that and then realign along the way. So those are kind of three things I kind of think about, like, that over years of kind of doing this type of work of, like, how do I drive to kind of get things done to meet the needs of my business users along the way?

Sanjog Aul [00:03:13]:

Now when you say the word getting the things done, and there will always be things which would be suggested by other stakeholders in the company, suggestions would come from customers, and, of course, you’ll have your own ideas, and here, the qualifying word is the right things done, and that right has to be not just pure rationalization. It is also, not sure if you can call it philosophical, but it’s the thing which would make not just the most sense, but it is in the best interest of the people involved because it should not always be profit motivation. It should not always be something which is more self centered thinking driven.

Georgette Kiser [00:04:01]:

No. It’s value add for the entire firm, and like you said, it could be cost, it could be risk, it could be multiple things, but it’s a value add to the firm, and like I said, the one I said prior around strategy, that’s really important. A lot of people skip over that piece and just try to drive and start doing things but I always say there are low-hanging fruits and they’re your high level items, but all of that can fit into your strategy. So, once you develop that vision, align the resources, figure out that implementation plan along the way, they’ll be much more agile to kind of really getting things done that add value along the way. You may hit all your low hanging fruit initially, and that’s great, but you gotta set that vision out there on what’s going to happen.

Sanjog Aul [00:04:45]:

Now before we say getting the right things done, we have to define what are the right things and as they morph as our situations change or the approach or even for that matter, the vision change. Vision should not always drive the right thing because there could be parallel things for that matter. A vision for a company could turn into someone who says I want to be purely self centered or profit motivated, and if we only take that as our benchmark, then we are swaying away, and perhaps in the short or a long term, we might take the company down, but if you do the right things yeah. Go ahead.

Georgette Kiser [00:05:27]:

But the question for the right things is how did you take that vision and then break it down into an implementation plan to do the right things along the way to meet the overall goal?

Sanjog Aul [00:05:40]:

You are right about that. Now question for you is if I were to take an implementation or an execution approach to this topic, then there could be subjectivity in three different ways or three different ways to get or a road map to get to the same destination, and in that process, frankly, a leader is not only supposed to deliver results. They are also supposed to develop other leaders in the process and also make sure it creates a foundation which will make the company sustainable, growth oriented, and profitable. So which path will take us through the optimal route of achieving all of the above that I just mentioned is becoming key.

Georgette Kiser [00:06:21]:

But a good leader will cover all of those paths with respect to their strategy and implementation to get there. So that whole people, process, technology has to be encompassed in the whole thing to do the right thing, and that’s from understanding and listening to your user base, no matter what industry you’re supporting with respect to technology and process, but really getting in there, understanding what their true needs are to help to kind of drive the firm forward.

Sanjog Aul [00:06:53]:

Is it that cut and dry where you are going into an organization, they want to get to some place, some decisions are to be made, some new avenues or what I call as a blue ocean needs to be chartered. Do we have a crystal ball or do we have a very clear understanding? And when we don’t and the reality is we don’t always have that, subjectivity creeps in individual biases and agendas creep in, and that’s what we have to fight through or navigate through, and to some extent, everyone has an agenda, and if that agenda is not met by for all people involved, which I’m not sure if it’s even possible, then there is gonna be passive resistance. There would be rejection. There would be bad mouthing. There would be so many other things, and these are the type of pressures leaders will constantly deal and juggle with. What type of muscle does a leader need to develop so that from the get go, from the very beginning when they are supposed to take anything, which is either a very clearly outlined project or an initiative, or a blue ocean, completely new avenue to explore. What would be that muscle which will make a leader do the right things from the get go and not lose sight of what the right things are till the very end?

Georgette Kiser [00:08:22]:

Right. That’s a very good point. So if you think about leaders who have strong EQ, who are incredible at understanding how to collaborate and communicate appropriately and a strong integrity, that honesty and can build trust across the organization. Those are the types of items that a leader needs to take people through a journey and the journey constantly changes. I say that all the time, but if you continue to be at the table with your other leaders and your other peers and you’re communicating along the way, then you can drive to do the right thing. A lot of people are always asking me what do you do in a situation where your business wants something asked, which you kind of fundamentally know it’s not the right thing to do. Do you just do it for them? And I’m like, no, you don’t. You have to continue to influence them, to kind of persuade them, to show them the facts, show them the analytics, to get them to understand why X is probably the wrong thing and why Y is the right thing and if we do it this way in the long term, what will it look like? And it does. You’re right. It takes a certain skill set to do that and you just cannot give in all the time. You notice that organizations that kind of give in all the time typically have lots of issues going forward because the infrastructure, everything they put in place tend to have problems later on down the road or they’re just not meeting the needs of their user base. So it takes a true partnership with your business and your ability to kind of drive and influence to kind of change, go through a whole change management with them to kind of keep them involved in the process, know what they’re getting, drive with analytics and data and facts, and moving forward, and so, I mean, there’s a lot that I just kind of put into that answer right there, but that partnership is incredibly important, and building that trust amongst those peers.

Sanjog Aul [00:10:27]:

Now you already mentioned that you have to fight with the business and not necessarily fight, but make a case so you do not get swayed.

Georgette Kiser [00:10:37]:

That’s not a good word.

Sanjog Aul [00:10:38]:

Exactly. So I agree with you and maybe we are not fighting, we are persuading them, we are showing them examples to sway them away from what may not be in the best interest because that’s how we feel and that’s how we see it. Now we also say that it is better to lose a battle to win a war, and do you think we just flat out dig our heels and say we will not do what’s not in the best interest of the company, period, or do we go and make those compromises knowing that that’s not the right thing to do at this juncture, but this will help you lead to a bigger concession in a bigger initiative? Would you think this becomes more of a negotiation, or is it still staying doing always the right thing?

Georgette Kiser [00:11:28]:

So you only do that if you know that taking that different path, it may take you a little bit off the path, but ultimately it will get you back on. If you think it’s going to take you too far off the path or it’s going to be a huge expense, and it will not get you to the end point, then I believe in kind of still holding still and trying not to do it and working with the business to explain to them why, but if you have that type of trusting relationship, that business partnership, you can influence that way to drive your business side as a partnership to understand why you need to take certain another path and you will get there ultimately, but you really don’t want to drive high risk in that other path or high cost in that other path, or that you will upset the apple cart of your resources too much. If it’s not the right thing, you should not do it and you should continue to drive not to do it, and it’s very hard for leaders to take that stance, but it’s really important in your career to take that stance.

Sanjog Aul [00:12:32]:

Now one is, of course, if you are virtuous and you are always standing beside the right thing, you should have nothing to fear, but on the other hand, at least when we look up, which is our executive management, they are mostly type A, which also means they could have a chip on their shoulder, and you are persuading them, but they equally could have I mean, they would not be obstinate, but they would have strong feelings about something. It is difficult to turn around those people. So do we butt heads? Do we keep showing what we are doing? What’s your way out?

Georgette Kiser [00:13:16]:

There’s a lot of butting heads, but that’s part of if you have a collaborative senior executive management team. I agree with you, there are organizations that don’t have a collaborative kind of senior executive management team, but if you have good leadership at the top that really likes the engaging kind of challenging conversations at the table then, yes, there will be butting heads, but you will get to a point where the right decision actually comes to the top. I probably have been very lucky to work in very good organizations where those challenging conversations have been okay, but I do know of people that it is very hard for them in those type of organizations, but you continue you have to use all of your data, your analytics and the facts and things that you have to drive the business to understand the path that you’re taking. The other thing that I’ve learned with doing the right thing is that especially on the technology side, you have to have people in technology who really understand the business and your business partners respect you a lot more when you understand exactly what they do and can come to the table and have that type of conversation. When you can’t do that, then they have lack of trust of what you’re going to do for them in the first place. So you kind of lost it right there. So you got to really kind of, the CIO role is a very hard role nowadays, because you have to understand the business, you have to understand marketing, you have to understand everything across the board, but if you have that type of skill set, then you can help drive to get the right things done across the organization.

Sanjog Aul [00:14:57]:

So let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back, and, Georgette, when we come back, let’s look people below us. So we had a different tactic or an approach to handle people who maybe type in your business management, but to get the right things done, we also have to tackle the personalities, the hidden agendas, the passive resistance, and the different flavors that you find when you’re looking at people who may be the business user community or even your IT staff because you are trying to sway them in a given direction and they may look like they’re listening to you because in some cases you influence them or they may perhaps report to you, but they may not want to follow you. What do you do in that regard? Because you got two different constituents you have to handle and when you only have when both of these constituents in control or listening to the way you want them to do things, that’s when the magic will happen and that’s when you’ll get the right things done, but how do we go about it? Let’s explore that. Please stay tuned listeners. We’ll be right back.

Speaker 0 [00:16:08]:

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Speaker 0 [00:16:39]:

Patient centered care requires a connected enterprise. Are you ready? If you’re looking to scale your health care IT efforts, visit redmane.com/help today. Whether it’s to connect data from multiple partner solutions or developing software for unique needs, Redmane can help. To find out how Redmane can help your company deliver on the patient centered care promise, visit redmane.com/help or call (773) 693-3919. Visit today.

Speaker 0 [00:17:11]:

Predict your company’s future by creating it. Is your work force able to connect, exchange ideas, and share brilliance simply and securely? Create tomorrow, today. Empower your people to innovate anytime and anywhere with secured BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Management and document sharing solutions. To learn more, visit blackberry.com/enterprise. You are listening to CTN CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul. Now back to the show.

Sanjog Aul [00:17:52]:

Welcome back. So, Georgette, while we spoke about the people above us, which is executive management and get them to agree to what you’re suggesting, which is in the best interest of the company, the people who we either have as reportees or people who we influence, which is the business users or technology people, are equally important in us being able to get the right things done. What about them? So

Georgette Kiser [00:18:20]:

So that’s a good group of people to work. So I always say that you have the multidimensional CIO. You have to work up, you have to work down, you have to work across, and the way you work though is very similar. I mean you have to be the authentic you, first of all, and when you’re working with your team you have to know how they all work together. So I use a lot of various tests to kind of understand my leadership team when I initially come into something. So one thing is called a Hogan assessment. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of them before, but Hogan assessments allow people to kind of do these self assessments. They’re actually quite extensive, 300 questions in different ways, and you kind of understand like how they work, how they work with others, and it allows you to understand how you will work with them. Because a lot of times, you know, I think I’m a leader. I can come in and I can be very stern sometimes and kind of force my own agenda, but that’s not the way to get things done. Like once I learn how people work then I figure out okay, how do we work together to kind of drive our strategy as a team and work together to agree on as a team and then hold each other accountable that we’re going to drive the implementation plan to kind of get this done, but it’s all in engaging your group on how they work, and not just kind of forcing them into how you do things. That’s not a good skill set for a CIO. You have to be very engaging, but you’ve got to be engaging at the top levels and at your peer level also.

Sanjog Aul [00:19:55]:

Now even though you have the engagement at the top and peer level and you’re dealing with people who are below us, let’s look at the current environment. You want people to, of course, come to work and be good at what they do and focus, but we are, by design, trying to fail small, fail fast, fail quickly, and we want to change on a dime, strategy of the week or a month, to stay relevant. Frankly, most people did not sign up for that, and it may be the right thing to do, or it may not be because it becomes a subjective discussion, how quickly do we change things, then who comes as a mediator or as the ultimate voice so that everyone agrees to it and not just agree because they wanna keep their jobs, but actually agree so that they internalize and make that as their mission as well.

Georgette Kiser [00:20:55]:

Well, Sanjog Aul, I think, let me go back a few of your sentences. One thing you have to realize is that when people sign up for your organization, when you’re doing your interviewing, that you should be very clear to people on what they’re stepping into. You know, if you run a full agile development shop and you guys fail fast and move forward and you hire somebody that doesn’t have that skill set, then that’s my fault as a leader of my organization how culturally we should be doing things. Or that’s my leadership team’s fault. Like we shouldn’t have hired that person in the first place, and yes, we do make mistakes on our hires, but we’ve got to work to kind of make sure that we hire people who understand the expectations coming into the organization so that you don’t have those issues ongoing. They’re very clear about their roles, very clear about how we function, and they bring diversity to the organization, but they also know how we work.

Sanjog Aul [00:21:57]:

Now I wish we could clean the house and start afresh, and then I would have the benchmark or what type of people I want to hire, and I’m sure you would agree that a lot of us inherit a lot of people who started a number of years ago, and they are not digital natives in some cases, and they are not ready for that fail fast, fail quick because that’s not how they developed, how they were groomed.

Georgette Kiser [00:22:25]:

So right.

Sanjog Aul [00:22:26]:

are going to inherit those people.

Georgette Kiser [00:22:29]:

Right. So if you inherit those people, when you set your initial vision so when I came into Carlyle, there was a lot of talk because even in just in the private equity space in general, the private equity organizations had not been leveraging technology the way that traditional investment management firms had been. You know, so I came from a traditional where we were heavily engaged, failing fast, doing a lot of development, leveraging technology to really drive that investment management firm forward. Coming into Carlyle was different. So, the first thing I did as a leader was, I understood the top, as we talked about before, but then I started to kind of understand I did skip level meetings with my team underneath to kind of understand what did they want? What were things that were happening across the organization? But I also know that I firmly believe in agile development, I firmly believe in open communication, I firmly believe in failing fast, not holding people accountable, but them learning from their experiences unless they continue to repeat the same issues. So I kind of set out culturally how I wanted this organization to work as business partners with the business and to understand that we will fail fast but we will continue to keep going. If you make mistakes the first time, it’s a mistake. If you continue to do it, you will be held accountable, and the fact that I would take you through training, and offer the appropriate training to kind of help you develop along the way. If you can’t meet those goals, then we have to talk about something different. Either something else in the organization or some place outside the organization, but you’ve got to have those clear conversations and kind of set the expectations across the organization, and that way it opens up where people want to do the right thing. People want to work here. People want to try to make every project as successful as possible, but setting those clear expectations up front is very important.

Sanjog Aul [00:24:31]:

And would you say that even when you do that and given the things change and the person who was the most motivated one when you originally hired and or when you had set expectations, things could happen in their lives so if you look at them as resource then we try to maximize whatever we get out of them, but what are we giving to those people in our regular functioning day to day and as part of what we call employee welfare or taking care of our people so that it is a willingness that is instituted in the organization versus someone being held accountable means I’m watching you, you better do what I’m telling you to do else or else.

Georgette Kiser [00:25:17]:

No, but just taking that accountability statement I said to the extreme, because we all are held accountable. I’m held accountable to the CEO, I’m held accountable to the board, my employees are held accountable to me. There’s an accountability step along the way for everyone, and like I tell people, it’s okay to be uncomfortable. You should never feel like you are totally comfortable in a job because then you’re not thinking, you’re not using your intellectual curiosity to always try to be better along the way, and that’s how you have a good kind of fail fast organization that’s getting the right things done is that there’s a little paranoia up there, you know, that I gotta keep doing I gotta keep learning. I gotta keep doing the right thing. I gotta keep going, and that’s nothing wrong with having a culture within your organization and setting it that way.

Sanjog Aul [00:26:08]:

And if you were to know that you mentioned the word culture, if you had to define culture, which would be conducive to getting the right things done as things are shifting, right, with minimal disruption, minimal leakage, how would you define such a culture?

Georgette Kiser [00:26:27]:

So you want a culture that is trusting, collaborative, and communicative, and those three things I think if you have those in there then you can lead that organization and they will get the right things done. You have to have that kind of open door policy going forward, and as I said, I use the word a lot across my organization. I use it in most of my town halls. Intellectual curiosity, I want people who are always thinking, who are always learning, bringing ideas to the table and challenging. Tell me about my mindset.

Sanjog Aul [00:27:10]:

So if you are looking at getting the right thing done and, yes, you could call right thing as something which you put on paper a project or a specific initiative that you have to carry forward so that the company benefits, but then there are other ethics. They could be subjective areas of taking care of people above your profits. You know, we can go on and on with a list of things which would as humans, we’ve seen as the right things, and maybe those are the things a worker sees. A CEO in their role will see, I need to get profits and that’s what the right thing for me is, but for a worker, it’s not company’s profit which is paramount. It is the right thing for their family because they’re coming to work because at the end of the day, that’s a means to an end. Yes. It should be also part of their passion and how they grow their career and everything, but then there is a there is a balance there. How do you prevent or at least minimize? You cannot eliminate. There will be conflicts like this about what the right thing one person feels as human and another is right thing a corporation feels as a business entity and you as the custodian ideally for both. How do you minimize conflicts?

Georgette Kiser [00:28:36]:

So part of minimizing conflicts is always having open communication across your organization. So you don’t let things fester. When issues begin to arise then you bring people together immediately to have a conversation around it. It’s when you have things that go on and on and on and no one ever deals with them, then that’s when you have your major issues and you can’t get anything done at that point. So as soon as something may bubble up to me then I am on it immediately. I have skip level meetings where I just bring different people, different levels to lunch and it may be 10 people, and we sit around and we actually have a conversation like, you guys, what do you think is going well? What do you think is not going well? And during that conversation, I get a lot of insight of what’s happening across the organization. My leadership team may be doing something wrong that I don’t know because their people under them are too scared to mention anything, but when I begin to have those skip level meetings like that I learn a lot about what my leaders are doing, and I can go and have a conversation with them to get them to understand how they need to do something differently, but the biggest thing is it’s communication, and it’s doing that in a fast, agile way also.

Sanjog Aul [00:29:59]:

And would you say leaders would come across situations where there is a direct conflict between shareholder value and profitability on one end and getting the right things done for the people who made this organization become what it became?

Georgette Kiser [00:30:17]:

Oh yes, I would definitely say that, and I think where you’re going is around the employee base, and finding the balance of their lifestyle with respect to work when things occur, and how do we continue to keep them motivated so they do the right thing. Correct?

Sanjog Aul [00:30:51]:

Yes, and in fact, more than the motivation of someone as an individual, it is basically a collective, what you call the difference you’re making. So I don’t want to name the companies, but there are certain organizations which we admire for what they have done literally in form of what I call as a global dominance in terms of different services they provide and how they take care of the customers and how do they offer things which nobody else has done before, but if you were to go in the organization, it’s craziness. People get burnt out, or they don’t want to work, but somehow it is like a sweatshop, not literally, but it is horrendous in terms of a person’s experience. Now was that the right thing to do for someone to become the company which dominates globally, but at the same time offer a very poor or rather exploited type of experience to the people who making it happen. Who goes and does the care? Who goes and fixes it? And frankly, on the surface or even otherwise, I would say that’s not the right thing, but it’s happening. So maybe some leader is not seeing it as the right thing.

Georgette Kiser [00:32:18]:

It’s happening in some organizations, I agree. It’s the wrong thing, and it takes leadership at the top to correct that.

Sanjog Aul [00:32:25]:

But then what do they do on the other hand? You’re saying leadership, but on the other hand, they are also gloating over their shareholders’ value creation and taking millions of dollars of profit, but frankly trampling over individuals. So if it’s a wrong thing, but it’s just it is the wrong thing is sustaining, and there is not much that is being done. So if we are talking on this subject today, then who goes and fixes those? And frankly, to some degree, some wrong things happen in most companies. How do we minimize that? Who goes and takes ownership and fights against those things which are not going right?

Georgette Kiser [00:33:07]:

So I have to tell you, this is a very complicated one, Sanjog Aul, because if the top leadership has these issues, that’s very hard to influence unless you leverage the board to help you with that, and if you don’t have the relationships with board members, then it’s challenging. There are many I’ve worked in organizations where I actually have had good relationships with the board also because I have to present to the board, and if there are challenges you can leverage them at that level to help to drive the organization differently if it’s at the top of the CEO or whoever that may be having these challenges, but that’s a really complicated tough one, but at the end of the day, as this topic is getting the right things done and doing the right thing, you have to be able to keep your integrity and do the right thing. If the organization is so harsh and you can’t change it, then that is a point where you personally have to make a choice, do I leave and go do something else somewhere else that fits the culture that maps for me and not this organization that is not doing the right thing. Those are ethical issues at that point.

Sanjog Aul [00:34:19]:

Let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back, and like we discussed about what should change in a leader’s mindset to be able to get the right things done and make that happen at all levels, let’s talk about the people, the processes, and tools that we need to rethink in an organization as we try to come and fix that organization so that the right things get done. Not every organization today has most of the right things getting done, and if suppose a leader comes in or even if someone from outside were to look at fixing that organization, what all in what all dimension should we rethink and in context of people, processes, and tools so that we create the right foundation where we start chipping away at the problem and eventually get to the intended level where most things are done and done right within that organization. So what would it take? Please stay tuned, listeners. We’ll be right back and explore.

Speaker 0 [00:35:29]:

Predict your company’s future by creating it. Is your workforce able to connect, exchange ideas, and share brilliance simply and securely? Create tomorrow, today. Empower your people to innovate anytime and anywhere with secured BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Management and document sharing solutions. To learn more, visit blackberry.com/enterprise.

Speaker 0 [00:35:57]:

Patient centered care requires a connected enterprise. Are you ready? If you’re looking to scale your health care IT efforts, visit redmane.com/health today. Whether it’s to connect data from multiple partner solutions or developing software for unique needs, Redmane can help. To find out how Redmane can help your company deliver on the patient centered care promise, visit redmane.com/health or call (773) 693-3919. Visit today.

Speaker 0 [00:36:30]:

Your growing business needs a highly productive workforce, effectively communicating and collaborating without exposing corporate data to cyber attacks. Are you looking to balance security and workforce productivity? Move beyond short term measures and securely scale your business with BlackBerry Enterprise Mobility Management Solutions. To learn more, please visit blackberry.com/enterprise. You are listening to CTN CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul. Now back to the show.

Sanjog Aul [00:37:14]:

Welcome back. So let’s talk about the foundation, which is the people, the processes, and tools. Yes. We talked about people to a limited degree where we said, okay. If you’re hiring, hire them right, set expectations, and they will behave and they will follow through. Now while we would do that, there would be shifts in the environment and things will change. Similarly, if we are looking at the innovation today or to stay relevant, a lot of things have to change, and even while we are changing them, we cannot take our eyes off the goal of getting the right things done. So what is that fluid foundation yet which provides the solidity that’s required for an organization to prosper?

Georgette Kiser [00:38:03]:

So as we talk about people, process, technology, it takes all of those working together to kind of make us prosper. It’s interesting this topic that you’re mentioning because I was just reading a book recently and it gave a great example of digital optimization versus digital transformation and firms really trying to do the right thing to meet the future needs of the business. One of the good examples that they showed and it kind of hit me hard, they were talking about Blockbuster and Netflix, which both have the same kind of mission and vision, supplying movies to the target audience, the people that like to watch movies, but Blockbuster was the old institution from the 1990s that had over 10,000 stores across the U.S. That were the hard stores, and then Netflix comes along and what is it doing? It’s leveraging everything about digital and it’s transforming the entire business. It’s leveraging the cloud, it’s leveraging mobility, it’s leveraging security. Where Blockbuster tried to optimize to kind of do these things so that it could meet the needs of the future, but it did it in such a way that it was a slow process instead of really looking full in the end of the process and trying to do the right thing to meet what the users wanted in the future, and look what happened to Blockbuster today, it’s gone, and Netflix has totally taken over, and so I think that, we talk about getting the right things done, but we have to do it leveraging all of these new emerging technologies and things that we have and we have to think of transformation and not just kind of optimizing along the way. We recently look at Toys R Us look what just happened to them, and instead of transforming and looking at how Amazon and others are doing things, that old brick and mortar has gone away. So I think it’s an interesting topic when you begin to kind of bring in the whole digital strategy and environment and how we leverage that to kinda get the right things done along the way that’s actually meeting the needs of the future needs of what people are looking for.

Sanjog Aul [00:40:35]:

And you know what? It’s digital today, and it could be something else tomorrow.

Georgette Kiser [00:40:40]:

Yeah.

Sanjog Aul [00:40:41]:

So I would say this is nothing else but a sign for us to start rethinking our foundation, which has to move from a monolithic one size fit all standardized to something which would be modular fluid yet, what I call as has the strength to stand the test of times and even changes in leadership because what we are talking about is to abstract an organization’s ability to survive and thrive and making it independent of leadership. Yes, it could be a pipe dream, if that’s what you would call it, But would it not be important thing that we do not have this sign curve of peaks and valleys when a leader comes, the person fixes it, and then the person goes away because of whatever reason, it comes, goes down again, and because the turbulent times are there and because there will be shifting times, shouldn’t there be a platform? Shouldn’t there be a foundation which would weather both, whether the leadership is changing or some new form of digital or something else comes along?

Georgette Kiser [00:41:53]:

Right. We had this conversation during our prior segment around this whole intellectual learning and continuing to kind of change and change management along the way. A lot of times, we do something, we think it’s the right thing and then we do it and we drop it, but the way that things are happening in firms now is that it’s continuous development. Nothing kind of goes away. You’re leveraging data, you’re leveraging machine learning, you’re leveraging AI to continue to kind of study all your analytics that continue to evolve things to meet the future needs of the organization, and it’s taking a while for many firms to get there, but there are so many new tools that are coming out that are allowing us to kind of do this type continuous development along the way, which is kind of keeping firms in the forefront of having these scalable environments that can continue to get evolved going forward. So it’s a very good question. I just think that the new tool suites and things that are coming up, open source code allows us to kind of continue to evolve, which we couldn’t do years ago. Look at something like the big investment banks. Look what they’ve had to kind of go through to go through the change of doing the right things for their user base going forward, their retail customer base going forward. It’s taken a while and many of them are getting there but they had to kind of separate a group of transformational change people, bring in a new tool suite, kind of work on that differently while they kept the old things going and then decommission the old things over time. So a lot of that new planning and strategy setting and implementing some more agile development along the way is getting in place. It’s taking time, but you see it happening across organizations so they can stay on the forefront.

Sanjog Aul [00:43:49]:

Now if you were to talk about this whole

Georgette Kiser [00:43:51]:

I tell you a good book that I would recommend to many out there. It’s called The Four, and it’s about Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook. It’s written by Scott Galloway. I recently read it. I’ve given it to my whole organization to read because I want them thinking this way, that these four, they’re power horses, and they are continually learning and doing the right things to kind of meet the needs of all the users out there. The book lays out a lot of what the CEOs, they’re visionaries, from the top. Bezos is always thinking about how do I automate, how do I use this to make things better? And so it’s a good book for people to read.

Sanjog Aul [00:44:37]:

No. That is a good one. Thanks so much, and so that said, what I’m going to ask you next is, the type of rationalization and prioritization and the governance techniques we used to have to getting not the right things per se, but get the fewer things done, but get done better. How can we improve that to only focus on the right things? Because that right because if you look at the traditional way, yes, you’ve got some KPIs, you’ve got some other measures based on which you will give some weighted factors to the different initiatives you want, whether they are technology centric, business centric, or even people centric, you would give them the rationalization and prioritization, and then you would have a governance model, but all of that, is it rule really relevant to the shifting, I’d say, or the transient type of times that we are living in, and secondly, if we are going to focus on the right things done, that also has an ethical and philosophical and the fiduciary duties we have and everything else that makes a good organization stay and add value. Do you think we should rethink and reevaluate what we are doing in this whole rationalization, prioritization, and governance?

Georgette Kiser [00:46:05]:

We should always be rethinking and redoing. I mean, that’s the way that organizations that are successful are working now, that it’s constant thinking about should we be doing this differently? And yes, I do believe, like, you do things and you’ve got to stabilize for a while, but as part of that in that stabilization phase you’re looking at what’s your next phase going to be? How are you looking at the data, the analytics that are coming from what you just did to make it better? And I always I’m a firm believer. I always tell people, look, what got you from A to B is not the same thing that will get you from B to C, and you’ve got to leverage the data and analytics to understand what’s going to take me to the next phase and what’s going to take me there and also be the right thing that’s for my user base going forward. So I think, yes, you’re always rationalizing, you’re always looking at it again. This is where governance plays heavily because you’re bringing in your business side at the table with you to help you make those decisions, because ultimately it’s their decision. You’re working with them and getting them to kind of always tell you, all right, where is your business going? Where is this product development going? And so you should be at the table with them all the time understanding what’s happening so that you can work to figure out how are we going to change our strategy going forward, or how are we going to do something differently to meet those needs?

Sanjog Aul [00:47:34]:

If you had to give a

Georgette Kiser [00:47:35]:

Always thinking it.

Sanjog Aul [00:47:37]:

So no. That’s great, and now for you to have the emotional intelligence, the new intelligence, which I refer to as the new type of learning or learning how to learn as a leader. The reason being that there are things which are coming out which you never taught, and you have a blank sheet of paper and you have to learn how to draw, and you have to learn something which you never came across. So if we are to see the leaders who will be able to get the right things done, what specific thought patterns, mindset, and skills and competencies that a leader must develop to be able to get the right things done.

Georgette Kiser [00:48:25]:

A good leader is a good listener and is open to all ideas. I’m above 50 now, I’m not afraid to say it, but I listen to the younger generation to stay ahead of what’s happening across technology. I listen to hear their ideas of how they would use things and want to do things differently. So a good leader has to be able to listen and take those ideas in and then work across the organization delegating them to kind of move things forward for them. I mean, you’re not the one always driving the idea. You got to listen to people and help to figure out how do we pull that together into the strategy that we’re moving forward and then drive the ideas that way, but those listening skills are really important. This younger generation, they have great ideas, and they work differently than a lot of us that are more seasoned and have worked in the past, and there’s just so much that we can learn from them.

Sanjog Aul [00:49:25]:

On behalf of the show and our listeners, thanks so much, Georgette, for sharing your views on how leaders can transform themselves and their organizations so that the right things get done.

Georgette Kiser [00:49:37]:

Thank you. It was wonderful to see you on the topic.

Sanjog Aul [00:49:40]:

Thank you so much again, Georgette. Listeners, hope you enjoyed, got some nuggets out of it. Please like us on Facebook, search for CTN, that is CIO Talk Network. Be sure to follow us on Twitter. Join our LinkedIn group, and please download podcast from Spotify, iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, and many other podcast syndication channels. We are there globally. We’re listened to in over 110 countries. So hopefully, you will join us and also give us reviews so that more people discover and learn from the podcast. Thanks again for listening to this segment on CTN. This is Sanjog Aul, your talk show host. Till next week. Take care and God bless.