Ackoff Center Weblog

To Lead Digital And AI-First Transformation, CIOs Must Think Like CMOs

By Brian Solis

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1) Shift your mindset

Expand your thinking about your job. Instead of fixating only on your day-to-day tasks, you need to become a system-level thinker focused on your organization's broader goals.

Russell Lincoln Ackoff was an American organizational theorist, consultant, and Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science at the Wharton School. He was also a pioneer in systems thinking. As the saying goes, the sum is much greater than the parts. In his work, Ackoff observed that the sum is only as significant as the parts in motion together. "Performance of the system depends on how the parts interact, never on how they act when taken separately," he found.

Once you identify the larger organizational mission, you want to put yourself in service to that broader objective and identify opportunities to bring other functions and lines of business along. For example, someone in marketing isn't just marketing a product. Instead, they are enabling others, including customers, partners, and internal stakeholders, to have the context they need to take the next step toward solving a problem or unlocking an opportunity. They are providing the correct information at the right time. Thus, the information they provide isn't just selling a product but also helping others consider a new direction.

By elevating your thinking in this way, you can start to imagine ways your work can enhance the organization's broader goals and become involved in meaningful digital and, ultimately, business transformation.

To Lead Digital And AI-First Transformation, CIOs Must Think Like CMOs