What Aristotle Can Teach CIOs About Managing Change in Digital Businesses

What Aristotle Can Teach CIOs About Managing Change in Digital Businesses

This IDC Perspective helps CIOs understand and apply Aristotle's concepts and thinking to solving modern problems surrounding the difficult tasks of driving successful change management and business transformation efforts. It describes three key elements of Aristotle's writings, explains why they matter to CIOs, and how they can be applied to managing the challenges posed by digital businesses.Orchestrating change in organizations is one of the toughest challenges for CIOs as it requires nuanced approaches and skills that are difficult to master. That's a problem as digital businesses need to constantly innovate new business and operating models based on new and emerging technologies. Transformation is in the DNA of the most effective businesses, but many others struggle.Some of the sagest advice actually comes from the distant past. Aristotle, a philosopher, was born more than 2,500 years ago, yet his writing offers cogent wisdom that can help CIOs today navigate the convoluted process of driving change in digital businesses. Managing what technology company Qvest cofounder Pia Lauritzen describes as the "messy middle" of transformation isn't a traditional discipline for many CIOs, so it stands to reason that it calls for nontraditional thinking. "Aristotle's knowledge domains provide a practical guide and a basic road map for keeping alignment among all the stakeholders in change initiatives as they move through stages of execution," says Marc Strohlein, adjunct research advisor with IDC's IT Executive Programs (IEP). "It can help CIOs and business leaders ensure that they are answering the right questions and providing the right information to the right people at the time it is most needed and in a form that is engaging and understandable."

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