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Written by JT Koffenberger
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Jul 08, 2008 at 12:00 AM |
Earlier this week a colleague asked me how I am as successful dealing with executives as I am. Basically, the answer to that is education. No, not formal business education, but education about the issues that CEO's and employers are facing today.
But, sometimes that's not enough. As IT Leaders we need to be responsive to our businesses needs. People ask how I keep in touch with the business leaders I view as my clients.
That's part of it right off of the bat. View them as clients. Yes, we need to work beside them to lead the business, but understanding their needs from their shoes is key.
A long time ago, I took notice and found out what my CEOs and CEOs in general were reading. Then I started reading the same things. Publications such as: CEO, FastCOMPANY, Harvard Business Review (HBR) among others, are key to keeping the business on edge and performing well. These publications often offer great ideas many of which include IT. Some are fluffy, others are hard hitting and full of ideas that can be applied, such as HBR. For the money, this is one of the best periodicals I've encountered in my career.
Sure, reading all of the standard rags is important. But that is an avenue for awareness of new and evolving technologies. Rarely, however, do they lead to real business value such as HBR. Read these publications and go to your CEOs with ideas pro-actively rather than waiting and posturing in a reactive manner.
Recently I argued with a colleague about being proactive. The fundamental argument centered around the business units we support not being ready for such advancement in technology. I found that argument weak and without insight, as we need to transform IT from a reactive organization to a leadership organization.
Podcasts can also be an interesting way of receiving information and data. They are a great way to utilize that commuting time. I find them, however, a rather slow way to obtain ideas and a vast amount of content. The prime reason for this being the difficulty in searching for content and determining what is useful to me and what is not.
Remember, over the past number of years the CIOs' role has changed dramatically. When I first entered IT, the role of the CIO was primarily to keep their company's accounting systems online. Today, they're responsible for bringing competitive advantage to the business. We need to be leaders in our organizations, yet follow when prudent.
Examine the publications you read on a regular basis. Do they provide insightful ideas to help you lead your business? If not, perhaps you should try changing them. I cannot recommend HBR highly enough. I've read it for years and the results are certainly evident.
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