Genuine Care at Work

Posted by in IT Management

Why care?

A lot is written about leadership traits such as vision, integrity, resilience, positivity, accountability, and even humility. It is my opinion that genuine care is the cornerstone of leadership and deserves a great deal more attention and reinforcement than it gets today. Genuine care epitomizes our purpose—not just in the workplace, but in all things we do. A corporate vision is only as good as the team’s genuine care for customers and employees. Integrity represents genuine care in our actions. Leaders who exercise genuine care achieve greater results, and make choices they are less likely to regret.

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The Secret Support Team for IT Leaders: Goal Closers

Posted by in IT Management, IT Projects

IT teams must constantly adjust to end-user demands, budgets, timelines, and other constraints. Such a dynamic environment requires leaders to understand how to close out on two sets of priorities at the same time: short term tasks and long term goals.

IT leaders cannot rely on direct reports who are solely task closers because they will be riding each day’s highs and lows without keeping the big picture in mind. With goal closers in place, IT leaders can trust their team to successfully complete long-term initiatives.

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Want to Accelerate Change? Slow Down and Observe Team Dynamics

Posted by in IT Management

Originally presented at SIM Connect Live 2019 (“Make Winning Normal: Maximizing Agility with High-Performing Teams”), the following concepts offer a new way for IT organizations to implement disruptive technologies and innovations at scale:

The Pace of Change and the Adoption Curve

The pace and complexity of new technologies and innovations have only been increasing over the past years and show no sign of letting up. We consistently hear the following questions from IT leaders:

  • How do I maintain a competitive advantage while keeping up with the pace of change?
  • How do I ensure my organization can effectively adopt new technologies?

One way to address these questions is by examining the Adoption Curve as described by Geoffrey Moore. The Adoption Curve details the distributions and tendencies of a population as it adopts an innovation.

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Traditional vs Transformational: Breaking down the differences between IT leadership archetypes

Posted by in IT Management

As a company embarks on a journey of digital transformation and immense change, the expectations of IT leaders change as well. Two general archetypes have emerged, but in reality, individuals fall somewhere on the spectrum between the two extremes. Both archetypes can be extraordinarily valuable in the right situation. Each can also be incredibly ineffective when placed in the wrong context.

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Avoid These 3 Traps When Intervening On Team Performance

Posted by in IT Management

How is it that some people can inspire us to strive for greatness while others turn us off?

For me, one of those amazing leaders was my high school biology teacher, Mr. Kaziersky. He knew how to engage, inspire, and motivate his students to achieve outstanding results. Our classes consistently outperformed our peers on AP exams and SATs. What was so remarkable was that he didn’t always have the best or brightest students. There was something about his approach and the learning environment he created that enabled us to thrive.

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The Power of The Sprint in Managing Team Performance

Posted by in IT Management

During a sprint, many Scrum teams focus on action items, story points, ceremonies, and sprint length. They often overlook the importance of the sprint itself to the team’s potential productivity.

Sprints are relevant to performance because a team’s effectiveness evolves over time, and a sprint is a block of time—each usually 1 to 4 weeks in duration. With each sprint, team members participate in Scrum ceremonies and deliver work together. The ceremonies alone don’t turn a group of strangers into a team, but they can serve as shared experiences that help members feel more and more comfortable with each other.

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Making Empowerment Stick

Posted by in IT Management

Let me know if this sounds familiar: You talk about empowerment with your staff, at skip levels, and at town hall meetings. It’s a concept you reinforce over and over again within your organization. And yet you still observe teams asking for permission in situations where you want them to make decisions and drive actions. You still find yourself as the bottleneck, giving tactical approvals on topics you don’t feel require your input.

There’s a good chance you’re the reason a culture of empowerment hasn’t taken hold.

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5 Risks CIOs Must Assume in the Digital Age

Posted by in IT Management

For too many people, the concepts of “acting as a responsible CIO” and “taking risks” are mutually exclusive. A Traditional CIO is accustomed to a world where if nothing breaks, their job is safe. If they don’t touch anything, they can’t break anything. In this paradigm, taking risks is unwise.

In my opinion, rampant risk avoidance is the reason CIOs now lose their jobs at the second highest rate among the C-suite. Inaction—or maintaining the status quo—carries a much greater threat to the CIO (and the organization) than does taking an active stance and assuming the associated risks. In the digital age, where IT is the business, being CIO is like playing quarterback: if you stay in the pocket long enough, you will get sacked. You have to make a move.

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Build an Unbeatable Team Culture with 4 Simple Techniques

Posted by in IT Management

In work, as in life, we can’t succeed on our own. In fact, the cornerstone of execution, change, and success in any organization is not a single person, but rather teams of people who work together to make things happen.

But why is it that some teams knock it out of the park while others struggle? The secret lies with organizational leadership and management—are you giving your teams what they need to succeed?

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