Leadership Elephant

As the world has become more and more digital, the importance of the role of a CIO within a firm has increased. No longer can CIOs be content to focus exclusively on technical topics. Instead, we now have to consider what the company's goals are and how technology can be used to help the company achieve those goals.

Isn't technology a wonderful thing? As CIO you are in charge of one of the most technologically sophisticated parts of the company. It's very easy to fill your days dealing with issues regarding servers, networks, routers, switches, firewalls, etc. However, it turns out that if you do this, then you'll be overlooking one of the most important tasks that a CIO needs to accomplish: communication. This book has been written in order to show you what you need to be doing in order to get your message out.

One of my negotiating mentors told me that most negotiations are over even before they start. When I asked her what she meant, she explained that the side that prepares the best for a negotiation is the one that will probably walk away with the best deal. Getting ready for a negotiation involves many different things. In order to be successful for your next negotiation, you are going to have to prepare for it. What this means is that you need to understand the steps that are involved, and you need to perform them. Remember, you can win this thing before it even starts.

At the heart of being a CIO is the responsibility to manage an entire department of technical professionals. It is your job to provide an overall direction for the department to move in and when problems arise, and they always do, you are going to have to work with your staff in order to create solutions.

Every company wants to grow and become more successful. There is no magic formula to make this happen, but it is generally agreed that in order for this to happen the company cannot stand still. Instead, they always have to be trying new things and growing.

Any manager is only as good as his or her team. I'm pretty sure that we've all heard this before. However, that leaves us in a bit of a bind - more often than not we are just handed a team and told the make the most of them. However, it turns out that over time we have the ability to reshape and mold our team based on who we choose to add and remove from it. Learning how to do this the right way is what can determine the ultimate success of a manager.

It turns out that most negotiations are over even before they begin. The team that has spent the most time planning for the negotiation, doing their homework, and collecting the data that they'll need is the one that's going to walk away from the table with the best deal. Wouldn't you want that team to be your team? Planning is what happens before you sit down at the negotiating table. There are no negotiating tactics or tricks at play here. It's just a matter of you doing your homework.

All too often CIOs can get caught up in all of the technical details of the job: boosting uptime, replacing servers, guarding against cyber criminals, etc. What we tend to forget is that IT exists to serve the rest of the business and they are there (in most cases) to make money. This means that there needs to be a business side to IT and that is one of a CIO's key responsibilities.

As an IT manager, one of your most valuable possessions is your career. At your firm, you are the only person who is going to be spending any time worrying about your career: how's it going, what is your next step, what could you be doing better? These are all vital questions for you to be able to answer if you want to advance in your career.

As an IT manager you understand the value of technology. It's what provides our teams with the tools that we can use to accomplish great things for our company. The challenge that we run into is that technology is always changing. This means that as an IT manager you have a responsibility to stay on top of all of the various technologies that your team will be called on to make use of.

As individuals we have a tendency to shy away from getting involved in arguments. We view them as being confrontational and filled with emotions. However, when it comes to negotiating and when we have a different view of the world than the other side of the table, it turns out that a little bit of arguing might be just what the doctor ordered.

What is a product manager without a product? Nothing. That's why it's so very important that when a product is being developed that the product manager be involved. Now exactly how best to go about doing that is an entirely different question. The process from having an idea for a product to actually having a product is a long and treacherous road. So many things can go wrong that either cause the schedule to have to be extended or cause a product with the wrong features to be developed.

Every company wants to grow and become more successful. There is no magic formula to make this happen, but it is generally agreed that in order for this to happen the company cannot stand still. Instead, they always have to be trying new things and growing. In an IT team, in order to make this kind of growth occur, innovation has to be encouraged to happen. All too often the workers on the team can get too involved in their day-to-day tasks to spend any time thinking about innovation. That's where the IT manager has to step in.

What does it really mean to be a CIO? You sure won't be writing any software any more. You won't be stringing network cables or updating firewall parameters. What does a CIO really do? I've got some bad news for you: CIOs manage.

When we enter into a negotiation, we simply don't know everything that we need to know. What this means for us is that we've got to use the negotiation to do some exploring - we've got to get answers to the questions that are unanswered when we start.

There are a number of different ways to make yourself more powerful in a negotiation. Bringing a team to the table is one way to go about doing this, but there are advantages and disadvantages to doing it. Not all negotiations are done by ourselves. If we choose to bring in a professional negotiator to do our dirty work for us, then we're going to need to know how to find out if they truly know their stuff.

At the heart of what it means to be a product manager lies the ability to market your product. No matter if you are trying to get people inside of your company to provide you with the resources or funding that your product needs in order to get out the door or if it's customers that you are after, you've got to be able to paint a picture of your product that makes people want it.

In order to be a success, a CIO needs to be able to find and work with partners. These partners have to be committed to the same things that the CIO is: the overall success of his or her company and IT department. However, finding the right partners can be quite a challenge. All too often alliances don't work out. CIOs need to take the time and study why some of these relationships are successful while others are not.

The job of a product manager is made even more difficult by the simple fact that it really does not come with any clear instructions on how to do it correctly. As product managers we are constantly searching for ways to become better. One of the things that every product manager quickly realizes is that their career success is very closely tied to the financial success of their product.

An IT manager's budget controls what he and his team are going to be able to accomplish this year. No, creating a budget may not be the most enjoyable thing that you'll be called on to do, but it just might be the most important. The challenge that a lot of IT managers have when it comes to creating a good budget is that it requires them to master a number of terms and concepts that they may never have encountered in school.