My good friend, and partner at CIOEssentials.com,  Gene Delibero asks a few interesting questions in a post titled “Certification: No Guarantee of Competency – But it Can’t Hurt” on CIOE.

In this post Gene highlights the pros/cons of IT Certifications and asks these questions:

Do you rely on IT certification when hiring? What has your experience been, good or bad, when hiring IT resources with or without certifications? Do you have an IT certification or more than one? Have they been helpful to you in your career as far as being a gate item or helping you get more money?

Some interesting questions here that might be worth looking at.

When I’ve hired folks in the past, I’ve looked at certifications as part of my overall view of the candidate.  If I’m hiring for a Database Administrator, a DBA certification helps me understand that this person has knowledge in the area…but it doesn’t help me determine their experience or skills in the area.

On the other hand, if I’m hiring for a Project Manager for a large enterprise implementation, a Project Management Certification like the PMP really doesn’t do much for me.  The PMP certification tells me that the user has experience in the project management world and has passed a test…but it doesn’t tell me anything about that person’s real abilities.

At the end of the day, the certification helps quantify a candidate’s skill-set but not their abilities and experiences.

The certification is a piece of the puzzle but, in my mind, a small piece.

What’s your thoughts?  Leave a comment here or jump over to Certification: No Guarantee of Competency – But it Can’t Hurt and leave a comment there.

Pick one and own it by Jason Cohen on A Smart Bear

The Strategy Trap: Why focusing too much on strategy could be killing your ability to execute by Olivier Blanchard on The BrandBuilder Blog

HR Hint of the Day: Let Them Run Through the Sprinklers by Frank Roche on KnowHR Blog {If you click on no other link today, click on this one!}

The twin evils of IT gridlock and denials by Michael Krigsman on Enterprise Irregulars

There’s no room for The Idea Guy by David on Signal vs. Noise

Business models for linked data and web 3.0 by Scott Brinker on Chief Marketing Technologist

Are innovation strategies back on CIO agendas? by Linda Tucci on TotalCIO

Thinking About Networks and Social Media and Online Collaborations by Beth Kanter on Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

Like Siblings, Teams Get Locked Into Behavior Patterns by Andrew O’Connell on HarvardBusiness.org

Community Management: The Strategic New IT-Enabled Business Capability by Dion Hinchcliffe on Enterprise Irregulars

Who Are Your Positive Deviants? by Hutch Carpenter on CloudAve

Losing Andrew Carnegie by Seth Godin on Seth’s Blog

The One Thing About Building A Community By Mitch Joel on Six Pixels of Separation

Did you catch the news earlier this week?   Gene De Libero and I started a new blog titled “CIO Essentials“.  Gene and I have known each other for a few years now and recently collaborated on an article for Cutter IT Journal titled “The Futureproof CIO“.  That collaboration has turned into CIO Essentials (CIOE).

I had the pleasure of writing the first article to be published on CIOE and wanted to share it here for my regular readers/subscribers.  I hope you decide to join Gene and I over at CIOEssentials.com where we’ll be writing more on the topics of business, leadership, technology, and the people technology serves.

Culture and the CIO was first published on CIOEssentials.com on March 1 2010.

What’s the culture of your organization?

Have you built a hard-charging, do anything organization that demands things get done now? Or are you working in an organization that thinks things through, plans them out and takes years to get anything done? Perhaps you’re somewhere between these two extremes.

Personally, I’d rather be closer to the get it done (and get it done right) scenario than planning everything to death, but I’ve seen both types of cultures work. As the CIO, before you can deliver value to your organization, you must understand the culture within your organization.

“When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.” – Chinese Proverb

Culture and the CIO

What is culture within an organization? Most agree that organizational culture is the shared beliefs, values and norms that are held by the people within an organization.

What are the shared beliefs of your organization? Are you focused on moving quickly to beat your competition? Are you an innovative organization that wants to be at the forefront of the market? Or are you one of those companies that like to plan things to death and take years to get anything done?

Whatever your organizational culture, you’ve got to stay in sync with that culture or you might find yourself out of a job.

Story Time

Patty is a newly hired VP of IT for a mid-sized business in Chicago. Patty’s previous employer was a large, demanding company and Patty really thrived in that type of environment – she essentially grew-up in that hard driving organization.

In her previous role, she expected her staff to be as demanding and driven as she was, and for the most part, they were. Patty had worked her way up the ranks to a Director level role but was itching to move further up the ladder. After some internal review, she quickly found a VP role that seemed like a good fit and after a few months of negotiation, she accepted the position as the top IT person within the organization.

Patty was excited to have to an opportunity to finally run her own shop. After all, she’d been working towards this opportunity her entire career. Patty had finally arrived. She was the head of IT and could implement all the really cool processes and technologies that she’d been hearing about.

Patty brought her driven, hard-charging approach to IT to her new position – and immediately flopped. The culture of her new company was a slow-moving one. The people were methodical and planned things out to the ‘nth’ degree before moving forward with a project. There were committees and task forces for everything and not a single decision was made without going through a few rounds of committee discussions. Change was tough.

The Slow Pace of Progress

Patty railed against the slow pace of progress. She drove her IT staff to ‘pick up the pace’ and drove her managers into a frenzy trying to accomplish everything she wanted to get done as quickly as possible.

Sadly (and predictably), after six months, Patty had accomplished nothing. None of the high-priority projects had been completed and most hadn’t even been started. Patty’s boss, the CFO, pulled her into his office one day and suggested that she reign things in. He shared that the organization had always taken the slow approach and that wasn’t something that was likely to change any time soon.

This slow-and-steady approach had proven to be the success factor for them. He went on to explain that, while they weren’t the industry leader, they were extremely profitable. It was their organizational culture that was the driving factor behind that success.

Patty countered with her standard argument that the organization moved too slow and that she couldn’t get anything done at that pace. She couldn’t fund any of the projects that she’d made a priority. All projects were well-vetted before being funded because every project that was funded took money away from other parts of the business.

Outcomes

While there are actually a few points that can be made with this story, the one I want to highlight is the cultural issues apparent.

Patty didn’t understand the role of organizational culture within the company. She didn’t understand that culture exists for a reason and that the culture is made up of the values and belief systems of the people within the organization.

Patty thought she was railing against the snail’s pace of progress, but she was actually telling every single person within that company that they were wrong. Nobody likes to be told that they’re wrong, but telling an entire organization that they way they’ve done business for years is wrong is a career suicide mission. It can be difficult to recover once you’ve alienated enough people within the organization.

Patty never recovered. She was shown the door withing a few months of her meeting with the CFO. The reason for her dismissal? She didn’t fit the ‘culture’ of the organization.

Focus on Culture

Whether you’re looking to move another organization or you’ve moved into a new role at your current company, you’ve got to consider the organizational culture while considering how you’ll reach your objectives. You can’t be successful as a fast-moving IT manager if your team’s spent the last 20 years moving slowly.

Keep organizational culture in mind while planning out your next project, job or strategic plan.

Culture and the CIO was first published on CIOEssentials.com on March 1 2010.

I just put down SWAT – Seize the Accomplishment (Amazon affiliate link) by Timothy L. Johnson….and now want to pick it back up and read it again.  It’s that good.

I received the book as a review copy from the author…but don’t let that get in the way of believing me when i say that this business fable is an excellent one.

SWAT is an acronym for “Systems Working All Together”…but it also helps set the stage for the story in the book.

The storyline of this book is a good one and keeps the concepts moving forward quickly. In the story, a team lead has a difficult task to work through and turns to his best friend and cousin…who happens to be a SWAT commander.

The main character, Toby, spends time with his SWAT commander cousin and learns the systems thinking concepts that make SWAT teams successful.

The concepts are described perfectly and in a manner that makes it easy to comprehend and easy to understand how you might apply them to the problems your currently facing.

I’ve read quite a few systems thinking books but nothing as entertaining as this.   While this isn’t nearly as comprehensive as Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, Timothy Johnson’s put together a great little book that can help to introduce the systems thinking concepts quickly and easily.

Grab this book from your favorite bookseller today..Amazon has it for $14.95.

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• SWAT. Systems working all together. Timothy L. Johnson. (regnordman.com)

To Grow a Company, You Need to be Good at Killing Things by Auren Hoffman on Summation

Why IT Shouldn’t Be Involved in Marketing Software Decisions by Matt Sullivan on HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

Why IT SHOULD Be Involved in Marketing Software Decisions by Jenn Steele on HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

Don’t Just Stand There, Make a Difference by Kevin Eikenberry on Kevin’s Blog

Office politics will eat management strategy for breakfast by Scot Herrick on Cube Rules

It Turns Out That Top-Down Decisions Are What CIOs Need To Make by Dr. Jim Anderson on The Accidental Successful CIO

The Machiavellian Guide to Enterprise 2.0 by Mark Fidelman on CloudAve

Why clear strategy is so important to innovators by Jeffrey Phillips on Innovate on Purpose

Curse of the IT prima donna by Michael Krigsman on Enterprise Irregulars

What Happened to the Talent? by Steve Roesler on All Things Workplace

Organization: the business decisions that drive IT costs by Mark McDonald on The Gartner Blog Network

Do you know Hutch Carpenter?  You should.  He write’s some awesome stuff over at I’m Not Actually a Geek.

Hutch recently wrote a post titled “Apple iPad and Google Buzz: Harsh Reality of Innovation” where he argues (successfully I think) that you’ve got to be OK with failure to really be innovative.

In the article Hutch points at Apple and Google as examples of companies that have amazing successes as well as amazing failures.

Hutch does a great job tying innovation with failure and showing that you’ve got to embrace failure to truly innovate.  It’s a great read.

The best part of the article wasn’t written by Hutch though….it’s a quote from Teddy Roosevelt. This quote really resonates with me and is a perfect addition to this argument. The quote is:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Emphasis mine.

Failure and the CIO

Is it OK for your IT staff to fail?

Have you built the proper culture that allows your teams to step out of bounds and innovate without fear of retribution if the attempt fails?

If you’ve said yes…good for you.  But…what would happen if I asked your team?  Would they say the same?

Think about the last three projects you’ve undertaken.  Have they all been a success?  Have they all been innovative? Can you point to projects that you’ve undertaken that have changed the ‘game’ for your organization?

If you can’t think of any innovative projects that you’ve undertaken recently…perhaps you’ve stepped into the realm of playing it safe.

Culture of Failure?

Nobody likes failure.  I hate it…but I’ve had my fair share of it.  I’ve watched my projects fail and I’ve watched my teams fail.  But…I’ve also seen some amazing things happen by those same teams.

So…am I saying that you should create a culture of failure? Absolutely not.

But I am saying that you need to create a culture that makes it OK to fail.

Ask yourself this question:

Do you want your IT staff to be known as folks that put themselves out there and bring  innovation to the organization….or do you want to be known as the IT group that plays it safe?

It might be easier to play it safe for some, but don’t expect to find and keep the best people if you’re playing it safe.  The best and brightest out there want to work on the ‘cool’ stuff. The ‘new’ stuff.  They don’t want to be relegated to a life of maintaining your COBOL application…they want to build a new app that will make the organization (and world) stand up and take notice.

Build a culture that says failure is OK and you’ll build the potential for a high performance team that can get some great stuff done.  Don’t do this and you’ll be relegated to being the also-ran.

Talent: Develop Strengths or Weaknesses? Yes. by Steve Roesler on All Things Workplace

5 Tips for Improving the Synergy between Marketing and IT by Jenn Steele on HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

Learn to Ask Better Questions by John Baldoni on HarvardBusiness.org

The IT Security Balancing Act by Mike Schaffner on Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

Does the CEO Care About IT? by Chris Curran on CIO Dashboard

The Rise of the Innovation Ninjas by Mitch Ditkoff on The Heart of Innovation

Social Business and Next-Generation CIOs – The Impact of Technological Change by Dion Hinchcliffe on Enterprise Irregulars

Global Warming, IT and Christianity – the Law of Infallibility by Martijn Linssen on @MartijnLinssen

Marketing & Business: It’s all about the people! by Jim Connolly on Jim’s Marketing Blog

Weaving innovation into the corporate structure by Jeffrey Phillips on Innovate on Purpose

How IT-Smart Is Your Organization? by Susan Cramm on HarvardBusiness.org

Do you know your IT staff? Do you regularly communicate with them?

If you do, good for you. If not, you’re missing out on a wonderful opportunity to build morale, inform and just generally build a cohesive, efficient and engaged team.

An Example

As you know, I like stories and storytelling…so here’s a real-world example using two different people / organizations. Both organizations are medium sized businesses. Both people work in the IT Operations teams and have been in their current role for 3+ years.

Terri’s been a systems administrator for her current company for roughly 3.5 years. She’s disappointed with her current job and is looking to jump ship as soon as the job market picks back up.

Amit has worked as a database administrator for his company for 5 years. He’s happy, likes his job and actually enjoys going to work.

On the surface, it may seem as if Terri’s just one of those people who’s never happy and always complains. Perhaps Amit appears to be the opposite…a happy go-lucky person who’s happy with what they have.

While there are folks out there like that, Amit and Terri don’t really fit those molds.

Both Terri and Amit have similar backgrounds and work histories. Both came to their current organization from similar organizations and similar roles. Amit tells me that his previous job ’sucked’ while Terri felt OK about her previous job but didn’t really love it.

I asked Amit if he could pinpoint what the difference was between his previous job that ’sucked’ and this job that he loved.

His answer?

The only real difference that he could point to was a simple one:

The CIO communicated with the IT team on a regular basis.

According to Amit, the CIO made himself available to everyone within the IT group daily. He joined the team for lunches and he would join in on the conversations around the coffee maker. During the time the CIO spent with team members, he’d share information with the team. He talked about the company. He talked about things that were important to him. He shared the good and the bad with his team.

What it boiled down to, according to Amit, was that the CIO was available and was personable. Amit could sense from his interactions with the CIO that his role as database administrator was important. He felt that the CIO knew what he did and what it would mean to the organization if Amit wasn’t there to his job.

After hearing this from Amit, I talked to Terri and asked for her general perceptions of the CIO. Her response?

I’ve never met the CIO.

Wow.

The CIO has a team of 30 people all within one building in Dallas. And he’s never made his way around the team to meet Terri? Unbelievable (and unacceptable – at least to me).

Terri tells me that she’s seen the CIO but never actually met him nor been in any meetings with him. She also tells me that the majority of her coworkers on the IT Operations team report that they’ve not had much interaction with the CIO either.

Another surprising comment from Terri? Every person within that IT team that she has befriended is unhappy. All want to move on to another organization.

Let’s Review

Let’s think about what Terri and Amit have said.

Amit’s CIO know’s Amit by his first name. He also knows his family and has had lunch with him multiple times. More importantly, Amit’s CIO shares information with the team regularly. He tells them they’re doing a great job and also tells them when they screw up. Amit’s CIO shares as much information with his team as possible.

Contrast that with Terri. She’s never met the CIO in 3.5 years of working there. She has no idea what her CIO does, what he’s thinking or what he thinks of her. She also has no idea how her position fits into the organization’s strategy nor does she have a clue about the direction in which the organization is going.

What can we learn from Amit & Terri’s situation? While these are anecdotes and not any type of scientific proof, one thing to take away from Terri & Amit’s situation is that, as CIO or other IT manager, you’ve got to continuously communicate. Communication with your team allows for you and them to better understand each other.

Conclusion

After all that wordiness…the basic take away of this post is a simple one.

Talk to your team. Share your thoughts with them and listen to theirs. Make sure they know their value to the organization.

If you can’t perform the simple act of talking to your team, how can you expect them to carry out your plans when they don’t know what your plans are?

Now…if you’re the CIO of a multi-billion dollar organization, you may not be able to communicate with all the IT staff but your direct reports (and theirs) should be able to.

I don’t normally do this, but I wanted to do a little self-promotion with this first link:

Eric D. Brown’s Engineering Approach by Ron Egatz on The Induro Blog (an overview of me as photographer)

Ok…back to sharing other’s great work:

Little, inexpensive things mean a lot by Mark Riffey  on Business is Personal

Want to Learn? Learn to Teach by Suze on SuzeMuze

Are You Customer-Averse? by Valeria Maltoni on Conversation Agent

Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy by Derek Sivers

The Real Lesson of Toyota: Cultural Insensitivity? by Charles H. Green on Trust Matters blog

Better User Experience With Storytelling, Part 2 by Francisco Inchauste on Smashing Magazine (see Part 1 also)

Top 3 Business Benefits of (internal) Enterprise 2.0 by Scott Gavin

The brand, the package, the story and the worldview by Seth Godin on Seth’s Blog

Discipline * Skill = Craftsmanship by Jurgen Appelo on NOOP.NL: Managing Software Development

Why Ideas Are Core to Enterprise 2.0 by Hutch Carpenter on I’m Not Actually a Geek

The Power of the Audience by Anil Dash

Leaders Make Connections by Michael McKinney on Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog @ LeadershipNow

Beware the dark side of the IT PMO by Linda Tucci on TotalCIO

Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard by Pierre DeBois on Small Business Trends

A few weeks ago I received Leadership Test: Will You Pass? (amazon affiliate link) by Timothy R. Clark, Ph.D. to review

The book is a small one (~99 pages in total) but packed with some interesting content.   Clark uses a business fable to describe leadership and what makes up a good leader.

I’m a HUGE fan of stories and storytelling as a means to convey knowledge and I love these types of books.   Obviously other folks enjoy these types of books as well (think Patrick Lencioni and his wonderful books).

The story in this book is an excellent one. It’s well written and the plot-line is pretty good and keeps you turning the pages. While the story is good, the lessons contained with the book are even better.  After reading the book, I didn’t feel as though I’d read a business book about leadership…I felt like I read an interesting story about someone learning to lead.

I’d recommend this book to everyone with any interest in leadership….and I’m not just saying that because I was sent this as a review from the author.  It’s a great little book.