If you want to succeed, grow and advance as most of us do, the conceptual approach is very straight forward and simple. Solve the problems that are keeping your CEO up at night. That’s all! Yes, I know I made that sound very simple and that the execution is generally much more complicated requiring months even years of hard work. …
If you do the work, they will never succeed
Help people, empower them, provide resources and tools they need to be successful, but DO NOT do their work for them. Completing the work of others doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t help them, it doesn’t help you nor does it help your organization. People must be empowered and positioned to succeed, yet they must be accountable for their performance and …
Leaders focus on what’s important, not what’s urgent
Each of us are faced with multitude of inputs and decisions to make each day. Keeping this in mind, it is important to spend your time, resources, attention and energy wisely. As a leader, your decisions impact not only your own life, but lives of others and as such you should focus on what is important and valuable to all, …
The most important calendar item for 2016 and beyond
Time management is an important skill, needed to succeed in making many of your goals a reality. As we look at our plans and goals for 2016 it is important to allocate time (actually block it off on your calendar) to think, reflect and plan. This should be you time, time where there are no other attendees, you are not …
Business and IT alignment
Dear fellow IT leaders, please stop aligning IT to business and be the business! Allow me to explain. Generally, in life, one aligns two separate things, two separate items while IT and business need to be one and the same. There are no IT organizations, there is only one organization, one business that you as IT are integral to. Information …
Making important decisions
Decisions, decisions, decisions. We are faced with dozens of them each day and as such they require our attention and consideration. While majority of decisions are not of great significance to future outcomes (both personally and professionally), others can be quite influential. Decisions or choices that you need to make in collaboration with others which are also of great importance …
Why Educause matters to me
Each industry has a number of organizations that unify professionals and enable them to network, collaborate, communicate and exchange ideas and knowledge. For me, one of such organizations, is certainly Educause. Educause is an association that unifies all of us who are in higher education (higher ed) information technology (IT) and provides opportunities for collaboration with colleagues and vendors. When …
Why leaders are not experts
As a leader one must motivate, inspire, set standards, coordinate, improve, communicate, collaborate and so on, but they should never mistakenly believe and act as if they know everything. There is a multitude of reasons why teams are built with people of diverse backgrounds, experiences, knowledge and education in order for them to complement each other and cover all responsibilities. …
CIO: one of the most rewarding positions
In my humble and somewhat biased opinion, one of the most rewarding positions is that of a CIO (Chief Information Officer). I say this based on their potential to influence positive transformation, change and growth within organizations. CIOs are uniquely positioned and have exposure and partnership opportunities with all business areas (finance, legal, marketing, operations…you name it, technology is involved …
Adjust your attitude
Growing up, how many times have you heard the following words from your parents: Adjust your attitude. Well, as you now know, they were even more right then you thought at the time. Your attitude matters, your determination and motivation to succeed is of crucial importance as you move through various opportunities and challenges in life. This same attitude will …