Modesty In A Social Media World

New "love" app out of the U.K. called I Just Made Love (IJML).
This one is not for the modest or privacy-conscious.
The app is available for download for both the iPhone and Android.
Essentially, people are going out and using location-based services (i.e. GPS) and self-identifying their love-making--act by act. We're up to 194,000+ already!
Not to be gross, but the app lets people not only report on doing the act and where, but also using check boxes with icons, you can identify the details such as the context: couch, indoor and outdoor, as well as how: 5 top positions--which is way more information than I care to hear about.
In our often hedonistic society, there are of course, other services such as Four-Square that lets you broadcast where you fulfill other bodily pleasures like eating, drinking, and shopping.
Personally, I don't care to know what people are doing or where--too intrusive for my liking. But I can see why others may want to use FourSquare type apps (not IJML or who knows) with friends and family who may want to connect in this way--like to meet for Happy Hour at Old Town.
And certainly, marketers are interested in capturing valuable personal information on what you are doing, where and with whom, and using it to drive their sales and profits. Maybe you get a coupon out of it. :-)
With the love app, it seems like some people want to brag, appear the Don Juan, raise their "macho" social status, or just perhaps enjoy being exhibitionists.
From my perspective, the main pro of this app is to promote the concept (not the act itself) of love over things like war, hate, discrimination, etc.
Even with that being said, it seems like some things are just better off left as intimate moments between you and your special other.
Interesting to me, this topic of disclosure came up big time in the Orthodox Jewish world with the publication in the Yeshiva University Beacon (5 December 2011) of a much written-about article entitled "How Do I Even Begin To Explain This," where a frum Jewish girl from Stern College discloses her story of illicit rendezvous in a hotel room with a gentlemen and at the same time the "walk of shame the day after."
The dichotomy between her "Orthodox" beliefs and her "secular" actions and her publication of this article in a Yeshiva newspaper and her explicit description of sexual deeds is a perfect example of the tear in our society between privacy and social probity on one hand, and the desire or need to share and be "free" of all constraints on the other.
As a social commentary, we are at a point where it seems that nothing is real unless we share it with others, and that can be good or bad--it can lead to greater wisdom and societal advancement or it can lead us to do things we shouldn't do, are sorry we did, and where we feel shame afterwards.

Modesty In A Social Media World

First Stop Saying First

First came "Cloud First" in the 25 Point Implementation Plan To Reform Federal IT Management (9 December 2010).

Then came "Sharing First" and "Future First" in the "vision for information technology" (25 October 2011).

According to Federal Times (31 October 2011), there are many more 'firsts' to come-- with a "set of principles like 'XML First,' 'Web Services First' 'Virtualize First,' and other 'firsts' that will inform how we develop our government's systems. "

At this point in this blog, I can't even remember all the 'firsts' I just jotted down, so my question is at what point does assigning 'firsts' become 'second' to managing our tremendous IT asset base for the government?

Some more firsts just to be first in starting this "list of firsts":

"G-d First"

"Country First"

"Democracy First"

"Freedom First"

"Human Rights First"

"Capitalism First"

"Equality First"

"Justice First"

"Fairness First"

"Family First"

"Charity First"

"Caring First"

"Giving First"

"Love First"

"Health First"

"Mission First"

"People First"

"Insource First"

"Outsource First"

"Integrity First"

"Ethics First"

"Truth First"

"Communication First"

"Leadership First"

"Innovation First"

"Passion First"

"Security First"

"Safety First"

"Reliability First"

"Agility First"

"Adaptability First"

"Sustainability First"

"Planning First"

"Governance First"

"Execution First

"Project Management First"

"Performance Measurement First"

"Best Practices First"

"Learning and Growth First"

"Sharing First"

"Collaboration First"

"Transparency First"

"Interoperability First"

"Reusability First"

"Reputation First"

"Simplicity First"

"Requirements First"

"Effectiveness First"

"Efficiency First"

"Data First"

"Quality First"

"Customer First"

"Service First"

"Standards First"

"Cost-savings First"

"Business Process Reengineering First"

"Critical Thinking First"

"Jobs First"

"Women and Children First"

Essentially, there are a lot of 'firsts' in life and the challenge is in prioritizing and deconflicting these.

So with all due respect first, now let's get back to the business of government and technology. ;-)

(Source Photo: here)

First Stop Saying First

SEALS - Going Beyond The Veneer

What a great article in the Wall Street Journal today (7-8, May 2011) about the Navy SEALs.

No, the article is not about how they are just these pure lethal, killing machines--as Osama Bin Laden learned this week.

But rather, about what it takes to be a Navy SEAL, and in my mind implicitly what it takes to be the best in life at whatever you chose to do.

The Navy SEALs were stood up by President Kennedy in 1962 as an elite new commando force for all-terrain missions (aside from being the nation's elite maritime special forces):

Hence the acronym: SEa, Air, and Land.

Yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden recounted at Fort Campbell this interaction with his granddaughter, as follows (Source: Washington Wire):

"We're going to see the guys out there who got Osama bin Laden," Mr. Biden said he told her.

"And she grabbed a little friend of hers and said, "My pop's going out to see the whales!'"

"Not the SEALs," Mr. Biden added, "the whales. Because if they're that good, they've got to be big, man."

And it is true, the SEALs are big men, but not necessarily in the sense that you might think.

Yes, they can kick your a** six ways to Sunday, but becoming a SEAL is really about heart!

While the SEAL training draws the physical best--"high school and college track and football stars, national-champion swimmers, and top-ranked wrestlers and boxers, only 10% to 20% ...manage to finish" -- and there are only about 250 graduates a year, total!

So what's the differentiator--between making it and not (through "Hell Week"--the culmination of the 6 months of grueling training)?

The SEAL author sums it up for us this way:

"Almost all the men who survived possessed one common quality. Even in great pain, faced with the test of their lives, they had the ability to step outside of their own pain, put aside their own fear, and ask: How can I help the guy next to me? They had more than the 'fist' of courage and physical strength. They also had a heart large enough to think about others, to dedicate themselves to a higher purpose."

Very well said!

Some major leadership lessons:

1) In the end, physical strength (what they call the "size of their biceps") and prowess is only part of the equation--and at some point, everyones strength gives out--"they break". But the heart and soul of the person, what drives them inside, is not subject to physical limits--and that is the part of us that is our essence and is immortal and can drive us to true greatness. And like the story of little David (the champion of Israelites) beating the giant Goliath in the Bible, with courage, ingenuity, teamwork, and purpose, we can do the seemingly impossible.

2) It's important to see beyond the exterior of the person or situation that's before you, and to go deeper into what behind the veneer. On the surface, lots of people may look like they could be SEALs, but only the cream of the crop make it. Similarly, when it comes to business opportunities, hiring situations, and complex negotiations, it's critical to "go deep, before you leap," so that you can make important determinations of what is really the best for you and your organization.

3) You don't just become the best, and stay that way, but you have to earn it every day. For example, training is critical and learning and growth is a life-long pursuit. As the SEAL states from one of his instructors: "The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in war." We've got to put in the sweat equity into everything we really want, and which is really important us.

4) Never forget you are not alone, you are part of a "squad", a team, a nation, a people--you are a child of G-d. Together, we are held together by principles and values that transcend the individual and the moment. These make us strong beyond our physical limitations, our sheer numbers, and even our technology--although these certainly help ;-)

Our fighting men and women make tremendous sacrifices for all us, and becoming a SEAL or other special forces commando requires even greater demands--and the physical part is only the beginning, only the veneer.

SEALS - Going Beyond The Veneer

Getting To Happy

In spite of all the wealth creation and technological progress we have experienced in recent times, the real stickler is that most people seem unhappier than ever.

This is not just an observation: According to the results of the World Values Survey and the General Social Survey of the National Opinion Research Center, "people have grown continuously more depressed over the last half-century." (Psychology Today, April 2011).

And the depression and unhappiness that we are suffering as a society has been linked to overinflated and unrealistic expectations.

I guess the average home size of approximately 2,400 square feet, more than DOUBLE that of fifty years ago, hasn't made that much difference in people's level of happiness.

Why? Because we focus on what we don't have, instead of what do have. Marketers take advantage of this by selling, for example, the iPad 2 three months after everyone just got the iPad for the holiday. (Thanks SNL!)

Reminds me of a timeless Jewish saying: "Who is rich? He who is happy with his portion." (Talmud: Avot 4:1) -- Then again, the Cossacks taking all of our stuff didn't help the situation any :-)

Psychologist Tim Kasser states: "The more people focus on the materialist pathway to happiness, the less happy they tend to be."

And more forebodingly, "The less happy they make others."--Can anyone say "50% divorce rate and rising?"

Writing about America in the early 19th century, the French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville already observed: "I know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men's hearts."

I remember growing up in a modest way, but walking past all the mansions in the community regularly. In my mind I lived "on the other side of town." On the one hand, this was motivating to me in the sense that I felt like I could "make it" too. On the other hand, thinking about it left me feeling empty, because materialism was not what I believed to be REALLY important. I still don't.

Over time, I came to see money practically, for what it was: a way of paying the bills. But my true passion lay elsewhere. Commitment to G-d, family and nation, and productive hard work in its own right--is more meaningful and joyful to me.

Today, I still enjoy looking at the mansions on Bravo's Millionaire Listing or HGTV. But I only let myself do that when I'm working out on the treadmill!

Getting To Happy

Five Lessons From The Chilean Rescue

This week, we as humankind were renewed by the rescue of the 33 miners in Chile.

“Viva Chile! They Left No Man Behind” writes Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal (16-17, Oct. 2010).

The Chileans took what was a human tragedy and instead turned it upside down and inside out into a worldwide victory!

Yet, as the rescue unfolded first with the search for the miners, their discovery, their being sustained while rescue tunnels were dug, and then ultimately as each miner—one by one—was brought to the surface safely—clean-shaven and smiling, I couldn’t help thinking to myself how perfectly everything was going—each time again and again—and then starting to worry that something has got to go wrong here (almost by Murphy’s Law)—this is too perfect!

Yet, nothing went wrong, it was a watertight rescue of all the miners.

As flawed human beings with all our warts and all, I think we were at some level shocked with disbelief by the flawless events that unfolded.

No cost overruns, no schedule delays, no one was hurt, no glitches in equipment or otherwise. It was a run of complete success that almost never happens in real life and yet, we all saw it unfold one, two, three…thirty-three before our very eyes.

This doesn’t happen in real life—only in fairy tales, right? This certainly doesn’t happen in most information technology projects! ;-)

But even more stunning to us than the success of the rescue itself was the undercurrent of the prevailing of good over evil manifesting before us—almost like G-d was revealing himself to us again, as he did in Biblical times. As one of the miners poetically said: “I met G-d. I met the devil. G-d won.”

The shocker here was that a people, nation, and in effect the entire world was focused on saving these 33 simple miners. This in our day and age, when we have become more accustomed to those who dehumanize and devalue human life, rather than those who genuinely value and safeguard it as the Chileans did.

As Ms. Noonan puts it: “They used the human brain and spirit to save life. All we get every day is scandal.”

Recent events remind us of the huge contrast between those who value life and those who don’t, such as 9-11, almost daily suicide (read “homicide”) bombings for political aims, the blatant proliferation and threats of WMD (and now cyber warfare), the violation of human rights by dictatorships and thugs around the world, including political imprisonments, rigged elections, restrictions of free information flow, and more violent acts such as mass rapes, female genital mutilation, genocide, slave prison camps, and more.

Moreover, while we witness events going wrong everyday and governments, companies, and peoples seeming unable to set things right, in Chile, we saw a nation and a people that set their minds and might to bringing the miners home safely and they did, period.

There are some important lessons here for us for the future:

1. Find the moral good. It starts with valuing and safeguarding human life. Our agenda should always be to prioritize helping others and saving lives. The Chileans did just that when they didn’t wring their hands and just walk away from the tragedy saying it was over. Instead, saving the lives was a national priority. Similarly, providing the speedy drill to the Chileans from the U.S. that tunneled in half the time to the miners was a gesture that we too value life and are partners with them in saving the miners.
2. Contain the problem. The problems we face are “ginormous” (read: gigantic and enormous) and the only way we are gong to be able to overcome them is to break them down into pieces and attack them at their source. The Chileans took a big rescue operation and by decomposing it into plan A, B, and C, etc. and tackling each piece of the problem (locating the miners, sustaining them, rescuing them, etc.), they made the solution doable.
3. Leverage technology. We are hampered in our abilities by our own human limitations. But we can extend our capabilities and expand those limits through technology. The rescue of the miners used many new technologies in drilling, communications, and materials to make the rescue not only possible, but also probable. We need to constantly innovate and use technology to make the impossible, possible.
4. Stand united. No question, we are stronger together than apart. The Chilean nation and people united in their efforts to rescue and bring home the miners. It was a mission they believed in and which they stood together in accomplishing. Politics, infighting, and mudslinging can divide us when we need to be unified. We need to understand that when we take pot shots to score points, we undermine the mission and the successes we desperately need.
5. Stay positive. Even in the face of what seems like assured calamity, we must keep our wits, stay strong, and focus on solutions. If we do this, we can say goodbye to Murphy’s Law, and helpless and hopelessness be gone. A renewed spirit of optimism and a can-do attitude can carry us forward to new heights that we can all be proud of.

As the article states: the Chileans “set to doing something hard, specific, physical, demanding of commitment, precision, and expertise. And they did it.” And we can again do it too.

Five Lessons From The Chilean Rescue

The Many Faces of the CIO

The Chief Information Officer is a complex and challenging role even for those highly experienced, well educated, and innately talented. In fact, Public CIO Magazine in 2009 stated that the average tenure for a CIO is barely 24 months. What is it that is so challenging about being a CIO?

Well of course, there is the technology itself, which some may consider challenging in terms of keeping pace with the quick and ever changing products and services and roles that the IT plays in our society.

But one of the reasons not so frequently addressed is that the CIO role itself is so multi-faceted and requires talents that span a broad range of skills sets that not a lot of people have mastered.

In the CIO Support Services Framework (CSSF), I talked about this in terms of the varied strategic functions and skills that the CIO needs in order to plan and execute effectively (instead of just being consumed in the day-to-day firefighting)—from enterprise architecture to IT governance, from program and project management to customer relationship management, and from IT security to performance management—the CIO must pull these together seamlessly to provide IT capabilities to the end-user.

I came across this concept of the multifaceted CIO this week, in a white paper by The Center for CIO Leadership called “Beyond the Crossroads: How Business-Savvy CIOs Enable Top-Performing Enterprises and How Top-Performing Enterprise Leverage Business-Savvy CIOs.” The paper identifies multiple CIO core competencies, including a generic “leadership” category (which seems to cross-over the other competencies), “business strategy and process” reengineering, technology “innovation and growth”, and organization and talent management.

Additionally, the white paper, identifies some interesting research from a 2009 IBM global survey entitled “The New Voice of the CIO” that points to both the numerous dimensions required of the CIO as well as the dichotomy of the CIO role. The research describes both “the strategic initiatives and supporting tactical roles that CIOs need to focus upon,” as follows:

Insightful Visionary	Able Pragmatist
Savvy Value Creator	Relentless Cost Cutter
Collaborative Business Leader	Inspiring IT Manager

Clearly, the CIO has to have many functions that he/she must perform well and furthermore, these roles are at times seemingly polar-opposites—some examples are as follows:

• Developing the strategy, but also executing on it.
• Growing the business through ongoing investments in new technologies, but also for decommissioning old technologies, streamlining and cutting costs.
• Driving innovation, modernization, and transformation, but also ensuring a sound, stable, and reliable technology infrastructure.
• Maintaining a security and privacy, but also for creating an open environment for information sharing, collaboration, and transparency.
• Understanding the various lines of business, but also running a well honed IT shop.
• Managing internal, employee resources, but also typically managing external, contracted resources.
• Focusing internally on the mission and business, but also for reaching outside the organization for best practices and partnerships.

However, what can seem like contradictions in the CIO role are not really incongruous, but rather they are mutually supportive functions. We develop the strategy so we can faithfully execute. We invest in new technology so we can decommission the legacy systems. We invest in new future capabilities, while maintaining a stable present day capacity, and so on. The role of the CIO is truly multifaceted, but also synergistic and a potent platform for making significant contributions to the organization.

While certainly, the CIO does not accomplish all these things by him/herself, the CIO does have to be able to lead the many facets of the job that is required. The CIO must be able to talk everything from applications development to service oriented architecture, from data center modernization to cloud computing, from server and storage virtualization to mobility solutions, from green computing to security and privacy, and so much more.

The CIO is not a job for everybody, but it is a job for some people—who can master the many facets and even the seeming contractions of the job—and who can do it with a joy and passion for business and IT that is contagious to others and to the organization.

The Many Faces of the CIO

Fire In The Belly

Recently I read a classic article in Harvard Business Review (March-April 1992) called “Managers and Leaders,” by Abraham Zaleznik, in which he differentiates between these two frequently confused types of people.

Some highlights:

	Leaders	Managers
Personality	Shape the goals	Solve the problems
Decision-making	Open up new options	“Limit choices” to execute
Relationships	Emotion-driven	Process-oriented
Risks	Prudent risk-takers	Conservative risk-avoidance
Sense of self	Strong and separate	Based on the organization

In my experience, Zaleznik was correct in observing that leaders and managers are very different. In particular, I have seen the following.

· Discipline: Leadership is more of an art, and management is more of a science.

· Orientation: Leaders focus on “the what,” (i.e. effectiveness) and managers on “the how” (i.e. efficiency).

· Aptitude: Leaders are visionaries and motivators, and managers are skilled at execution and organization.

· Ambitions: Leaders seek to be transformational catalysts for change, and managers (as Zaleznik points out) seek perpetuation of the institution.

Given that leaders and managers are inherently dissimilar, advancement from management to leadership is not an absolute, nor is it necessarily a good thing. However, many managers aspire to be leaders, and with training, coaching, and mentoring, some can make this leap. Those who can make their mark as leaders are incredibly valuable to organizations because they know how to transform, shape, and illuminate the way forward. Of course, the role that managers play is incredibly valuable as well (probably undervalued), but nevertheless, they support and execute on the vision of the leader and as such a leader commands a premium.

What I think we can take away from Zaleznik’s work, then, is that a leader should never be thought of as just a manager “on steroids.” Instead, leaders and managers are distinct, and the synergy between them is healthy, as they each fulfill a different set of needs. In this vein, when organizations seek to recruit from within the ranks for leadership positions, it would be wise for them to look at candidates more discriminatingly than just looking at their managerial experience. (In fact, counter to the conventional wisdom, the best leader may never have been a manager at all, or may have been a mediocre or even a horrible one!) We cannot just expect that good managers will necessarily make good leaders (although to some extent success may breed success), but must look for what fundamentally makes a leader and ensure that we are getting what is needed and unique.

So what can a person do if they want to be a leader? In my view, it starts with believing in yourself, then genuinely wanting to achieve a leadership position, and after that being willing to do what it takes to get there. Baseline efforts include advancing your education, hard work, building relationships and credibility, and so forth, but this is only part of the equation.

The truth of the matter is, you can go to an Ivy League school and leadership boot camp for twenty years, but if you don’t have passion, determination, and a sense of mission or cause that comes from deep inside, then you are not yet a leader. These things cannot be taught or handed over to a person like a baton in a relay race. Rather, they are fundamental to who you are as a person, what drives you, and what you have to give to others and to the organization.

Regardless of what role we play, each of us has a unique gift to share with the world. We need only to find the courage to look inside, discover what it is, value its inherent worth (no matter what the dollar value placed on it), and pursue it.

Fire In The Belly

Leadership: Fight or Flight

When we are confronted with difficult situations, people tend to two different responses: fight or flight.

Generally, people will stand and fight when they are either cornered and have no other option, when they will suffer undue harm if they just try and “let it go”, or when the issue is something that they really believe strongly in (like a principle or value such as equity, justice, righteousness, etc. that they feel is being violated).

In contrast, people typically will flee when they feel that they can get out of a bad situation mostly unscathed and their principles will not be violated (such that they can live with their personal and professional dignity intact). Often, people consider fleeing or a change of venue preferable to “getting into it” when it’s possible to avoid the problems that more direct confrontation can bring.

There is also a third option not typically addressed and that is just “taking it,” and letting it pass. In the martial arts, this is akin to taking someone’s best shot and just absorbing it—and you’re still standing. You go with the flow and let it go. This is sometimes feasible as a less dramatic response and one that produces perhaps less severe consequences (i.e. you avoid a fight and you still yield no ground).

Harvard Business Review (December 2009) in an article called “How to Pick a Good Fight” provides some guidelines on when as a professional you should consider standing up and fighting, as follows:

1. “Make it Material”—Fight for something you really believe in, something that can create real value, noticeable and sustainable improvement.
2. “Focus on the Future”—Don’t dwell on the past or on things that cannot be changed. Spend most of your time “looking at the road ahead, not in the rearview mirror.”[This is actually the opposite of what 85% of leaders do, which is trying to figure out what went wrong and who to blame.”
3. “Pursue a Noble Purpose”—Make the fight about improving people’s lives or changing the world for the better.” I’d put it this way: stay away from selfish or egotistical fights, turf battles, empire building, and general mud slinging.

“The biggest predictor of poor company performance is complacency.” So leaders need to focus “the good fight” on what’s possible, what’s compelling, and what’s high impact. Great leaders shake things up when the fight is right and create an environment of continuous improvement. Leaders create the vision, inspire the troops, and together move the organization forward to greater and greater heights.

As for fleeing or “turning the other cheek” those venues are best left for issues of lesser consequence, for keeping the peace, or for times when you are simply better off taking up the good fight another day.

Leadership: Fight or Flight

What We Lose When We Lie

If you watch House MD on TV, House always says something sort of striking: “everyone lies.”

Today, an article in the Wall Street Journal, 20 October 2009, says something similar, that we all lie even (some, not me, would say “especially”) in our closest relationships, marriage.

“We fib to avoid conflict. To gain approval. To save face. Or just to be kind.”

Some claim lying is a survival mechanism because “they [lies] allow us to avoid conflict.”

Others feel that it’s okay to lie in order to be tactful with others. For example, a retired financial executive explained that “when his wife ask how she looks, he always tells her she is beautiful. ‘A bad hair day isn’t going to change your life. What’s to be gained by saying something negative to someone that is of such fleeting importance.'”

Even those who supposedly don’t lie, have all these little twists:

One man when asked about lying said: “I don’t lie, I tell the truth…slowly.”

George Costanza on Seinfeld used to say: “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

In society, we’ve even come up with a terms for lies that are small or harmless and we call those “white lies.”

Even in court rooms, we don’t trust that people will tell the truth, but rather we have to literally ask them “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you G-d?”

Many people have pointed out that even in the Ten Commandments, we are not commanded directly not to lie, but rather “you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”—Hey, just for the record, that’s close enough for me!

Not surprisingly, the mixed thinking about whether it is okay to lie in certain “charged” situations carries over into our organizations.

On one hand, many of our organizations, especially in the public sector, have wonderful core values such as truth, justice, integrity, and so on. Moreover, for certain national security positions, we even give people lie detector (polygraph) tests to ensure their personal truthfulness.

Yet, on the other hand, we all have heard of project managers who lie in order to cover up failing or failed projects—and many implicitly accept this behavior.

I read that the Standish Group recently reported that 82% of our organizational projects are failing or seriously challenged i.e. they are over budget, behind schedule, or not meeting customer requirements. Moreover, we have for years, seen numerous projects end up on watch list for failing projects and even have websites that track these.

Yet, ask many project managers how their projects are doing and you get the spectrum of whitewash answers like “everything is great,” “we’re right on track,” “no problem,” “everyone’s working hard,” or sometimes simply “nothing to report.”

Perhaps, project managers are afraid to tell the truth for fear of retribution, punishment, or other negative impacts to their career, those that work for them, or others who are “implicated.”

As one psychologist says about little white lies: “If you don’t fib, you don’t live.”

How unfortunate this thinking is—rather than encouraging honesty, we develop cultures of fear, where cover-ups are routine and truth in reporting is a practically a misnomer.

By creating a culture where lying is endemic to reporting, we are harming our people and our organizations. Organizationally, we can only manage if we can measure, and we can only measure if people are honest as to what is working and what isn’t. Personally, we hurt our own integrity as human beings by lying (or being dishonest, deceiving, whitewashing or whatever you want to call it) and then justifying it in so many little and big ways.

Sure, there is such a thing as tact, but you can be tactful and truthful at the same time!

Some of this may come down to improving communication and people skills and this needs to be emphasized in our training plans. Of course, we need to work with each other in socially appropriate ways.

But at the same time, at the end of the day, people need to maintain what is really important—their integrity, and at the same time move the organization to make the right decisions, and this can only be done by being frank and honest with ourselves and with each other.

My suggestion is for leaders to surround themselves with those who are not only “the best and the brightest,” but also those with the most honesty and integrity around.

What We Lose When We Lie

Leading Through Planning

Recently, I was reminded of two pointers in developing an effective IT strategic plan:

1. Strategic planning is about leadership and setting direction—There is an interesting saying with respect to this that the manager ensures that you do things right, and the leader ensures that you do the right things. The strategic plan, including the vision, mission, and value statements are about leadership establishing and communicating what the ‘right thing’ is. An effective metaphor for this is that the manager ensures that you climb the ladder, but the leader ensures that the ladder is up against the “right” wall.
2. Strategic planning goals, objectives, and initiatives have to be aligned and actionable —that means that you need to set the strategic plan elements at an appropriate level of detail and in cascading fashion. One way to do this is to navigate up and down between goal, objectives, and initiatives in the following way: To navigate to a higher elements of the plan hierarchy, ask why. Why do we do XYZ? To navigate to lower levels of detail and specificity, ask how. How do or will we do XYZ.

Together, these two guidelines help to develop an IT strategic plan that is both effective in terms of goal setting and organizational focus as well as at the appropriate levels of detail and alignment to be truly actionable.

Leading Through Planning

Are Organizational Values Valuable?

Many organizations have a value statement that identifies what traits are most important to them.

Organizational values are similar to an enterprise architecture in that the organizational values identify a type of target state for organization members to strive for and adhere to.

The purpose of value statements is to guide people’s behaviors, decisions, and interactions.

For example, one police department that I looked up has value statements around the traits of integrity, pride, service, and fairness. A city that I found had value statements for passion for community, integrity in work, and results through collaboration. A non-profit organization had values of leadership, integrity, excellence, and impact.

As you read the value statements they give you a sense of the organization in terms of who they are, or actually more like what they believe in.

But do they really—i.e. are organizational value statements something that people in the organization are aware of, understand, can locate, recite, or summarize, and moreover, are the values actually used to guide behavior?

Or are these value statements written by leadership, human resources, or some strategic planning function in the organization as an ivory tower effort, and then published in the organization’s glossy annual plan and/or on their website, but never really communicated with or adopted by the people in the rank and file?

The question is not posed in order to be cynical, but to genuinely ask: are organizational value statements “true values” or are they more marketing and branding glitz?

With few exceptions, I would challenge most to identify whether their organization even has a value statement, let alone what it is. Moreover, the last time, they thought of and considered the organizational values in making a decision or taking an action.

Then why do organizations have value statements?

Perhaps, organizations intuitively or through management best practices know that they need to have values, because they are genuinely important. Just like as individuals we have personal values (be they religious or otherwise) that “tell” us who we as human being are and guide our behaviors, so too as organizations, we need to identify the values that will be our “moral compass” and define our organizational identity.

The problem though comes when organizational values are developed as a “project”—a time bound task or “to do” for someone or some committee who researched it, developed it, and got approval on it; but not managed as a “program”—an ongoing endeavor and commitment to create awareness, educate, and even enforce the values through performance rewards and recognition.

Moreover, culture and peer pressure are vey powerful forces that drive employee behavior, whether they consciously are aware of it or not. So many values are indeed employed in day-to-day interactions, but they may not be explicit and they may not be the same values that are actually in the organization’s value statement. That is because the informal network and implicit values may actually be more prominent and powerful in driving people’s behaviors that the formal and documented one in the organization.

The key is for leaders to genuinely commit to the values and their use across the organization. The leaders need to provide for the values to be widely communicated (on wall hangings, pocket cards, employee reference guides, Intranet and so on) and they need to be referred to in periodic communications (speeches, announcements, broadcasts, meetings, etc.). They need to be living, breathing values that touch people daily (and obviate the implicit and unsanctioned ones).

Further, leaders need not only talk about the values, but also they need to exemplify them. In other words, leaders need to practice what they preach and lead by example using the values to drive decisions and actions in a way that is transparent to all.

What I learned when I developed user-centric enterprise architecture is that any ivory-tower exercises or development of organizational shelfware is by definition a failure, and therefore we need to treat all of our strategic planning and management functions as a real-world effort.

If we could do that with both EA and organizational values, it would be great to integrate them and use them to drive an explicit target state for both the performance and the business perspectives, as well as a human capital perspective of the architecture.

Are Organizational Values Valuable?

Brand and The Total CIO

David F. D’Allesandro, the CEO of John Hancock insurance group has a bunch of wonderful books on building brand and career, such as “Brand Warfare”, “Career Warfare” and “Executive Warfare”.

All the books have three things in common. One, they are about the importance of brand. Two, they are about moving ahead in the corporate world. And three, they all end in “warfare.”

Brand is critical for building value. Brand is our reputation. It’s how we are known to others. It’s what people think and say about us. It’s a representation of our values and integrity.

We all know corporate brands such as those from consumer product companies and fashion designers. Those that have a “good” brand, tend to convey a higher status and cost a premium. We trust those brands and many people wear the brand labels as a status symbol.

We all carry a brand. Like a mark of “Grade A” or “Prime Beef” seared on a side of a hide of cattle, a brand is mark of distinction for us.

At work, we are branded as honest or not, fair or not, hard working or not, team players or not and so on and so forth.

As the CIO, it is imperative to have a brand that synthesizes the best of business and technology for the organization.

On one hand, many view the CIO as the technical leader for the organization; the wang-bang guru that leads the enterprise through the often confusing and fast-changing technology landscape. In this role, the CIO can make or break the future of the organization with wise or poor technical decisions that can put the enterprise on the cutting-edge, build competitive advantage, and increase revenue/profits, market share, and customer satisfaction. Or the CIO can lead the organization down a technical sinkhole with failed IT projects that jeopardize mission, alienate customers, drive out good employees out, and waste millions of dollars.

On the other hand, many like to say that the CIO is not and should not be tech-focused, but should be about the business—understanding the business strategy, operations, and requirements and then driving an IT organization that is responsive to it. Taken to an extreme, the CIO may not be required to have a technology background, an IT degree or even a technical certificate. This person may be from the business side of the house and could almost alien to the CIO organization and therefore, may not easily garner the respect of his more technical people.

The true successful CIO melds business and technology together. Their brand is one where business drives technology and where strategy is paramount, but operations is a given! This CIO is someone who can be relied on to make wise technical decisions today that will enhance the strategic success of the organization tomorrow. The CIO is a leader who manages not only upward, but who reaches across the organization to build partnership and understanding; who inspires, motivates, trains, recognizes, and rewards his people; and who conducts outreach and brings in best practices from beyond the strict organizational boundaries. This CIO is loyal, dedicated, hard-working, smart, and has the trust and confidence to get the job done!

So what with the “warfare” part in the books?

Well, unfortunately not everyone wants us to succeed. So, we must work on our brand to build it and make it shine, but at the same time, there are others inside and outside the organization who for various reasons would like to tarnish our brand: perhaps, they are jealous, competitive, nay-sayers, change resistant, oppositional, confrontational, troubled, or just plain crooked.

What D’Allesandro says is that to be successful, what sets us apart, is our ability to build relationship with others, even when it is challenging.

To be a successful CIO, we need a terrific personal brand, but more than that we need to have courage and conviction to stand by our beliefs and the vision and the ability to articulate it to guide and influence others to advance the organization’s long-term business and technical success.

Brand and The Total CIO

Strategy and Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture develops the organization’s IT strategic plan and influences its business strategic plan. In order to do this, EA itself must have a strategic roadmap.

Harvard Business Review, April 2008, states that “companies that don’t have a simple and clear statement of strategy are likely to fall into the sorry category of those that have failed to execute their strategy or, worse, those that never had one. In an astonishing number of organizations, executives, frontline employees, and all those in between are frustrated because no clear strategy exists for the company or its lines of business.”

Elements of a strategic plan

What are the elements of a strategic plan?

1. Mission— “why we exist;” this is the purpose of the organization
2. Values—“what we believe in and how we will behave”
3. Vision—“what we want to be
4. Strategy—“What pour competitive game plan will be; this includes the following: A) Objectives—what we want to achieve: goals and objectives B) Scope—“the domain of the business; the part of the landscape in which the firm will operate.” C) Advantage—the means or initiatives that define how you will achieve your objectives; “what your firm will do differently or better than others,” defines your competitive advantage.
5. Balanced scorecard—“how we will monitor and implement that plan” A strategic plan for EA
   According to the American Management Association, the mission statement defines what the ultimate purpose of the organization is. It tells who you are, what you are, what you do, who do you serve, and why do you exist.
   The mission statement takes the form of: The [blank] is a [blank] that [produces blank] for [blank] to [help blank].
   For example, the mission statement for enterprise architecture:
   The [enterprise architecture program] is an [office of the CIO] that [develops information products and governance services] for [the employees of ABC organization] to [improve decision-making].
   The values of EA are: driving measurable results, aligning technology with the business, information-sharing and accessibility, service interoperability and component reuse, technology standardization and simplification, and information security.
   The vision of EA is to make information transparent to enable better decision-making.
   The strategy provides the conceptual way you will pursue your mission and vision.
   “Defining the objective, scope, and advantage requires trade-offs, which Porter identified as fundamental to strategy.” For example, a growth or market size strategy may obviate profitability, or a lower price strategy may hinder fashion and fit. The point is that an organization cannot be everything to everybody! Something has got to give.
   So for example, in EA, we must trade off the desire to be and do all, with the reality that we must focus on entire enterprise. Therefore, we distinguish ourselves from segment architecture and solutions architecture. In EA, we focus on strategic outcomes and delegate line of business architectures and systems architectures to the lines of business and solution developers.
   Finally, EA implements a balanced scorecard by instituting mechanisms for monitoring and implementing its plans. These include performance metrics for both information products and governance services.
   In sum, to get a meaningful EA plan in place, we have to answer these fundamental elements of strategy for the EA program itself.

Strategy and Enterprise Architecture

The Gung Ho Organization and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric EA helps lead to a "gung ho" successful enterprise.

In the book Gung Ho by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, the authors offer 3 tips for motivating people. They include:

• Work has to be understood as important
• It has to lead to a well understood and shared goal
• Values have to guide plans, decisions, and actions

User centric EA is a proponent that an organization cannot be successful in spite its people, but rather it has to be successful through its people. And so, the adversarial relationship that management often sets up with employees, unions, shareholder activists etc. is not beneficial to meeting the mission needs that it's trying to achieve.

In user centric EA, the best way for any organization to achieve its goals is to motivate, inspire, and develop a shared vision with all the organizational actors. Part of developing that unity of mission and vision is to create a strong organizational culture, identity, and values.

The Gung Ho Organization and Enterprise Architecture