@bbcomCIO

Yesterday I had a chance to meet with my entire team followed-up with a couple of my direct reports for a bit of 360degree feedback on my performance as the Chief Geek(aka CIO).  Most of the conversation was what I expected it to be, but there were other aspects of the conversation that I did not expect.

First let me set the stage a bit:

1. I am the type of person that really likes honest and non-filtered feedback (don’t candy coat it for me).
2. I silicate such feedback any time I get the chance (Your not going to get in trouble if your honest and respectful).
3. If your not hearing things that challenge you your most likely not getting the truth about your performance (nobody is perfect)
4. You won’t be able to have a 100% fan club (someone will always think you should do it a different way)

Next up, very honest feedback (brutal honesty is best) and if you get it you know your people are comfortable with giving honest and constructive feedback.  I’m not supportive of a negative feedback loop or a complaint box, in fact it’s just the opposite.  Feedback should be presented in a way that moves everyone involved toward greatness as a team, it should provide solutions not complaints, and it should foster growth and a higher level of maturity in your organization.  If you “As a Leader” are not setting the context for your team and you don’t accept feedback that your missing the mark, how are you going to know how to correct it.

Analogy: I’m a pilot so I like to use pilot analogies.  If I’m flying IFR (Instrument Flight Rating)  I better trust that my instruments are giving me honest feedback or I might fly straight into the side of a mountain.  As the pilot I should also trust that feedback is accurate feedback.  If the instruments are telling me the “truth” but I don’t accept it’s true I’m in big trouble.  As a student pilot working on an IFR rating you initially don’t trust your instruments, you trust your body and how it feels.  Similarly you may not trust your team feedback at first and instead rely solely on your previous experiences and intuition.  In IFR Training you find that you senses can be tricked and ultimately lead you in making bad decisions.  Many hours into the IFR training you learn that your senses may tell you that you’re flying banked left and nose up but your instruments tell you that your level and nose down the question is do you trust the instruments or your senses?   This is the same with your team feedback, at first you have a hard time trusting the feedback and that might be good until you build a model you can trust.  Over time your team gets more comfortable and you hone in the feedback loop to provide honest feedback you learn to trust and navigate.

I’m not making the argument that everything is a committee decision process in management and that everything you do as a leader should be solely based on a 360degree decision process but when it comes to getting feedback you must allow and model a process that provides honest feedback to you and your leadership style and then filter out the parts that are simply just venting vs. constructive feedback.

This of course is only one aspect of feedback and leadership but one I think about often as I prefer an honest feedback system.  In the spirit of getting honest feedback, tell me what you think about this concept and how you give your teams the ability to feedback information to you about you.

To wrap up with the story, I was given thoughtful and direct criticism in a few areas of my management style.  This felt good and it’s a great model if you can muster up the guts to accept it.  I welcome open criticism in all aspects of my management style and I enjoy the challenge to change my approach if my approaches are not working.

The Question is are you open and willing as a leader of people to accept criticism no matter what it might be.  Are you willing to change the way you lead and manage your people?

There are many ways to approaches to accept change, one way is to simply avoid it and hope it goes away, another (much better) is to accept it openly and drive toward making changes that better you, your team and your organization as a whole.

What’s my plan: I’m planning to take action on the feedback I received (as I do on a normal basis).  I will put it in my 90 day plans, put a goal around solving it and what the outcome would be.  Then I plan to share it with the people who gave me that feedback.

What type of CEO, CFO, COO, CIO – EI-EI-O do you work for? Do you work in a company with a Digital or an Analog boss? I read a blog post the other day talking about Digital CEO’s and how they differ from traditional CEO’s of yester-year. Overall, the article got me thinking about leaders in a company in general and how they operate within their organziation. As a CIO I consider myself to be digital vs. analog but I felt I’d better put myself to the test to be sure.

Some of the questions I came up with to validate the digital concept ultimatley revolved around my interaction points, my communiction style, my information sourcing, etc. Here is the list I have so far, please feel free to comment or send me an email if you have others because I’d like to add to the list.

The list below shows a form of doing something on the left (Analog) vs. the same thing on the right (Digital) and if you have a preference. The first example would be how you prefer your admin update you with events throughout the day.

List of contrasts Analog <-> Digital: Prefered models.

• Voice Mail, Memo <-> email, twitter, texting
• Written Memos <->Evernote, iPhone Note Sync
• Long eMail’s <->Twitter, FaceBook group chat.
• Phone Calls <->Twitter, Texting
• Recruiters <->Job Boards, Linked-In, Twitter, FaceBook
• News Papers <-> Twitter, Blogs
• Paper Advertisements <-> Craig’s List, ebay

An excerpt from the blog says this “The business value produced by IT is significantly higher, when the organization is lead by a digital CEO” and I 100% agree with the statement.

As a CIO I also like working for a Digital CEO- A CEO who is constantly pushing for new media outlets, asking about how we are dealing with new technologies, pushing for metrics and better BI, who is passionate about our digital products and consistently challenging the analog. This keeps things exciting and new and it also keeps me on my toes to stay one step ahead.

In today’s business, technology is key to  productivity.  However, unless properly managed it can bleed a company out rapidly with high burn rates.  Having a CEO that is involved in the leadership of IT creates a natural push for a results driven IT organization and fosters trust vs. an IT Organization that is miss understood, mistrusted and most often failing to complete projects required to keep the business ahead of it’s competition.

Strange title wouldn’t you say, and a shocking one if it’s you receiving the news.  Just for the record this is a hypothetical post of ‘what if’.  What If – you were told today by your boss that he had just hired a consultant who was a previous (your title here) and that person would be working in your area for the next 90 days.

Would you

1. Freak out and assume your days are numbered
2. Go back to your desk and figure out your approach for the next 90 days and what this person might do if they were given your job today?

That is what I want to talk about in this post.  You’re next 90 days on the job and what you’re going to be doing.  So often it seems that when people are in job for years they get complacent and they do the same thing over and over and never really evaluate what their replacement (should one be hired) would do in the next 90 days.  I ask that question every 90 days to try and keep myself progressive and moving with the company, the CEO and the vision as well as constantly challenging my management and teams to keep getting better.  There is a great book from “Harvard Business School Press” entitled [The First 90 Days] this book is a MUST READ for anyone who is leading in a company, no matter what your position is.

When I get to the office (usually early) I sit down and jot out my notes, look at my schedule, read my twitter feed to get a feel for what’s going on as of late and I put my plan of attack in action for the day and to align with the next 90 days of goals.  I know this seems trivial but it’s key to helping build highly effective goals and teams.  Without goals teams and individuals eventually slip into the normal day-to-day grind.  Goals have many forms: creating a completed user story, a sprint task for development, setting up a router, addressing a problem employee, and just about anything else you can think of could qualify as a goal so long as it fits into the 90 day big picture.   Keep in mind people need to have a goal having a reason, this helps create buy-in and a way to collaborate over the goals or taks and collaboration helps accountability.  The trick, is getting the _TEAM_ or the _PERSON_   setting  goals for themselves in 90 day increments (sometimes 30 days are better depending on the team).

I’m currently re-reading for about the 5th time “The First 90 Days” just because I think it’s THAT good.  There are only a few books on my bookshelf that I feel are like that, another one being [Tactical Transparency] which I just finished for the 5th time also last week.  Why read them over so many times?  It’s like a conference it doesn’t all get into the brain the first time so going over it again and again just like the 10,000 hour rule  [Outliers] helps etch it into the brain as a natural habit.

Here is my typical morning:

5:45 – Up and at the Gym (Running or lifting)
6:45 – At the Office with Starbucks on my desk.
7:00 – TweetDeck open and reading, RSS Reader in the other monitor
7:30 – Catch up  on any emails from day before and last night and respond
8:00 – Write goals for the day that should dovetail into the 90 day strategy you setup
9:00 – First meeting.

Notice I gave myself short chunks of time to be 100% ready to face the day, informed, updated, goals set and ready for that first meeting usually with management teams.

Your day may not be meeting with a management team but it for sure should start with your goals for the day, your road map.

What’s on my goal list?
You might wonder what is on my goal list.  Often it’s the items on my previous days goal list that I was not able to complete due to things that came up ad-hoc throughout the day.  This model is OK because it keeps the goals on track for closure in 90 days.

Do I always complete ALL my goals  in 90 days like I planed? Almost never, but any that don’t get done just go into the next 90 days with new priorities.

What would you’re replacement do in the next 90 days is haunting question, but one that you should be prepared for and working to short circuit so you never hear it.

So I’m out of town and for the second time my Kenmore fridge breaks. Not a huge break just the fan that keeps the fridge from performing a nuclear meltdown. Three months ago I had them send a repair man out to fix the thing because it smelled like it was going to melt, and 40 minutes later I’m taking out a second mortages to pay the dude. Well the same part went out again (fan) and I decided I just order it and put the thing in. I end up being out of town when the part gets in but I figure easy deal, my two boys can just install the thing, it’s only a couple bolts. After a few phone calls, some pictures sent via cell phone it become evident that Sears in all their wisdom has most likely sent me the wrong part. No, I actually used the right model number I had to check that one 3 times to be sure. So while I’m eating dinner at a business get together I see this come in my mail on my iphone (no MMS here but that is another rant).

This just goes to show you that you are never to young to do things that work. This is pretty freaking impressive if you ask me.

Picture1: The Computer Fan

Production Beings to Take place

Next Up we see that fan is now wired into a powersupply

Next is the first attempt to anchor the fan in where it will cool the coils

And then we see success on round 2.  the fridge will stay cool until I can take a look at it and figure out what the heck Sears sent me.

I have to say that this work is pretty amazing to me. It’s no wonder the Bible tells us to never doubt the ability of our young.