This document is a compilation of ideas presented during the Third Session of the Third Cohort of MOR's IT leadership program at UW Oshkosh on January 2013. The ideas presented here are an eclectic yet structured effort to process, shared knowledge and engage others through this program. I don't have riches to give, so my wisdom will suffice.
- My perception: I was disappointed about the outcome of a hiring process, but the coaches confronted me in a positive manner. At the end of the second session, the senior IT coach shared his leadership Journey. As he explained the big challenges of his life, I began to realize the leadership journey has many ups and downs. The paradigm shift for me was to realize that I will not be remembered only by my successes, but how I handled/overcame failures.
Second Session:
Introduction to Strategic Thinking, Building Relationships, Creating a Vision, Neuroscience and creating new pathways, Coaching for Results.
Introduction to Strategic Thinking, Building Relationships, Creating a Vision, Neuroscience and creating new pathways, Coaching for Results.
- My perception: the currency of the University are relationships and trust. Conflict strikes because relationships are not established. (After all, who has time for relationships when technical tasks have to be completed). Make it your job to establish professional relationships with people outside your immediate circle of influence. Seek to understand when confronted with “impossible” requests. Help establish a shared vision by sharing what you know at the right time and the right place.
CIOs are at the end game of their technical capability because their role is strategic and political in nature, nevertheless keep them informed of your progress and how that progress is aligned to the University. Data is an important element of strategic planning. I have heard my boss say: "I believe in God, everyone else bring data to the meetings..."
Third Session: Leading Change and Delivering Results
Leading change, understanding workplace culture, the leaders role in delivering, the three lenses: strategic, political and cultural, developing measures in IT.
Leading change, understanding workplace culture, the leaders role in delivering, the three lenses: strategic, political and cultural, developing measures in IT.
- My experience: The one quote I remember is that “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. The 6 hour drive to UW superior helped our group (UW Oshkosh cohort) connect at levels we didn’t expect. Perceptions about teams and attitudes started to change. It was no longer “Us vs Them”; we were now one team. This session triggered my interest on pursuing knowledge in the area of assessment and service metrics.
Fourth Session:
Interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, exercising influence, organizational and political savvy, the leaders’ role as a communicator, leadership as a performance art, coaching for breakthrough.
Interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, exercising influence, organizational and political savvy, the leaders’ role as a communicator, leadership as a performance art, coaching for breakthrough.
- My experience: I began to understand why some of my fraternity brothers were more successful than others despite academic achievement. Some of the most successful members of my fraternity had advanced interpersonal skills.
Leadership is putting yourself outside of your comfort zone. Working on what you communicate with non-verbals is a huge factor for how people see you. On so many ocassions I have heard people say about coworkers: "He/she is not good with people, but he/she is good a fixing computers..."
For every action, there is a reaction of equal proportion and strength. It is important we understand how the “proven” tactics used to fix computers may not fix relationships or people.
During the session, we tested our ability to navigate the implementation process from the standpoint of people, politics and influence. Through my tactics/experience I won the simulation, giving me the realization of my skills and abilities: strategy and influence.
Fifth Session:
Developing people, having difficult conversations, leadership and ethics, continuing your leadership journey, taking care of yourself, graduation.
Become Self Aware (of weaknesses and strengths) then move to Self Management. Self awareness is an important part of your evolution as a IT leaders... Knowing your weaknesses and strengths. Self Management is doing something with the information provided by your self-awareness... If you have known weaknesses, what actions can you take to make yourself a better person.
The Four Leadership competencies are:
Developing people, having difficult conversations, leadership and ethics, continuing your leadership journey, taking care of yourself, graduation.
- My experience: I was able to demonstrate that my IT leadership training had made me a better manager, leader, father and human being.
- I was asked to serve in MHEC (midwestern higher education compact) virtualization contract process getting me in the areas of bid writing and contract negotiation.
- I became the departmental expert on assessment and student retention inclusive of Map Works™ and EBI housing survey mechanisms.
- Made sure my department was accountable for our service deliverables which included the migration to our new data center, the procurement of all the necessary elements for our virtualization effort, the completion of the rewrite for the one and only student portal, a new social media and marketing strategy and the overall planning and execution for our department’s budget process inclusive of a 10 year capital plan, 6 year bond schedule, revenue model and occupancy forecast.
- I continue to engage other campus IT leaders (and administrators) as the conversations related to “reinventing IT” continue to come up.
- I received the Chancellor’s Outstanding Service Award in the Fall 2012.
Become Self Aware (of weaknesses and strengths) then move to Self Management. Self awareness is an important part of your evolution as a IT leaders... Knowing your weaknesses and strengths. Self Management is doing something with the information provided by your self-awareness... If you have known weaknesses, what actions can you take to make yourself a better person.
The Four Leadership competencies are:
- Management of Meaning: your goal as a leader is to identify the purpose and value of what you do and what others do within your domain. It is important that you question the motivators within your organization. What is the meaning of life? Is it 42? Or is it something beyond money and power? Purpose and value take the form of giving back to you and to others. Is the pursuit of happiness the most important meaning of life?
- Management of Attention: our daily life has a bunch of priorities and distractions. It is important that you identify what are the top priorities and what can wait or be delegated. As electronic communications become part of our daily life, what we do in the presence of others is important. As we choose to engage our iphones or ipads instead of our co-workers, we need to be mindful of our physical presence during meetings and conversations with coworkers. The “you right here, right now” is far more impactful than the “you on your phone while people try to grab your attention”.
- Management of Self: This is not a new idea. As kids we are told to control our emotions and behavior for positive rewards. The pavlov effect that this creates can create bad behaviors of expecations for you and for those that work with you. The idea goes beyond that as we grow older and realize that our success at home and at work depend on our ability to engage our emotions and attitudes in a productive manner. Telling people off may be incredibly gratifying experience in the short run, but it doesn’t provide long term solutions to conflict and relationships.
- Management of Trust: this is defined by the idea that you need to trust your skills and capabilities and the capabilities of others. Moving from micromanaging to a strategic leader takes the form that requires that you trust people and their capabilities.
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering™
Fear can drive you to make wrong decision: Avoid using the reactive mind to engage conflict at work and at home. Your path to happiness and leadership include the possibilities for tough decisions and/or engagement with difficult situations and people.
Learn to deal with conflict:
Don’t avoid it, don't pursuit it; deal with it. Engage the issues from a logical unemotional point... Extract the emotion and the personal bias when dealing with conflict. Know when to speak and when to be quite (pick your battles).
Learn to deal with people you dislike, detest, hate, disrespect:
There is always someone that will challenge your opinion and perception of value. That may not want to play by your rules and expectation. They are you best opportunity and challenge. Identify why you dislike the person... Identify your personal bias. Engage and seek to understand before judging.
Identify opportunities in the raw
Opportunities never come in nice folders or in gold plated lettering. Opportunities are little dirty things that people pick up from the floor. Be capable of creating your own future by identifying opportunities where no one else sees them.
Diversify your experience
Always find opportunities to help others to learn from your experience... Experience is a tough teacher that gives tests before the lessons are provided. Experience comes in the form of training, certifications, teaching, mentorship with less senior people in your organization.
Develop routines of success
A routine of success is one that helps you identify corrective measures through action planning. Action planning is the process of setting metrics and timelines for accomplishments. As you identify bad habits; new routines can create new pathways of behavior. It is difficult to change old bad habits, however the brain is more capable of creating new pathways for new habits. Those new habits set the tone for who you need to be.
Branding of self
People in IT often say that they got into IT because they liked to fix things or because they didn't know what they wanted to do in life and somehow they ended in positions dealing with information technology and project management. People often become comfortable on how they ended in their roles without putting much thought to career path or professional development for the next job.
The techie paradox:
I am a techie, I don't need to work on my people skills, my expertise drive this boat. The technical mind tends to gravitate to logical solutions to problems. Emotions and attitudes tend to be driven by incorrect self perceptions. It is important that we challenge ourselves with rookie opportunities to public speak or reach out to people in a positive manner. Engaging conflict in a positive manner is what drives your ability to influence others and solve non computer related problems. Often people find themselves in a gap between who they are and who they want to be. Coworkers, supervisors and peers associate you with a very specific set of skills and talents that define your brand (or ethos). If your brand is an organizational match, leadership opportunities and engagement will arise, but if your brand is “different”, this may limit you. Be aware of how you present your brand to others. Once you are branded with negative characteristics or behaviors, your brand will be difficult to change.
Do not let others define who you are or what your current and future capabilities are (will be)... “You define yourself”.
Keep your MORs leadership binder (IT leadership manual) near your daily activity and use the content every once in awhile (sharpen the saw as Covey advises). It is important that you apply the concepts presented during training sessions for the improvement of your organization. Revisit the ideas often. Create a calendar entry reminding you to set time aside for you and your thoughts. It is important that you create new ideas with the information provided through any leadership program.
How did I apply what I learned at the ITLP
Fear can drive you to make wrong decision: Avoid using the reactive mind to engage conflict at work and at home. Your path to happiness and leadership include the possibilities for tough decisions and/or engagement with difficult situations and people.
Learn to deal with conflict:
Don’t avoid it, don't pursuit it; deal with it. Engage the issues from a logical unemotional point... Extract the emotion and the personal bias when dealing with conflict. Know when to speak and when to be quite (pick your battles).
Learn to deal with people you dislike, detest, hate, disrespect:
There is always someone that will challenge your opinion and perception of value. That may not want to play by your rules and expectation. They are you best opportunity and challenge. Identify why you dislike the person... Identify your personal bias. Engage and seek to understand before judging.
Identify opportunities in the raw
Opportunities never come in nice folders or in gold plated lettering. Opportunities are little dirty things that people pick up from the floor. Be capable of creating your own future by identifying opportunities where no one else sees them.
Diversify your experience
Always find opportunities to help others to learn from your experience... Experience is a tough teacher that gives tests before the lessons are provided. Experience comes in the form of training, certifications, teaching, mentorship with less senior people in your organization.
Develop routines of success
A routine of success is one that helps you identify corrective measures through action planning. Action planning is the process of setting metrics and timelines for accomplishments. As you identify bad habits; new routines can create new pathways of behavior. It is difficult to change old bad habits, however the brain is more capable of creating new pathways for new habits. Those new habits set the tone for who you need to be.
Branding of self
People in IT often say that they got into IT because they liked to fix things or because they didn't know what they wanted to do in life and somehow they ended in positions dealing with information technology and project management. People often become comfortable on how they ended in their roles without putting much thought to career path or professional development for the next job.
The techie paradox:
I am a techie, I don't need to work on my people skills, my expertise drive this boat. The technical mind tends to gravitate to logical solutions to problems. Emotions and attitudes tend to be driven by incorrect self perceptions. It is important that we challenge ourselves with rookie opportunities to public speak or reach out to people in a positive manner. Engaging conflict in a positive manner is what drives your ability to influence others and solve non computer related problems. Often people find themselves in a gap between who they are and who they want to be. Coworkers, supervisors and peers associate you with a very specific set of skills and talents that define your brand (or ethos). If your brand is an organizational match, leadership opportunities and engagement will arise, but if your brand is “different”, this may limit you. Be aware of how you present your brand to others. Once you are branded with negative characteristics or behaviors, your brand will be difficult to change.
Do not let others define who you are or what your current and future capabilities are (will be)... “You define yourself”.
Keep your MORs leadership binder (IT leadership manual) near your daily activity and use the content every once in awhile (sharpen the saw as Covey advises). It is important that you apply the concepts presented during training sessions for the improvement of your organization. Revisit the ideas often. Create a calendar entry reminding you to set time aside for you and your thoughts. It is important that you create new ideas with the information provided through any leadership program.
How did I apply what I learned at the ITLP
- Presence: Confidence, Relationship Building, Communication and Strategic Engagement. Personal retooling through 360 feedback and coaching process.
- Emotional intelligence: Worked towards evolving my understanding of issues related to self awareness while moving towards self regulation. Expanding my understanding and activation of emotional intelligence and neuroscience theory.
- From tactical to strategic. Leading from the balcony, focusing my energy on strategic ideas for our department and the University.
- Empowerment and delegation: Elevated the status and role of my subordinates by empowering them to take necessary steps towards self improvement and accountability. Rewrote job descriptions, realigned responsibilities, stepped out of tactical issues, etc.
- Realignment of professional priorities to support the University’s overall mission including student recruitment and retention. Examples: ALMA, Mapworks, EBI Benchmarking, Social Media Workflows, etc
Applying the three lenses: strategic, political and cultural
Final words of wisdom for other IT leaders in progress.
(graduation story: read below)
- Promoted interactions with Central IT that fostered collaboration on common goals. Examples of this include participating and allowing participation of my subordinates on the Google Apps implementation, Intranet Advisory Committee, Lean and Security Compliance work-groups, etc.
Final words of wisdom for other IT leaders in progress.
- Take advantage of this opportunity and enjoy the moment. The opportunities for friendship and connections with other IT/business people are invaluable.
- Keep that binder close to you and share the information within with coworkers and those around you looking to self improve and grow.
- Make sure you set up a covenant with your cohorts and those going through this program that you will maintain contact and that you will make an effort to hold you accountable for self improvement, learning new things and shared with others the lessons learned during your ongoing leadership journey.
- A membership to a really cool secret society of computer geeks
- A guarantee that your training will deliver a new title or a better job.
- A check mark on your performance appraisal or resume.
(graduation story: read below)
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