Career / Opinions

The CIO of a Chicago trading company — who knew nothing about the business when he started — tells us how he won over the suits. And his technological know-how had little to do with it.

To get business value out of new IT solutions, vendors have to get them right.

The practice of solving problems by importing best practice is not a best practice.

Touchstones that can guide you through life's crises.

Whether you're reserved or outgoing, here's how to emphasise the positives of your natural style.

The famous playbook of Vince Lombardi - the most renowned US gridiron coach of all time and a source of inspiration and wisdom for many corporate and political leaders in America - was based on one core idea: that a limited number of simple plays, coupled with intensive training on situational variations, could transform a team. Applied to the world of C-suite executives, Lombardi's playbook offers a unique window into the underpinnings of leadership.

Few initiatives are standalone IT projects any more. They are business initiatives with varying degrees of IT support so they need the wholehearted support of both business and technology executives. Prioritising projects is difficult, complex and contentious. To overcome this leading enterprises are adopting a formal prioritisation process that balances multiple evaluation criteria.

This is a column about creating value. Like you, I spend a lot of my time thinking, writing and talking about value. But as I look at the crisis of confidence plaguing the corporate world in general, I am forced to consider a deeper question - in our unending quest for value, do we have to compromise our values? What is the relationship between values and value? Indeed, what is the purpose of a business?

You can't help but get in a reflective mood as the year winds down and you're putting your last issue to bed. So I did a bit of soul searching and decided it was time for a career change.

Usually I address CIOs in this column, but this time I draw on my experiences as a CIO, CFO and executive vice president to address CXOs.

Some say that leadership always starts at the top. But does it end with the CEO? I don't think so. Leadership skills can be found at all levels of an organisation. You can - and should - exhibit leadership to influence those at the top of your company.

When people think of the transportation and logistics industry, they usually think of trucks, trains, planes and ships before technology, but the industry has been completely transformed by information technology. My company, Schneider National, was the first company to deploy satellite tracking technology on its trucks nearly 15 years ago, and technology has always been the key enabler in our ability to compete effectively for the privilege of managing our customers' freight and logistics operations.

A 360-degree review process gathers feedback from multiple constituencies, including the business consumers of IT services. Every management team I know that's implemented one whines and moans about how painful and time-intensive the process is. Then again, every single group that's gone through that agony more than once asserts that the feedback is superior to traditional top-down one-on-one job reviews.

In an episode of the TV drama The West Wing, President Josiah Bartlet uses chess as an analogy for geopolitical strategy. Bartlet, locked in a global game of brinkmanship with the Chinese, observes that in both chess and foreign relations, it's dangerous to focus too narrowly when considering your next move. "You've got to see the whole board,"he tells an aide

Most of the CIOs I meet are overachievers. They don't stay satisfied with any situation long. Once they've worked through the alignment challenge, the architecture and systems development portfolio, and the other fundamentals facing today's CIOs, they often yearn for something more. The best leaders are usually gazing over the horizon at that next adventure

Open to interpretation. You need to have raised a child or two to truly appreciate the inherent risk of that phrase.

Recently I came across two publications that IDG, the publisher of this magazine, produced in 1996. One ranked the top 100 companies in Australia, while the other listed the top 50 software companies - both made interesting reading.

OK, so you've just blown it. But even a major blunder doesn't mean your career is over. Much as we all would like to be perfect, our humanity manifests itself when we make a mistake.

Recent stock market and corporate fraud upheavals and events of September 11 have emphasised just how critical it is to have processes which have leading, not lagging, indicators of market, customer, social and political conditions

Without telling you more than you need to know, there are not too many situations more frustrating for a woman than trying on a bathing suit in the middle of winter.