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While many questioned how the company would fare without its iconic leader, Apple continues to thrive in the post-Steve Jobs era. In its most recent quarterly earnings statement, the company reported selling more iPhones, iPads and Mac computers than in any three-month period in its history. This sales surge fueled $46.33 billion in revenue for the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2011, beating analyst expectations by a whopping $7 billion. The company's success is no accident; Jobs had a clear, powerful vision that he passed on to his employees and cultivated a corporate culture that rallied around that vision. In the book Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired—and Secretive—Company Really Works (Business Plus/available now), author Adam Lashinsky penetrates the legend of Steve Jobs and his company and breaks down the building blocks that make it all work. Lashinsky illustrates what Apple execs call the “secret sauce” – the systems, tactics and management strategies that produce hit after hit. Lashinsky is a senior editor at large for Fortune magazine and a Fox News contributor. For more about the book, click here. The following are ten of those secret sauce "ingredients" behind Apple's success.
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You may think of them as "The PlayStation Generation," but your Millennial employees may be just the kind of "digital cowboys" that your organization needs to succeed in today's fast-paced, 24/7 business world. While you and your fellow executives may harbor some biases against them – that they're over-entitled and lack a work ethic – it's time to throw away these stereotypes and recognize the unique contributions Millennials can bring to an IT department. In the book "No Fear: Business Leadership for the Digital Age" (Marshall Cavendish Corp/available now), authors Pekka Viljakainen and Mark Mueller-Eberstein illuminate the many positive traits of the Millennial generation. They're less constrained by hierarchy, restrictive corporate traditions and geographic and cultural borders than some of your older staffers, for example. Viljakainen is the former president of Tieto International and now provides consulting for business leaders and tech teams. Mueller-Eberstein is founder/CEO of Adgetec Corp. For more about the book, click here.
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Do you find that your devices are running your life instead of the other way around? Fear not. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. The book, "Digital Leader: 5 Simple Keys to Success and Influence" (McGraw-Hill Professional/available now), helps you step away from the smartphone and take command of your technology. Author Erik Qualman finds that while we may not like our digital obsessions, we can blame ourselves; the average household has 20 digital devices, with mom and dad more likely to interrupt dinner for an email exchange than the kids. And trying to stay too connected may actually make us dumber. Checking your email while performing other tasks decreases your IQ in the moment by 10 points, research shows. With this in mind, Qualman has put together a primer for unplugging and simplifying your professional and personal life. But don't worry about someone taking away your smartphone. In some cases, he advocates actually adding apps or products to better manage day-to-day demands. In others, he provides shortcuts that will significantly reduce time spent with devices. For more about the book, click here.
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How much do you know about some of the greatest innovative thinkers of the ages? Take our quiz and try to identify seven of them, taken from "The Little Black Book of Innovation: How it Works, How to Do It" (Harvard Business Review Press/available now) Author Scott D. Anthony contends that all too often the potential for innovation is stifled by corporate culture and outright panic. “Large companies are capable of — and often do — amazing things,” he writes. “But these firms just scratch the surface. The talent of their people, the technologies in their labs ... (are) held back by a mix of fear and misunderstanding. Too many would-be beautiful businesses that could reinvent markets and create substantial value live only in PowerPoint documents, never to be launched.” To counter this, Anthony outlines his 28-day program for mastering the skill of innovation and deploying it to benefit your organization. For more about The Little Black Book, click here.
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If one of your New Year’s resolutions was to sharpen your business and leadership skills or to read more books, CIO Insight’s winter book guide can help you on both fronts. This collection of titles explores a broad range of key issues facing CIOs today, examining leadership trends, business agility, corporate and executive transparency and the ever-present mandate to innovate. If you add these to your “must read” list, you can find out why C-Suite executives have less influence than they like to think they have, or how you can use smarter social-media strategies to elevate your “e-profile”. Others discuss ways to maximize the effectiveness of today’s business tools and how to manage projects from an enterprise perspective. Each offers insights and information that can be of value to the ambitious technology leader. For more information about each book included here, click on the link above the slide. And please note, all publication dates are subject to change.
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While business clichés such as "synergy" and "breaking down silos" may be hackneyed and worn, there's still value to be found in the ideas behind them, according to a new book by author consultant Tom Kendrick. In "Results Without Authority: Controlling a Project When the Team Doesn't Report to You -- A Project Manager's Guide" (Amacom/available in January), Kendrick examines the ways in which once-isolated departments and teams can work together on projects, even when they're hired consultants or working in far-flung time zones. CIOs and other top managers are challenged to establish and maintain control, without pulling rank, Kendrick says. To help avoid problems before they arise, Kendrick reveals ten statements that portend trouble when spoken by outside-department project leaders. If you hear these, take charge and make the necessary changes quickly to avoid disaster. Kendrick is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and project/program management consultant for companies such as HP, Visa, DuPont and GE. For more about the book, click here.
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While you may be one of those CIO mavericks when it comes to the latest technologies and trends, you may find that you sometimes need a hand when it comes to knowing how to leverage your knowledge and expertise to help shape your organization's strategy. How can you inspire people to get behind you and support your ideas? In the book "The Transformational CIO: Leadership and Innovation Strategies for IT Executives in a Rapidly Changing World" (Wiley/Available now), author Hunter Muller explores these issues and offers solutions and strategies to help CIOs transform their organizations. It’s written for the CIO of today, helping build your expertise beyond technology and develop in the spheres of business, leadership and corporate culture. Building these skills is critical, Muller says, because IT is no longer an internally-focused department lurking in the shadows. Instead, CIOs must take an active hand in developing and guiding multiple processes required to achieve broad business goals. Muller is president/CEO of HMG Strategy, a tech-leadership network that presents conferences and professional services for CIOs and other senior IT executives. For more about the book, click
Here Here are selected highlights:
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Where can you go to find out what’s on the mind of some of the top CIOs in the world? Try the pages of the book “CIOs At Work” (Apress/Available now). Author Ed Yourdon gained access to leading IT executives in fields such as energy, government, technology and education and offers probing, insightful interviews. He speaks with the CIOs of 16 major organizations including Google, Microsoft, Verizon and the New York Stock Exchange. The book focuses on the shifting role of CIOs, from that of nuts-and-bolts IT managers to strategic players helping craft an organization’s business and growth strategies. “People in the business units are almost as computer-savvy as people in the IT organization,” Yourdon writes. “They, too, are part of the 'digital nation' that has been using computers since birth ... The most exciting part of the CIO work I saw during my interviews involved true partnership efforts between IT professionals and business-unit partners.” Yourdon is a computer science consultant and founder of NODRUOY Inc., as well as co-founder of the Cutter Consortium. For more about the book, click here. We take a look at 10 nuggets of wisdom that some of the world’s most savvy and influential CIOs have to offer.
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If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, then they’re also on different planets when it comes to business networking. As a CIO, you know you need to network as much as any other high-profile senior executive. But in the particularly male-dominated field of IT, it’s easy to make missteps while mingling with the opposite sex, even when you have the best of intentions. The book, “Business Networking and Sex ” (McGraw-Hill/Entrepreneur Press/Available in January 2012) explores this topic with a specific focus on gender-based interpretations. Supported by a survey in which 12,000 professionals participated, as well as interviews with select executives, lead author Ivan Misner reveals the many layers of complications that emerge as members of the opposite sex get together for events that are primarily defined as equal parts business and social functions. The book offers some frank talk about the ways men and women operate in business that is likely to leave some folks steaming mad. For example, one interview subject from the book admits: “Not to be sexist, but the hot businesswoman will always draw a larger crowd at networking functions because men assume that giving business to her will make her like him.” (We just love when someone prefaces a blatantly sexist statement with the phrase “not to be sexist.”) Misner is founder and chairman of BNI, a leading business networking organization. Here are selected highlights, including tips for men and women on how to avoid running afoul of sexist stereotypes while networking:
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Do you sometimes feel like a powerless manager who can’t affect change? Do you think that any one of dozens of people could sit in your chair and the outcomes would all be the same? Don’t worry, we won’t tell. It’s easy to get discouraged, but remember: This isn’t why you’ve worked so hard to pursue the path of being a CIO. So, consider the book “StandOut: The Groundbreaking New Strengths Assessment from the Leader of the Strengths Revolution” (Thomas Nelson/Available now). This guide will help you bring out the qualities within that will allow you to emerge as an organizational agenda-driver. Author Marcus Buckingham goes beyond affirmative platitudes to offer prescriptive tools to help readers evaluate and maximize their own strengths. These strengths “can be put to good use, or they can be put to bad use,” he writes. “If you don’t own your own strengths, if you don’t know them and understand them and consciously decide how you can best apply them in your life, they will come out anyway. But you won’t be in control of how they do.” The book also sheds insight on how to sharpen your managerial skills. Buckingham runs The Marcus Buckingham Company, a training and management consulting firm. For more about the book, click here.
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What amounts to a good day for your IT team members? Is it when they make it to close-of-business without pulling out their hair over unclear goals, unrealistic deadlines and unnecessary distractions? Or, do they consider a good day to be one in which they accomplish measurable progress on projects that deliver concrete value to your company? CIOs and other managers, of course, strive for the latter scenario. In the book “The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work” (Harvard Business Review Press/available now), authors Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer reveal strategies to cultivate the latter kind of workplace. The book draws its conclusions based upon rigorous research – Amabile and Kramer analyzed nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by hundreds of employees in selected organizations. In the end, the authors discovered that fostering what they call a “progress culture”
sparks long-term motivation. Amabile is a professor of business administration and director of research at Harvard Business School. Kramer is a developmental psychologist and contributor to publications such as Harvard Business Review. For more about the book click here .
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CIOs and other managers know the heat is on to succeed internationally, given the huge growth in global markets. Talent acquisition is part of the picture here. But organizations need to do a better job of specifically targeting women overseas. While not specific to the tech sector, the book “Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets:
Why Women are the Solution” (Harvard Business Review Press/available now) has a lot of guidance to offer IT leaders as they consider the gender balance in their own organizations. In addition, while the book focuses on markets outside the U.S., many of the practices outlined here can be easily applied to the American workforce. The book’s authors, Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Ripa Rashid, contend that professional women in markets such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and the Middle East boast better credentials, higher ambitions and greater loyalty than their male peers. They highlight the 10 tactics being used by high-profile, international companies that are improving the gender-balance equation – within the rank-and-file and executive levels. The key: addressing work-life and understanding the professional challenges that are unique to women. Hewlett is an economist and chair of the Hidden Brain Drain Task Force — a group of 65 global companies and organizations committed to developing talent across the divides of gender, generation, and culture. Rashid is executive vice president of the Center for Work-Life Policy and has served as a management consultant in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia.
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Whether you're a CIO or an IT employee, Agile methods can help your team innovate and excel in a world in which data warehousing, business intelligence and analytics are becoming a more important part of the IT ecosystem. In the book, Agile Analytics: A Value-Driven Approach to Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing (Addison-Wesley Professional), author Ken Collier demonstrates how Agile thinking can fuel greater successes for teams that manage analytics development, using widely diverse skill sets to support the oversight of quickly growing data inventories. Team collaboration is essential to the process of devising winning strategies and solutions. Collier outlines best practices for effective team collaboration in his book, and these practices can be applied beyond the world of business intelligence and data warehousing. They can be applied to any IT project that requires team members working together and being creative. Collier is founder/president of KWC Technologies Inc., and is a senior consultant with the Cutter Consortium in the agile development/business intelligence practice areas. For more about the book, click here.
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Every interaction you have with members of your IT team is an opportunity to help them grow as both employees and as future leaders. But how often do you take advantage of this to coach them during your day-to-day interactions in the workplace? Are you setting aside time to mentor your employees and help them set goals that will advance their careers and benefit your department? Making the time is worth it, as your legacy within your organization will be determined by the quality of the leaders you leave behind. The book, Becoming an Exceptional Executive Coach: Use Your Knowledge, Experience, and Intuition to Help Leaders Excel (Amacom/Available now), explores this topic in-depth, providing insight and outlining best practices to help CIOs and other senior executives forge human partnerships with team members ready to take on leadership roles. While the book places much focus on formal sessions between a coach and a key company contributor, many of its “takeaway steps” can easily apply to routine interactions between department heads and employees. Authors Michael H. Frisch, Robert J. Lee, Karen L. Metzger, Jeremy Robinson and Judy Rosemarin are all executive coaches/trainers who have collaborated on creating the “iCoachNewYork” professional coaching certificate program for the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City Universtiy of New York. For more about the book, click here. Here are selected highlights:
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Apple's Steve Jobs used his intuitive sense to tinker and adjust the Apple product portfolio. Can a post-Jobs Apple evolve past that process?
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