Lessons from Co-CIOs

Dan and Joyce’s presentations from last class were both full of great advice, ideas, and lessons pertaining to leadership. Joyce first stepped through each job she has held and discussed the most important lessons learned from each position. This showed that it’s important to hold various positions to increase your knowledge base and for networking reasons. Doing so can help one land their ideal job since the people you meet and work with may keep you in mind for future positions. It’s important to note that Joyce was even able to pull lessons learned from employers she did not like. As employees we should have the mindset that every job is an opportunity. Challenging jobs can teach us to work well under stress and to work well with all types of co-workers. We still must perform to the best of our ability, meet deadlines, and succeed on projects. Potential employers would see that we can be successful under all types of circumstances. I would like to apply her mantra of “Plan your flight, fly your plan” to my everyday life. I especially enjoyed her discussion of using the idea of Federal vs. State in her co-CIO position. This helped to clarify how she and the other co-CIO are succeeding as a team. “Federal” decisions are made in a fashion that was agreed upon by the co-CIOs. “State” decisions are up to the discretion of each CIO. This idea could probably be used by parents when making decisions about their children. This would create a strong parental team.

Dan discussed several IT leadership models. He says the best way to operate is to be highly aligned and at the same time loosely coupled. This idea again applies to his role as co-CIO. He was thoroughly surprised the class had so many questions about the co-CIO set-up. This shows the breakdown of the position is really not a big deal and the arrangement is working well. There are not the issues that we as a class had anticipated, and it seems that Dan’s colleagues at other companies are not taken aback by the “co” title either. One item I will remember from his presentation is the Value Hierarchy of Functions. In order to remain employed and highly sought after I should work in novel, rather than repetitive jobs. Novel jobs involve planning, strategy, creativity, engineering, and analysis.