Meeting the Leadership Challenges of Today

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Meeting the Leadership Challenges of Todays IT
Professionals

• Bruce A. Metz, Ph.D.
• Chief Information Officer
• Thomas Jefferson University
• ECAR Fellow

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Four Top Challenges for IT Leaders

• 1 Dealing with change effectively
• 2 Leading in challenging economic times
• 3 Sustaining a high performing IT organization
• 4 Developing your leadership abilities and skills

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Top Challenges for IT Leaders

• 1 Dealing with change effectively
• IT leaders are uniquely positioned to fulfill a
  key role in organizational change initiatives

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Change Management Framework
Change Competency
Change Magnitude
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• The 1 objective is to instill change management
  competencies throughout the organization

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The 1 problem in all stages of a change
initiative is changing the behavior of people
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• The 1 difficulty is getting people to work
  across organizational boundaries effectively

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Three Major Myths of Change

• Myth 1
• We live in a unique time of great change

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The Information Revolution is one in a series of
technological revolutions that have been
occurring since the mid-18th century.
Industrial Revolution 1760 1820 Machinery replaces handcrafting
Railway Revolution 1825 1875 Connecting commerce
Steel Electrical Revolution 1825 1920 Massive engineering electrification of the economy
Manufacturing Age 1910 1970 Mass production
Digital Age 1970 - Information Technology
Speculative Exuberance è Crash è Strong
Building Period
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• It is not too much to say that more has been
  done, richer and more prolific discoveries have
  been made, grandeur achievements have been
  realized, in the course of the 50 years of our
  own lifetime than in all the previous lifetime of
  the race. It is in the three momentous matters of
  light, locomotion and communication that the
  progress effected in this generation contrasts
  surprisingly with the aggregate of the progress
  effected in all generations put together since
  the earliest dawn of authentic history.
• Scientific American

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Three Major Myths of Change

• Myth 2
• Everything is changing

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Change versus Continuity

• We tend to overlook what is not changing. Modern
  day technology revolutions have been
  characterized by remarkable continuity
• Family as the central unit of social organization
• Majority of wealth is concentrated in a small
  percent of the population
• Women having primary responsibility for family
  care
• Quality of life remaining paramount for most
  people
• Capitalism as the primary economic engine
• Forms of government in most countries remaining
  stable

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Three Major Myths of Change

• Myth 3
• Change is inevitable

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Making Change Happen

• Leaders must take personal responsibility to
  facilitate change successfully
• Leaderships inability to recognize and manage
  the magnitude of the change and its effects on
  those who must adapt is a primary cause of failed
  organizational change initiatives

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What makes organizational change so difficult
today?

• Ambiguity
• Pace and Frequency
• Stress

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Ambiguity and the Ecology of Change
GLOBAL
CULTURAL
SOCIETAL
ORGANIZATIONAL
INFORMATION PEOPLE TECHNOLOGY
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The Changing Demographic Context

• A maturing age distribution
• Impending generation gaps
• Disparities tied to education
• A complex ethnic mosaic

A Demographic Perspective on our Nations Future,
The Rand Organization
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Transition from Industrial to Knowledge Economy

• Traditional top-down leadership is still
  predominant but ill suited to the new age
• Structure of many organizations remains rooted in
  the outmoded view of locating people where the
  physical work is performed
• Todays complex problems require
  multidisciplinary solutions while most workers
  are educated in a single discipline
• Innovation and out-of-the-box thinking is
  difficult to achieve regularly with everyone so
  busy

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The Stressful Workplace

• Economic situation and fiscal crisis
• Escalating workload and staff burnout
• Constant pressure to produce more with limited
  resources
• Outsourcing trend and staff cuts
• Always more to do and pursue
• Increasing frequency and scale of major
  organizational change
• The changing face of company loyalty
• Non-workplace stressors

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IT Absorption Framework
INFORMATION
DATA
IT CAPABILITIES
AMOUNT
KNOWLEDGE
IT Absorption Gap
IT UTILIZATION
TIME
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What are the keys to dealing with change
effectively given todays difficulties?
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Key Issues in Successful Change Management

• 1 Develop a strategy and plan of action
• 2 Insure appropriate executive sponsorship
• 3 Assume a thought leadership role (e.g.,
  Change Expert)

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Issue 1 Strategy and Plan Development

• Starts with understanding these important issues
• How todays difficulties may impact the change
  initiative
• How the change will actually take place
• How the change will impact individuals in the
  organization

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Understanding Change

• While each initiative differs, change is a
  process that goes through repeatable phases
• The way that organizational change takes place
  has been described by a number of proven change
  frameworks
• Knowing what the change process looks like
• Provides a means for managing the initiative
• Helps define specific strategies and actions that
  will work at each step along the way

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Change Cycle
Most want to retain status quo
Need to get through this impasse
New ways of operating required
Show value and benefits concretely
Embrace change
Deal with resistance constructively
New thinking, feeling, acting
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John Kotters 8-Step Modelof Organizational
Change

• 1 Establishing a Greater Sense of Urgency
• Examining seriously the market and competitive
  realities
• Identifying and discussing crises, potential
  crises or major opportunities

• 2 - Creating the Guiding Coalition
• Putting together a group with enough power to
  lead the change
• Getting the group to work together like a team

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• 3 Developing a Vision and Strategy
• Creating a vision to help direct the change
  effort
• Developing strategies for achieving that vision

• 4 Communicating the Change Vision
• Using every vehicle possible to constantly
  communicate the new vision and strategies
• Role modeling needed behavior by the guiding
  coalition

• 5 Empowering Others to Act
• Getting rid of roadblocks
• Changing systems or structures that seriously
  undermine the change vision
• Encouraging risk taking and nontraditional ideas,
  activities and actions

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• 6 Creating Short-term Wins
• Planning for some visible performance
  improvements
• Creating those wins
• Visibly recognizing and rewarding people who made
  the wins possible

• 7 - Consolidating Gains and Producing Even
• More Change
• Using increased credibility to change all
  systems, structures and policies that dont fit
  together and dont fit the transformation vision
• Hiring, promoting and developing people who can
  implement the change vision
• Reinvigorating the process with new projects,
  themes and change agents
• Not declaring victory too soon

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• 8 Institutionalizing Changes in the Culture
• Creating better performance throught customer and
  productivity oriented behavior, more and better
  leadership and more effective management
• Articulating the connections between new
  behaviors and firm success
• Developing means to ensure leadership development
  and succession

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Understanding How Change Impacts Individuals

• Frequency how often change occurs in the work
  environment
• Impact whether the change is incremental or
  transformative
• Context extent of other changes going on at the
  same time
• Individual Differences how well members of the
  organization handle change

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Issue 2 Executive Sponsorship

• Through 2005, inexperienced, overextended or
  undercommitted executive sponsorship will account
  for 50 percent of enterprise change initiative
  failures.
• Executive management should not only develop
  the knowledge, skills and abilities to manage
  enterprise change, but also remain intimately
  involved in its execution.

GartnerGroup, 2000
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Issue 3 Thought Leadership

• Creating vision and strategy
• Communicating vision/strategy and getting buy-in
• Motivating action
• Enabling an organization to grow, evolve and
  adapt to changing circumstances

Adapted from John Kotter, The Heart of Change
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Top Challenges for IT Leaders

• 2 Leading in challenging economic times
• Urgent planning for a deep recession with lasting
  impact is called for

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The Current Environment

• Unemployment predicted to reach levels not see in
  30 years
• Declines in household net worth likely to be the
  largest in decades
• Businesses less able to borrow with scarce access
  to capital

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The Current Environment

• IT organizations are greatly affected
• Once certain projects are rethought, deferred or
  cancelled
• Scenarios for large budget cuts are being
  developed and enacted
• Ability to plan is impaired leading to
  uncertainty
• The need for greater flexibility is increasingly
  heightened

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The Current Environment

• There is no cookbook to provide guidance and
  help deal with current conditions
• At best, it will take years to work through the
  backlog of deferred organizational needs, in and
  outside of IT
• Perhaps there is an opportunity Can the use and
  management of IT be altered to deliver lasting
  benefit to the organization?
• Organizations that are able to make quick
  decisions based on planning for multiple
  scenarios will fare best

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Managing in the Downturn

• Understand how your industry and organization is
  affected including revenue and cost drivers
• Understand the cost structure, cost drivers and
  operating practices of your IT organization
• Develop a formal operational management plan with
  different scenarios identifying cost containment
  and savings opportunities
• Make sure the business understands the impact
• Adopt best practice techniques where feasible to
• Improve service and agility
• Reduce risk and complexity

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Some Sources of Cost Savings and Efficiencies

• Reconfigure staff roles and responsibilities
• Outsource non-core IS functions
• Automate software distribution
• Pool resources through server/storage
  virtualization and server consolidation
• Adopt Open Source solutions where appropriate
• Expand use of videoconferencing as an alternative
  to travel
• Improve project, program and portfolio
  performance
• Eliminate less strategic and less widely used
  services
• Extend renewal and replacement cycles

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The Important Role of IT Governance

• Establish priorities for what to cut where to
  alter service levels what to leave alone
• Reexamine and reprioritize projects in light of
  diminished resources
• Make the case for preserving certain IT services
  and investments
• Help identify and champion business improvement
  and cost reduction projects

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Making the Best of the Situation

• Capitalize on the organizations need to work
  differently
• What seemed politically impossible to accomplish
  may now be possible
• Develop a new agenda with a long term view
• Rebalance central and local IT services
• Expand collaborations within the organization and
  with other institutions
• Undertake focused projects that improve a
  particular business process, generate
  efficiencies, or provide productivity gains

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What IT Leaders Can Do

• Scale back vision to align with new priorities
  and resource levels
• Increase focus on operational management and
  ability to respond to a rapidly changing
  environment
• Strengthen relationships with business leaders by
  overcoming new obstacles
• Make difficult decisions with real consequences
  for the IT organization and staff
• Manage staff morale to a greater degree than
  before
• Communicate more effectively in the face of
  uncertainty
• Challenge and reward staff to innovate with new
  methods of IT service delivery

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What IT Leaders Can Do

• Remember
• Never let a serious crisis go to waste
• (White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel)
• People do things in a crisis or in times of great
  uncertainty that they would otherwise not do in
  normal times
• This presents a unique opportunity to instill new
  ways of operating, discarding old patterns and
  beliefs

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Top Challenges for IT Leaders

• 3 Sustaining a high performing IT organization
• IT leaders are only as good as their IT
  organization

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Sustaining High PerformanceInitial Steps

• 1 Define the mission for your organization
• 2 Give staff a strategic principle to guide
  decision making
• 3 Agree on the basics of how everyone will
  operate

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Step Four Define values that support your
mission, strategic principle and foundation
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Uncompromising ExcellenceA Commitment to Exceed
Accepted Industry Standards and Organizational
Expectations for All Projects, Processes and
Policies

• What it is
• Work is high quality exceeding baseline
  expectations
• Work anticipates impacts beyond project scope
• Willingness to go the extra mile
• Willingness to take on challenges

• What it isnt
• Accepting good enough as a standard
• Complacency
• Failure to develop professionally

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Ongoing CollaborationA commitment to Prioritize
an Organizational View Over a Unit View-Local
Expertise and Resources Become Shared Expertise
and Resources

• What it isnt
• Not pitching in
• Doing only your part
• Building walls

• What it is
• Project teams consisting of members from across
  the division
• Individual initiative to invite broad
  participation beyond local units
• Seeking and accepting feedback

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Constructive Communication An Open, Meaningful
and Professional Exchange About the Ways We Do
Our Work

• What it is
• Ongoing assessment and critique
• Dialogue up, down, and across the organization
• Peer review
• Resolving conflict

• What it isnt
• Contrary to organizational image
• One-sided
• Personally driven

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A Positive Environment A Supportive Work Place
Where Everyone Has the Tools, Encouragement and
Opportunities to Succeed

• What it is
• Two-way street
• Builds trust
• Commitment to recruit and develop a diverse staff
• Opportunities for professional development
• A sense of ownership of the environment

• What it isnt
• Self-centered environment
• Lack of commitment to organizational diversity
  and development
• Taking advantage of the organization
• Not respecting co-workers

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Step Five Develop Your Team

• Understand your teams work style
• Deal with conflict constructively
• Foster leadership
• Reward collaboration

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Step Six Reach Through Your Team To Managers,
Staff and Project Teams

• Brown Bag Lunches
• Project Reviews
• Service Disruption Technology Café
• Mandatory Training
• Project management
• Meeting management
• Diversity awareness
• Working in teams
• Communications
• Conflict resolution
• Customer service

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Working in Teams EffectivelySome Important Tips

• 1. Diverse teams have several potential
  advantages over homogeneous teams.
• 2. Team members that look good on paper often
  fail to get along with others when the real work
  begins.
• 3. Launching a team successfully requires team
  leaders and members to set aside time for
  thorough introductions and a discussion about
  norms for working together.
• 4. Team members should conduct ongoing diagnoses
  of team processes to ensure that members are
  working together in ways that allow them to
  achieve their goals and objectives.
• 5. Multiple criteria should be used to evaluate
  team effectiveness.

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Step Seven Instill Accountability

• Reorganize and redefine roles as necessary
• Performance manage across the organization
• Recognize and celebrate successes
• Engage in strategic hiring of A players
• Develop professional growth paths for all staff
• Communicate regularly

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• and throughout all the steps make sure that
• Everyone is responsible for building partnerships
  with key stakeholders, customers and each other.

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Top Challenges for IT Leaders

• 4 Developing your leadership abilities and
  skills
• The capacity for leadership should be continually
  developed over a lifetime of experience

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Understanding Leadership The Star Model
Technical Acumen
Business Acumen
Strategic Thinking
Intrapersonal Acumen
Interpersonal Acumen
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What it means to be a Manager/Leader today

• Myth Reality
• Basic Concept Authority Interdependency
• Source of power Formal authority Everything
  but
• Key players Subordinates Includes those outside
  your formal authority
• Key competencies Technical Technical, human,
  conceptual
• Desired outcomes Control, compliance Commitment,
  empowerment
• Source Linda Hill, Exercising Influence, 1994

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Leadership Can Be Learned!

• First step is to know yourself
• Know how others perceive you
• Know how to manage relationships with others
• Learning the concepts is important but not enough
• Takes desire, experience, practice and feedback
• Best accomplished by making use of a personal
  development plan

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What is Leadership Development?

• Leadership development is the expansion of a
  persons capacity to be effective in roles that
  enable groups of people to work together in
  productive and meaningful ways.
• Handbook of Leadership Development,
• Center for Creative Leadership

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Leadership vs. Political Acumen

• Popular myth about leadership
• People who get to the top are leaders
• Some people in leadership positions have more
  political acumen than leadership qualities.

Politics maneuvering within a political unit
or group in order to gain control or power
Need to separate the end from the
means Political Acumen Recognize that
organizations are politically complex and some
individuals are driven by power and ego.
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Role of Political Acumen in True and False
Leadership

• True Leadership
• Motivation The End
• Create Vision
• Achieve goals, create value that benefits
  society, business, team, etc
• Strategy The Means
• Use positive power and influence without
  authority
• Based on values of authenticity, integrity,
  justice, etc

• False Leadership
• Motivation
• Promote self
• Gain power for powers sake
• Strategy
• Use power and influence without authority
• Often associated with deceit, manipulation,
  aggression, etc

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Influencing without AuthorityWhy is it so
important?

• Growing need for managers and leaders to
  influence people in the workplace
• Organizations must be agile, adaptable and
  flexible
• Formal authority alone does not guarantee results
• High degree of interdependence among peers,
  superiors, teams and others
• Commitment and buy-in from everyone involved is
  key

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Influencing Without AuthorityA Schematic
Desired Outcome
Exchanging Currencies
Evoking Defensive Reaction
Paralysis or worse
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How do you influence others effectively?

• Start by identifying and thinking about those you
  want to influence.
• See each person as a potential ally or partner.
• View the relationships with your allies as one of
  cooperation vs. retaliation or refusal.
• Consider interactions with your allies as a
  process of give and take.
• Keep in reserve more direct and forceful means of
  influence.
• Develop a well-cultivated network of
  allies/partners.

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Applying the Concepts The Exchange Model of
Influence
Org Needs and Values
My goals
My allys goals
Our relationship
Relevant currencies
Exchange
This For
That
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Operating Rules for Gaining Influence

• Mutual respect Assume allies are competent and
  smart
• Openness Provide allies information they need to
  know
• Trust Assume good intentions on everyones part
• Mutual benefit Plan every strategy so that all
  parties win

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Assessing Relationships

• Whom are you dependent on?
• What differences exist between you and people you
  are dependent on?
• What has created the differences and how can they
  be bridged?
• What are your relationships with them like?
• Do you share mutual trust and credibility?
• What sources of power do you have?

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Your Personal Development Plan

• Capitalize on strengths and work on any major
  weaknesses
• Set short and long-term goals
• Use a range of methods, e.g., awareness,
  feedback, networking/support and skill building
• Seek out new challenges and work experiences
• Develop ways to deal with job-related stress
• Dedicate the time and energy
• Monitor progress and revise plan

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Seeking Out New Challenges

• Make a job or organizational change
• Add new tasks, responsibilities or goals to your
  existing job
• Look for developmental opportunities outside of
  work
• Incorporate new perspectives and differing views

Source Center for Creative Leadership
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Meeting the Leadership Challenges of Todays IT
Professionals

• Discussion and QA