Playbook –

This week I had the opportunity to connect with fellow CIOs at IBM CIO exchange. On this episode of CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley I will share my notes from the CIO exchange meeting. There are three major shifts that will impact our global business...

I had the pleasure of hearing Don Tapscott speak on Government & Democracy in the Networked Age. Don is one of the world’s leading authorities on innovation, media, and the economic and social impact of technology and advises business and government le...

This week on CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley I am asking are you a management consultant. As technology leaders it is time for us to change our approach. Numerous pundits have stated that technology should be out on the creative end of business, a competitive advantage, and an innovator. In fact Gartner analyst Laura McLellan estimates that by 2017 the Chief Marketing Officer will spend more on IT than the Chief Information Officer. Are We Ready for Change Is enterprise technology ready for this change are you changing fast enough to meet the impending demand shift to front of the house business needs. Businesses now interact more often through digital means with their customers than traditional face to face. Enterprise IT teams need to understand how these interactions are happening and still deliver on their existing responsibilities to successfully navigate this sea change. I know this isn’t easy; especially if you are bound by legacy systems that demand support via multiple layers of teams and controlling your cost base. I would even agree that most of your staff are already working long hours and have little time to spend thinking about the future let alone even how to do their day job just a bit better. However, if it is not you, then who will help with the transition? If not now, then when will you be able to help? There will always more work than capacity. The marketplace demand will change and challenge you regardless of what your individual situation is and a management consultant approach will help improve your opportunities in each interaction with your business partners. The enterprise IT organization will need to think differently. Focusing on what our enterprise customer needs are and start by allocating teams to focus on these needs. This may mean peeling a piece of your capacity with one or two people to focus on enacting change within your organization. There is a unique opportunity occurring now, in the technology space, for enterprise IT to transition into an innovator and partner with the Marketing Departments. Giving you and your teams a chance to do more than just keep the lights on and cut costs. let’s start with just a couple of staff and build an internal management consulting group with the problem solving skills. After all the management consultant process is really just a problem solving process! Problem Solving Approach Most problem solving approaches are based upon a step process, identifying what the situation or complication is. Working closely with the various stakeholders. Determining what the proposed solution should be, often referred to as a hypothesis, which is simply an explanation of the situation and then used as a starting point for investigation. Then conducting an effort to prove or disprove this developed hypothesis and ultimately presenting the findings to the stakeholders with a set of next steps . You will Address Five W’s and How Why do I suggest you use a management consultant approach? The technology team is best positioned to understand the multiple issues facing a business unit. It is IT that manages the multiple interconnections between the business units and observes the business in its entirety. Each business unit is generally attempting to answer six key questions to solve for a solution. What are these six key questions: What actually happened When did it happen Where did it happen Who was involved Why did it happen How do we change With each of these questions you will dive a bit deeper into the situation. Barbara Minto; creator of the Minto Pyramid Principle for structured communication, used first by McKinsey and now by many management consultant, suggests the following approach. Introduce the issue, develop the message, identify the motivations, provide the supporting arguments, and then make a call to action. Simply put the pyramid is situation, complication, question, and answer.

This week in CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley we are discussing the power of building a better business case. Leveraging your finance and human resources business partners you can assemble the components of a better business case for technology investm...

This week in CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley I am discussing the power you return to your clients when you publish your schedule. Clients and stakeholders can plan their objectives when they know what the IT schedule and timeline is. When we forget to...

This week on CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley I am discussing how Pete Carroll's philosophy for success in football can translate into your success as a business leader. Are you as a leader honing your leadership style and approach to running a successful organization? Using each setback as a building block or greater success? Pulling from the following articles I discuss the opportunities we, as leaders, have to leverage our philosophies into success. There are numerous articles written about how the Seattle Seahawks football team came into their success. I am looking at these with a lens for how Pete Carroll's coaching can be applied in the workplace. Is there a "secrete sauce" for success that we can magically pull from football and apply to our job? Not without some adjustment for the nature of how business is conducted. However, we can take some of the ideas and philosophies the top sports coaches use to conduct their teams and apply them to our work environment. I hope you have the opportunity to listen to the audio of this week's episode of CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley and hear my thoughts on how you can apply Pete Carroll's approach to your situation. Pete Carroll Makes a Statement with Super Bowl Victory Congratulations to Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll, The NFL's Greatest Failure Sorry Pete, We Were Wrong How Pete Carroll is Running Seattle like It's USC Pete Carroll's Super Bowl Trip Two Decades in the Making Pete Carroll's Positive, Profound Approach to Football Working Wonders in Seattle Pete Carroll's Redemption Arc is Complete Photo Credit via Flickr: Greater Tacoma Community CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley is a podcast dedicated to the development of technology leadership hosted by Jeffrey Hurley, a seasoned global technology leader who has held positions with Fortune 500 companies throughout the world including diverse countries: Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, United Kingdom, and the United States. He is currently based in Toronto, Canada.

Are you looking for ways to improve team productivity? This week on CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley we are discussing the tips and tricks to improve team productivity. With the removal of some roadblocks and a few changes in behavior we can realize an increase in our productivity. How can you improve the productivity of your team is a question I have been pondering with the start of the year. We have research into productivity and new technologies designed to help us. With all of these ways to improve productivity what can we as leaders do to help our people perform at exceptional levels. When you Google ways to improve productivity the answers tend to be pieces of advice on how you can boost your personal productivity with ideas such as: Take a break Create a to-do list Work during times you are most productive Don’t multi-task Get into work early And my favorite take a nap Yet as a leader of a team these suggestions do not directly apply when you are looking for ways to improve team productivity. During times of need we seem to find the ability to improve our productivity to almost superhuman levels. Often you will hear individuals say they work better under tight deadlines. Yet studies indicate more mistakes are made when you work under a tight deadline than not. So how do you balance the power of a tight deadline with the clarity and error free work of a longer deadline? How do we get the adrenaline feeling of working quickly to achieve results? We are all capable of producing at a higher levels. Research has shown that there are huge differences in the productivity of people within the same role and the more complex the job, the larger the difference between top performers and the bottom performers. Trying to figure out how to create long-term improvements in productivity and close the gap between high and low performers leads me to two fundamental questions: What do successful leaders do to enable their teams to go the extra mile? What are the triggers that ignite extraordinary effort? The following are some ideas you can apply to help your team increases its productivity: Define Work as Results Change your focus to outcome based measures and clarify individual and team objectives. The single biggest challenge organizations and the people within them face is not understanding what their objectives are. Not knowing what is expected, limits a person’s ability by forcing them to make assumptions with limited information or organizational perspective. Thus team member make a choice to do some of the work needed and more often than not lots of work that isn't needed. The end result is nothing much gets accomplished. We especially feel this when we a project and extend time the lines. By doing this across multiple projects without defining the expected outcomes lots of small things will get done but the big things won't. One way of obtaining higher performance from your people is to view work as results, and for which someone is responsible. If the staff think work is being in a location for a certain number of hours each day you will get different far different results. Reminding everyone regularly of the targets and asking team members to describe their contribution to the organization goal is extremely powerful in defining work as results. Measure Process Improvement Every job or function has opportunities for improvement and the best people to identify those opportunities are the one who are doing the work day in and day out. The key is to encourage staff to begin to think of better ways to do their work. Peter Drucker’s famous maxim, “what gets measured, gets managed” is the best approach in targeting process improvement. Humans are hardwired to avoid pain before they seek pleasure. Establishing measures that encourage your staff to improve and making it part of their objectives will move your organization forward in the process improvement capabilities..

This week, on CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley, we are discussing how to regain your calm when the stresses of the job and life have a go at you. There are five tips to quickly recover that lasting calm feeling. Thinking is a natural process. From the time we wake up till the time we go to bed, incessant thoughts that escalate and dwindle continuously. Most of these thoughts are both ineffective and unconstructive. They deplete us of energy and lead to stress, anxiety, and mental fatigue. Occasional negative thoughts are normal, however when negative thoughts begin to impact your normal activities, you might consider them a warning sign. The stress of life can create negative thoughts that lead to fear and anxiety. Negative thoughts tend to spiral upon each other creating ever more downward emotions. Before you know it you are caught in a vicious cycle of habitual negativity. These thoughts are based on illogical beliefs or pure conjecture with no factual support. Our judgment becomes clouded leading us to make impulsive decisions and cognitive distortion. The quality of the life you live is a result of your thoughts because everything you do or say has its origin in thought. As a young child playing hide and seek outside, with my family and neighborhood friends, in Southern California, I learned an early lesson. When I would slow down and tune in, sensing the immediacy of the moment, I was able to appreciate how clear everything in the moment could become. Being awake and present in the situation allowed me to enjoy and appreciate things happening around me that much more than ever before. You can realize the same by just stilling your body and mind, focusing on your breath and internal energy and allow the moment to begin to flow through you. There is a Chinese proverb that says: “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else.” As you begin to let the energy flow through you, you will begin to realize an awakened awareness even in the modern world of constant barrage. In our distracting over information age are you targeting a contented inner peace and happiness that stays true rather than a fleeting feeling? Are you practicing the following positive life skills: Practice gratitude – being thankful the good in your life. Silence your mind – clearing the noise of your thoughts even if for a moment. Practice mindfulness - live in the moment pausing to appreciate the energy around you. Build good relationships – looking for encouraging companionships that are balanced in the give and take. Practice optimism – looking for the opportunity in every situation Practice Gratitude It is important to understand and accept what we are today is a result of our own actions and the choices we have made. All of our actions and choices have their origin in our inner thoughts. Yes, there are things that are out of our control that you cannot change. However, there are things that you can change. Focus your energy on the things you can change. Stop fighting against the tide of life and learn to engage the flow that is life. Learn to practice gratitude in your daily life. Oscar Wilde has said, “If you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you don’t want.” He is suggesting there are two ways of experiencing gratitude. First, focusing on being grateful for the wonderful things you have. Second, being grateful for the pain and suffering that you do not. If you look around and ask yourself which problems of those around you, you would be will to take on. You might be grateful for what you do have. Silence Your Mind If you can conquer the enemy within, you find you do not have an enemy without. We must cultivate happiness from within, and work to spread it around to everyone we interact with. In Taoism, they say,

How do you hire remarkable employees? In today’s competitive environment hiring the best talent is what will differentiate you from all of the rest. This week in CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley we will be discussing ten rules that will get you the best talent in your industry. As a manager the single most important thing you do is hire. Literally your number one priority should be to find and attract the best possible employees for your organization. Because when you have remarkable employees working in your organization you will realize incredible benefits. You don’t want people that can do “the job” you want team members that can think strategically, work on their own, make an impact, have fun and get the work done. Define the Job to Be Done One of the most important things you can do as a hiring manager is define the job that needs to be done. This involves narrowing the down the key tasks that must be delivered to make the role successful. Often when we write out a job description we put in a series of broad statements of what the work might be. But if you don’t understand the essence of the work you need done it will be very difficult to find the person that can do the work and think outside the box at the same time. Define What a Remarkable Employee Is Many of us haven’t really thought about what a remarkable employee really is. we have a notional impression in our minds but really haven’t really challenged that impression. It is important to figure out what the definition of remarkable is especially when you have an interview team that will be evaluating your candidates. I don’t know about you but I have found that each of us has our own impressions and that these impressions don’t always align with one-another. if you are looking for a remarkable employee that will fit within your organization be sure to identify among everyone on the interview team what a remarkable employee is. There are several ways you can go about building a definition of a remarkable employee. The first would be to consult the HR competency guidelines for the various roles in your organization. Each position tends to have a set of competencies that define skills and abilities to accomplish the role or duties. Second, look at successful employees in your organization an determine what it is that sets them apart from the rest. Always be on the Lookout for Talent IT organizations always seem to have a few open positions that they are recruiting for. As a leader always be on the lookout for high quality individuals that could make a contribution to your team, beyond just the current position or positions you are looking to fill. To often in our environments we lock ourselves into what we have available and forget to look beyond the current need and into the future. If you are attending conferences or just happen to meet someone in line at the coffee shop always be looking out for potential team members. We often limit ourselves to the job description or role we are currently looking for without considering the value of “over-hiring” into our organization. If you want to have remarkable employees then look beyond just the current role in the organization. It is the ability to think outside of the box and innovate within a role that will set a remarkable employee apart and really advance your organization. Find Over-Comers Everything in life that is worthwhile takes effort and involves overcoming challenges. What you want on your team is individuals who both understand this concept and have put it to work. There will always be detractors or saboteurs who are threatened by others accomplishments and success. You will want to know if your candidate has had to deal with challenges and how they overcome them. Every project and opportunity will encounter a setback; either in mistaken planning, loss of financing, or the original ideal just didn't work. Has your candidate dealt with any of these? If so,

This week on CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley I am discussing the Top 10 security issues for 2014. As we begin 2014 I believe IT security will continue to be one of the top priorities for technology leaders. This year I have put together a list of what...

This week on CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley I will be discussing the annual State of the CIO 2014 survey from CIO.com.  In their annual State of the CIO survey CIO.com polled 722 CIOs throughout the world to give us an update on where the role of CIO...

This week on CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley I am continuing my summary of the best business books of 2013. Finishing the Forbes list of Best Business Books of 2013 and then moving on to Strategy & Business's Best Business Books of 2013. In last week's episode I covered the Globe and Mail's article on the Best Business Books of 2013 and made it through to number five of Forbes' Best Books of 2013. Below I continue through the Forbes list from where I left off last week. Forbes Magazine’s best books of 2013 by Frederick E. Allen 6)The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, by Nina Muck Nina Munk, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, is a journalist and author whose work has appeared in Vanity Fair, the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times, the New Yorker, and Fortune In 2006, Sachs launched the Millennium Villages Project, a daring five-year experiment designed to test his theories in Africa. The first Millennium village was in Sauri, a remote cluster of farming communities in western Kenya. The initial results were encouraging. With his first taste of success, and backed by one hundred twenty million dollars from George Soros and other likeminded donors, Sachs rolled out a dozen model villages in ten sub-Saharan countries. Once his approach was validated it would be scaled up across the entire continent. At least that was the idea. For the past six years, Nina Munk has reported deeply on the Millennium Villages Project, accompanying Sachs on his official trips to Africa and listening in on conversations with heads-of-state, humanitarian organizations, rival economists, and development experts. She has immersed herself in the lives of people in two Millennium villages: Ruhiira, in southwest Uganda, and Dertu, in the arid borderland between Kenya and Somalia. Accepting the hospitality of camel herders and small-hold farmers, and witnessing their struggle to survive, Munk came to understand the real-life issues that challenge Sachs’s formula for ending global poverty. Amazon: 4.5 stars with 50 review, Goodreads: 4.17 stars with 60 ratings, Barnes and Noble: no rating Nina Munk 7) I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford. By Richard Snow Richard Snow was born in New York City in 1947, raised in Westchester County, and returned to Manhattan to go to Columbia College, where he studied English and history, thereby inadvertently preparing himself for how he’d spend the rest of his life. After he graduated from high school, he got a summer job as a mail boy at the American Heritage Publishing Company. He didn’t damage any mail, and so was asked back during succeeding summers, and given a staff job on the firm’s history magazine, American Heritage, upon graduating from college in 1970. He worked there for the next 37 years, spending seventeen of them as editor-in-chief. Summary: In many ways, of course, Ford’s story is well known; in many more ways, it is not. Richard Snow masterfully weaves together a fascinating narrative of Ford’s rise to fame through his greatest invention, the Model T. When Ford first unveiled this car, it took twelve and a half hours to build one. A little more than a decade later, it took exactly one minute. In making his car so quickly and so cheaply that his own workers could easily afford it, Ford created the cycle of consumerism that we still inhabit. Our country changed in a mere decade, and Ford became a national hero. But then he soured, and the benevolent side of his character went into an ever-deepening eclipse, even as the America he had remade evolved beyond all imagining into a global power capable of producing on a vast scale not only cars, but airplanes, ships, machinery, and an infinity of household devices. Amazon: 4.5 stars with 37 reviews, Goodreads: 3.85 stars with 59 ratings, Barnes and Noble: 4 stars with 1 review Richard Snow 8) The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, by Brad Stone

This week on CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley I am discussing some of the best business books of 2013. We are going into the last week of the year and many of you will have received the requisite Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift cards. So I am giving you several of lists of the best business books of 2013 so that you can choose the books that are the most interesting to you and go and spend your gift cards. I have collected several top business book lists and one science and technology book list. Links to these lists are in the show notes so that you can take a look at the original articles and the list creators reasons for picking the books on their lists. I will come right out and say that I have read several of these books but clearly not all of them. Though that hasn’t prevented me from going to Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and Goodreads.com to look up each of the following books and read both the book summary and the reviews. So take my commentary at face value and enjoy the show. The Globe and Mail’s top business books of 2013 by Harvey Schachter 1) The Three Rules by Michael Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed Michael E. Raynor is a director at Deloitte Services LP, where he explores cor­porate strategy, innovation, and growth with clients in a variety of industries. He is the coauthor, with Clay­ton Christensen, of The Innovator’s Solu­tion, and the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed The Strategy Paradox and The Innovator’s Manifesto. Mumtaz Ahmed is a principal in Deloitte Consulting LLP and the chief strategy officer of Deloitte LLP, responsible for the U.S. firm’s strategy, corporate development, innovation, eminence, and brand. Michael Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed analyzed data on more than 25,000 companies and picked 27 to put under a deep dive review and figure out what made them stand out performers in their space. What they found was there were three rules these companies used in their decision making process Choose better before cheaper Choose revenue over costs Be willing to change everything to meet the first to rules Amazon 4.5 stars with 18 reviews,Goodreads: 4.14 stars with 7 ratings The Three Rules 2) Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip heath and Dan Heath Chip Heath is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, teaching courses on business strategy and organizations. Dan Heath is a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, which supports social entrepreneurs. In Decisive, the Heaths, introduce a four-step process designed to counteract our decision biases. * Widen your options * Reality Test Your Assumptions * Attain Some Distance * Prepare to Be Wrong They then, through very good writing tell us as readers what single question we can use to resolve the difficult personal decisions. Amazon: 4.5 stars with 233 reviews,Goodreads: 3.92 stars with 1,949 ratings, Barnes and Noble: 4.5 stars with 10 reviews Heath Brothers 3) Eat Move Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes by Tom Rath Tom Rath is a senior scientist and advisor to Gallup, where he previously spent 13 years leading the organization’s work on employee engagement, strengths, and wellbeing. Tom also served as vice chairman of the VHL cancer research organization. There isn’t a lot that I can say about this book except it is one you should read. Tom has written the StrengthsFinder 2.0, How Full Is Your Bucket?, Strengths Based Leadership, and Wellbeing books and I have to admit I am a fan of his writing. In his new book he suggests small changes that will add up to a better life. Each small positive change builds upon the previous forming a cumulative effect. Get more sleep and have more energy. More energy means more movement and more movement means more willpower. Amazon: 4 stars with 119 reviews, Goodreads: 3.65 stars with 475 ratings, Barnes and Noble: 4.5 starts with five reviews Tom Rath 4) To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink

This week on CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley I am discussing the 12 elements of success in 2014. It is coming up to the end of the year for 2013 and many of you are starting to think about what 2014 might look like.  As I am looking back across 2013 I am astonished at how many of the goals I wrote down at the beginning of 2013 have come to pass. Not everything went perfect and I did have good days and bad days. Yet on the whole, I am further ahead of where I started. I find it always interesting when talking with successful people and discovering many of their secrets to success. It turns out their secrets aren’t actually secrets. There are numerous articles and studies on success and I have put together 12 elements of success in 2014 for discussion. Most successful people do have a talent, but they don’t see it as natural talent, they see it as talent from really, really hard work. And I mean more work, the type of work that most people consider crazy. What sets successful people apart is they love what they do and don’t always see what they do as work. There are always bad days in everything we do. But for successful individuals there are more good days than bad days. Average leaders have the belief that work is an obligatory evil and fully expect to resent having to work, and therefore tend to subconsciously define themselves as oppressed victims and behave that way. Extraordinary leaders see work as something that should be inherently enjoyable and focus on the opportunities that can and will make them happy. I believe there are 12 elements of success that you will want to look to using in 2014: 1) Find the opportunity where others aren't looking 2) Know what you want 3) Do the work 4) Go the Extra Mile 5) Set three to five daily objectives 6) Don’t Stop with Just One Goal 7) It all comes Down to Selling 8) Be Self-aware 9) Make Mistakes 10) Pick Yourself up Again and Again and Again 11) Make Adjustments 12) Celebrate Success 1) Find the opportunity where others aren't looking I once heard the story of the man who was looking on the ground for something he lost. A passerby walks up to him and says it looks like you lost something. Yes, the first man says, I lost my watch. Oh says the helpful passerby, where did you lose it. Over there says the first man. The passerby then asks, if you lost it over there, why are you looking for it over here. Because the light is better says the first man. This often how we approach our definitions of success and the work we choose. Looking in places where the light is better. You should have a deep curiosity to seek out new and interesting opportunities. An ability to understand and accept what will, on the surface, appear to be a contradictory or absurd idea. Think of what to innovate in your approach to meet the demands of a multifaceted workplace. A Deep curiosity and commitment to lifelong learning will enable you find the opportunities where others are not looking. Connect with your vision. See the world as much bigger than you. Imagine what your next steps would be. The direction you will want to go. Put passion into whatever you’re doing. Create with passion and engage with passion putting your heart into it. Nurturing the positive in what you are seeing. Finding the opportunity will entail taking some major risks. Sometimes you will need to go for broke, stepping outside of your comfort zone and going for it. Even if you fail you will have learned something. We have to choose not to be afraid of failure. Failure steals the mind and strengthens our resolve. Don’t be afraid to try something big, it will enable you to learn and grow. Remember business is an ecosystem. James F. Moore originated the idea of a business ecosystem and defined it as an economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individuals. An average leader will see work as a conflict between departments and groups.

This week on CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley I have the pleasure of interview Eric Kottke of the SPEIRO FUND. Eric Kottke is the fund manager of the SPEIRO FUND, an emerging private investment operation focusing on risk adjusted returns using futures and options. His experience originates from within the traditional and alternative investment arenas where he has more than twenty years experience with the use of financial securities vehicles and instruments. He has been participating in the sport of triathlon since 1997 and currently endeavoring to complete international distance triathlon with his daughter for the benefit of philanthropy. He has been married since 1995 and resides in Austin, Texas with his wife Laura and two children, Sophia and Isaiah. CIO Playbook with Jeffrey Hurley is a podcast dedicated to the development of technology leadership hosted by Jeffrey Hurley, a seasoned global technology leader who has held positions with Fortune 500 companies throughout the world including diverse countries: Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, United Kingdom, and the United States. He is currently based in Toronto, Canada.