My good friend, and partner at CIOEssentials.com,  Gene Delibero asks a few interesting questions in a post titled “Certification: No Guarantee of Competency – But it Can’t Hurt” on CIOE.

In this post Gene highlights the pros/cons of IT Certifications and asks these questions:

Do you rely on IT certification when hiring? What has your experience been, good or bad, when hiring IT resources with or without certifications? Do you have an IT certification or more than one? Have they been helpful to you in your career as far as being a gate item or helping you get more money?

Some interesting questions here that might be worth looking at.

When I’ve hired folks in the past, I’ve looked at certifications as part of my overall view of the candidate.  If I’m hiring for a Database Administrator, a DBA certification helps me understand that this person has knowledge in the area…but it doesn’t help me determine their experience or skills in the area.

On the other hand, if I’m hiring for a Project Manager for a large enterprise implementation, a Project Management Certification like the PMP really doesn’t do much for me.  The PMP certification tells me that the user has experience in the project management world and has passed a test…but it doesn’t tell me anything about that person’s real abilities.

At the end of the day, the certification helps quantify a candidate’s skill-set but not their abilities and experiences.

The certification is a piece of the puzzle but, in my mind, a small piece.

What’s your thoughts?  Leave a comment here or jump over to Certification: No Guarantee of Competency – But it Can’t Hurt and leave a comment there.

Pick one and own it by Jason Cohen on A Smart Bear

The Strategy Trap: Why focusing too much on strategy could be killing your ability to execute by Olivier Blanchard on The BrandBuilder Blog

HR Hint of the Day: Let Them Run Through the Sprinklers by Frank Roche on KnowHR Blog {If you click on no other link today, click on this one!}

The twin evils of IT gridlock and denials by Michael Krigsman on Enterprise Irregulars

There’s no room for The Idea Guy by David on Signal vs. Noise

Business models for linked data and web 3.0 by Scott Brinker on Chief Marketing Technologist

Are innovation strategies back on CIO agendas? by Linda Tucci on TotalCIO

Thinking About Networks and Social Media and Online Collaborations by Beth Kanter on Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

Like Siblings, Teams Get Locked Into Behavior Patterns by Andrew O’Connell on HarvardBusiness.org

Community Management: The Strategic New IT-Enabled Business Capability by Dion Hinchcliffe on Enterprise Irregulars

Who Are Your Positive Deviants? by Hutch Carpenter on CloudAve

Losing Andrew Carnegie by Seth Godin on Seth’s Blog

The One Thing About Building A Community By Mitch Joel on Six Pixels of Separation

Do you know Hutch Carpenter?  You should.  He write’s some awesome stuff over at I’m Not Actually a Geek.

Hutch recently wrote a post titled “Apple iPad and Google Buzz: Harsh Reality of Innovation” where he argues (successfully I think) that you’ve got to be OK with failure to really be innovative.

In the article Hutch points at Apple and Google as examples of companies that have amazing successes as well as amazing failures.

Hutch does a great job tying innovation with failure and showing that you’ve got to embrace failure to truly innovate.  It’s a great read.

The best part of the article wasn’t written by Hutch though….it’s a quote from Teddy Roosevelt. This quote really resonates with me and is a perfect addition to this argument. The quote is:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Emphasis mine.

Failure and the CIO

Is it OK for your IT staff to fail?

Have you built the proper culture that allows your teams to step out of bounds and innovate without fear of retribution if the attempt fails?

If you’ve said yes…good for you.  But…what would happen if I asked your team?  Would they say the same?

Think about the last three projects you’ve undertaken.  Have they all been a success?  Have they all been innovative? Can you point to projects that you’ve undertaken that have changed the ‘game’ for your organization?

If you can’t think of any innovative projects that you’ve undertaken recently…perhaps you’ve stepped into the realm of playing it safe.

Culture of Failure?

Nobody likes failure.  I hate it…but I’ve had my fair share of it.  I’ve watched my projects fail and I’ve watched my teams fail.  But…I’ve also seen some amazing things happen by those same teams.

So…am I saying that you should create a culture of failure? Absolutely not.

But I am saying that you need to create a culture that makes it OK to fail.

Ask yourself this question:

Do you want your IT staff to be known as folks that put themselves out there and bring  innovation to the organization….or do you want to be known as the IT group that plays it safe?

It might be easier to play it safe for some, but don’t expect to find and keep the best people if you’re playing it safe.  The best and brightest out there want to work on the ‘cool’ stuff. The ‘new’ stuff.  They don’t want to be relegated to a life of maintaining your COBOL application…they want to build a new app that will make the organization (and world) stand up and take notice.

Build a culture that says failure is OK and you’ll build the potential for a high performance team that can get some great stuff done.  Don’t do this and you’ll be relegated to being the also-ran.

Talent: Develop Strengths or Weaknesses? Yes. by Steve Roesler on All Things Workplace

5 Tips for Improving the Synergy between Marketing and IT by Jenn Steele on HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

Learn to Ask Better Questions by John Baldoni on HarvardBusiness.org

The IT Security Balancing Act by Mike Schaffner on Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

Does the CEO Care About IT? by Chris Curran on CIO Dashboard

The Rise of the Innovation Ninjas by Mitch Ditkoff on The Heart of Innovation

Social Business and Next-Generation CIOs – The Impact of Technological Change by Dion Hinchcliffe on Enterprise Irregulars

Global Warming, IT and Christianity – the Law of Infallibility by Martijn Linssen on @MartijnLinssen

Marketing & Business: It’s all about the people! by Jim Connolly on Jim’s Marketing Blog

Weaving innovation into the corporate structure by Jeffrey Phillips on Innovate on Purpose

How IT-Smart Is Your Organization? by Susan Cramm on HarvardBusiness.org

Competing with Pirates by Mark Fidelman on Seek Omega and Cross Posted on CloudAve

Why Planning Is Important, Your Plan is Not by George Krueger and Mary-Lynn Foster on Blog For Profit

Are You Willing to Lose Your Best and Brightest Over a Bag of Pretzels? by Vincent Ferrari on KnowHR Blog

Breaking Through Organizational Silos in HR by Lance Haun on Rehaul by Lance Haun

I Can’t (Read: Don’t Want To) Change by Julien Smith on in over your head

Why You Should Fire Yourself by Ron Ashkenas on HarvardBusiness.org

Project Leadership Lessons From a Jigsaw Puzzle by Kevin Eikenberry on Kevin’s Blog

Partnering in Outsourcing Deals: Is It a Myth or a Genuine Strategy? by Sara Cullen on The Cutter Blog | Debate Online

When Your Company Culture Isn’t Ready for Social Media by Jeanne C Meister and Karie Willyerd on HarvardBusiness.org

Three Enterprise 2.0 Themes You Should Be Watching in 2010 by Hutch Carpenter on I’m Not Actually a Geek

Marketing, technology, and storytelling by Scott Brinker on Chief Marketing Technologist

A Breakdown in Culture, Communication, and Technology by Gene De Libero

10 Ways to Get Serious About Social Media by Amber Naslund on Altitude Branding

I’m sitting here on Christmas Eve watching It’s a Wonderful Life.

I just saw Clarence jump in the river to save George Bailey from committing suicide.  George was despondent over his life and his business.   He didn’t think he’d been able to do anything right with his life and within his business.

The scene conjured up a thought about CIO’s and organization’s today.  Yes. I know.  Odd.  Why can’t I just enjoy the movie?

What did the scene make me think about?

I’ve talked to many CIO’s over the past year and almost every one has said something like the following:

We can’t get anything done.  We are so busy keeping the lights on, that we can’t get any big projects done!

George Bailey just said “I wish I’d never been born”…something similar to what CIO’s are saying.  Bear with me…I’m going to make the point clear.

These CIO’s can’t see what their team is doing. Perhaps its because their managers can’t communicate the value of the teams contributions and the value of the projects.  Perhaps the issue has to do with the inability of the CIO to really understand what their IT team does.

This mentality has led these CIO’s to move to outsource the majority of their project work.  They think they can let their team’s focus on operations and outsource the ‘big projects’.

There’s something wrong with this approach though. For most organizations, IT Operations isn’t the core business.  The ‘big projects’ are….  Don’t outsource your core business.

So…back to the George Bailey & Clarence scene.  Clarence jumped in to save George from a huge mistake. That brought me to this question:

Do CIO’s today need a Guardian Angel to jump in and save them?

I don’t think they do.

Many consulting companies act like guardian angels.  They jump in and ’solve problems’ in the short team but often times I find they do little more than Guard their pocket book.  Who can CIO’s trust to help save them?

Its an easier answer than you’d think. George Bailey didn’t think of it though…it had to have a Guardian Angel save him. But..the CIO doesn’t need a guardian angel.   All the CIO needs to do is take a look at their team…they’ve got all the help they need there.

Today’s IT team has a ton of experience and knowledge just waiting to be tapped.  Most of this knowledge, energy and passion is ignored in many organizations.

Think about George Bailey.  After wishing he never lived, he ended up relying on the townspeople to help him out of a pinch.  Today’s CIO should be able to rely on their IT team to navigate troubled waters.

CIO’s – look to your team first before you look for your guardian angel. You probably have everything you need (knowledge, skills, passion, experience, etc) right where you least expect them.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Back to the movie…George is fighting with Bert & Ernie now.

Some interesting research results being reported over on Fistful of Talent by Lizz Pellet who is the Chief Culture Officer at EMERGE International in a post titled “The Economic Recovery F-You Factor“.

And yes…for those keeping score, this is the 2nd day in a row that I’ve linked to Fistful of Talent…they’ve got some great stuff over there.

A few highlights from the article:

Leadership IQ Group surveyed 4,000 individuals who watched colleagues get laid off and were left behind to carry on and found:

• 75% said their productivity had declined
• 70% said the quality of products/services had declined
• 81% said customer service had dropped

Interesting numbers and not surprising.

Do you want to do business with an organization that shows these numbers?  Would you want to give your hard earned money to a company who’s employees just aren’t engaged and really just don’t give a hoot about their job, their product/service or helping you?

Think employee engagement doesn’t matter?  Take a look at those numbers and then think again.  Employee engagement is more than a buzzword or something consultants are trying to sell you…it’s real and effects your employees, your organization, your customers and you.

During downturns like this, organizations always have to cut costs and inevitably there are lay-offs.   That said, the manner in which companies cut costs, treat their employees and handle employee layoffs will come back to haunt them.

What happens to these companies when the economy picks up?  It won’t be pretty.

Intuition vs. Data-Driven Decision-Making: Some Rough Ideas by Bob Sutton on Bob Sutton – Work Matters

CIO and the Art of Decision Making by Arun Manansingh on A CIO’s Voice

Before you can truly talk about Change Management, you have to focus on achieving clear vision by Olivier Blanchard on The BrandBuilder Blog

The 5 Secret Characteristics Of A Truly Great CIO by Dr. Jim Anderson on The Accidental Successful CIO

Where Measurement Falls Short by Amber Naslund on Altitude Branding

IT Strategies for Rising Markets by Vince Kellen on The Cutter Blog

Why Stories are an Effective Communication Tool for Your Blog by Darren Rowse on ProBlogger Blog Tips

Use Humility to Improve Performance by John Baldoni on HarvardBusiness.org

The Only Way to Become Amazingly Great at Something from Zen Habits by Leo Babauta

Is “social product management” for real? by Tom Grant on The Forrester Blog For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

The value of IT exists over time not at a point in time by Mark McDonald on the Gartner Blog Network

Enterprise 2.0 Caffeine: Let’s Debunk the Non-Debate by Mark Fidelman on CloudAve

When Should You Let an Employee Make a Mistake? by Peter Bregman on HarvardBusiness.org

Balancing Anticipation and Adaptation by Mike Cohn on Mike Cohn’s Blog – Succeeding With Agile®

Two Powerful Words: I NOTICE by Angela Maiers on Angela Maiers Educational Services

The Intersection Of Quality And Expectations by Jono Bacon on jonobacon@home

I ran across an interesting post today titled “Why you don’t need Social Media Consultants” on the Brains on Fire Blog.  The main thesis of the post is: “social media consultants provide little value…they do nothing more than you already know how to do so you don’t need them”.

In the article, Spike Jones says:

If you listen REALLY closely to their [social media consultant's] advice, you start to realize that most of it you already know. Because you have all the basic tools you need: Your humanity. Your ability to communicate with people around you. And your intuition. Because when you think about it, using social media is just a natural extension of yourself. Asking questions. Listening. Responding. And remember, social media apps are tactics. And tactics are tools. Sure, you might need some guidance on how to use that bandsaw, but you picked up a hammer and pretty much got the gist after you hit your thumb a few times.

In other words, we’re getting all worked up about (wait for it, wait for it) common sense. Common courtesy. And the best way to find that is to take off your marketing hat and use the hat you were born with – being a person.

Emphasis mine.

I have an issue with this statement.  Most organizations don’t know how to be human anymore.

Before I continue…I wholeheartedly agree with the premise of Spike’s argument (i.e., we already know how to be human) but I would argue that most companies have removed much of humanity from business.  Many organizations have been built to remove the human side of the business and have replaced it with processes and management…I’ve written about this before in a post titled Humanity and Business“…jump over and read that post for more on the subject of bringing humanity back to business.

Take a look at Jay Baer’s comment on the above article.  In the comment, Jay makes a few valid points…one of them is:

What social media consultants do best – at least those focused on tactical agnosticism – is to help companies connect the dots, align internal resources, and understand not that social media is about more than tools and pressing buttons, but about a cultural shift that manifests itself up and down the organization.

Amen.  Re-read that (and Jay’s entire comment)….did you catch the powerful stuff there?

A good social media consultant should help an organization bring about cultural change. That’s exactly what any good consultant should do….help the organization understand how to change to adapt to new realities. Whether that reality is purchasing a new software platform or using social media to build relationships with clients.

Back to my original question: Do you need consultants? Hell yes you do.

Why?  Here’s a few reasons:

• Consultants bring an external view
• Consultants bring experience
• Consultants bring expertise
• Consultants bring relevance
• Consultants bring authority

Whether you like it or not, consultants are a necessity.   Perhaps most organizations don’t need a social media consultant…but most organizations do need help understanding how to be more human.

That’s what a good consultant (social media or otherwise) sh0uld bring to the table.   A good SM consultant should help organizations understand how to be more human while building relationships with their clients.  A good IT consultant should help organizations bring humanity back to the IT organization by helping the organization understand that IT is more than processes, workflows and reasons ‘not to’.

Do you need consultants – yes you do. If you’re looking for a consultant, find one that ignores the technology, buzzwords and tools (at the beginning) and talks about your organization, your needs and hopefully they will also talk about being more ‘human’.  Find a consultant that talks about ‘humanity and business’ and hire them on the spot.  You’ll not regret it.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges.

I just completed reading The Upside of Turbulence: Seizing Opportunity in an Uncertain World. Great book.  Go buy it…the link above is an affiliate link or just go grab one from your favorite bookseller.

The book does an excellent job of discussing the world of business and the role that turbulence has played in shaping it.  Donald Sull does a great job describing how to embrace turbulence and seize the opportunities that turbulence can bring.

How do you embrace turbulence?   By being agile.

Before we continue, don’t confuse ‘being agile’ with the agile development methodology….while they may be similar, for the purposes of this article, I’ll be talking about a different ‘agile’.

That said, let me clear up what I mean when I saw agile (and what Donald Sull means when he uses it): Agile isn’t about speed. Agile has to do with the ability to change course when needed. Being agile means taking a look at your organizational landscape (strategy, operations, etc) and breaking up the long-term view into smaller samples of time to make it easier to see and respond to opportunities.

Dr Sull defines agility as:

“the capacity to identify and capture opportunities more quickly than rivals” (p. 138).

In addition, he uses the concept of air warfare to help tell the story of how agility can provide tremendous benefits.  Out of these stories of air warfare, Dr Sull introduces John Boyd, a military strategist who helped with a lot of the science behind the F-16 and F-18 fighter jets, and Boyd’s OODA Loop.

John Boyd's OODA Loop (Courtesy of Jeff McNeill's Flickr stream)

What is the OODA loop?  It stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

What does it have to do with IT? Everything.

In order to be an effective IT group and CIO in the world today, you’ve got to have some flexibility (i.e., be agile) so you can move quickly when opportunities arise.

As we all know, we are being asked to do more with less.  The only way to do that, is to remain flexible (as well as have a good team and not overwork them).  In addition to being agile, you’ve got to have a strategic plan and know how to execute that plan.

By using the OODA model, you might be able to be agile, plan and react as necessary.  Let’s look at how you might incorporate the OODA model into your business life.

Observe

To use the OODA model, the first (and perhaps most important) step is to continuously observe.

Observe your situation.  Look at your organization, team and the competitive landscape.  What can you and your IT team do to help move the company forward?

In addition, observe how your team operates. Do you have enough people?  Do you have the right people?

Is your strategic plan still valid based on these observations? What are the politics of your organization?

Orient

While observing, you’ll need to orient yourself to your landscape.  Orientation (in the OODA model) is all about positioning yourself.

Is your organization changing direction?  Are your competitors doing something differently that previously?  Is your team becoming overloaded?  Do you have the right people on board to make your plans successful?

Decide

You are observing your situation and have oriented yourself to the climate….now all you have to do is decide to do something.  Can you make a decision?  You better be able to.

In a turbulent world, you don’t have time to wait or over-analyze…you’ve got to decide quickly and move on.  In the world of air warfare, if you wait you die and in today’s world your fate and your organization’s fate might just hang on your ability to decide.

Act

You’ve decided on a plan of action.  Now you need to execute it.  If you’ve observed, oriented and made the right decision, you can act with ease…but do you have the right people in place?

Many organizations plan well but very few ACT well.  The ability to act and react after observing & orienting is a major reason that some organizations succeed and others don’t.

The New CIO & The Loop

The OODA model is built with feedback loops.  Each action is fed back to the observation stage to review for tweaks.  I’ve found that most organizations are missing this feedback mechanism…strategic plans are made and ‘rolled out’ without any feedback nor any way to change course quickly.

Dr Sull introduces his own version of the OODA loop…he calls it the ‘agility loop’.  The agility loop has four stages:

• Make sense of situation
• Make choices
• Make it happen
• Make revisions

I like what Dr Sull has to say about the agility loop…whether you use the OODA loop or Sull’s Agility loop, you’ll be in a position to improve your agility.

To succeed in the future, The New CIO has to remain agile.  Using the OODA loop (or Dr Sull’s agility loop) helps you keep your mindset right.  Remember to observe, orient, decide & act. Then repeat.