Confessions of a Successful CIO: How the Best CIOs Tackle Their Toughest Business Challenges - Hardcover

Roberts, Dan; Watson, Brian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1118638220 ISBN 13: 9781118638224

Publisher: Wiley, 2014

Synopsis

Be the most effective CIO you can be—by learning from the best in the business

Today's Chief Information Officers must be an entirely new breed of technology leader. With ever-changing demands from the business, and in an increasingly technology-centric business environment, CIOs must find game-changing innovations and process improvements that make a real impact on the bottom line. Business executives need their CIOs to be real partners—speaking the language of the business and donning their strategist caps—not just commodity managers. Those IT leaders who fail to break out of the order-taker, utility manager mold will, simply put, be looking for a new job.

In Confessions of a Successful CIO: How the Best CIOs Tackle Their Toughest Business Challenges, current and future CIOs will gain invaluable perspectives from the stories of today's best IT leaders. These acclaimed leaders—each profiled in their own chapter—explain the toughest business decision they had to make, and how the outcome influenced and impacted their leadership style. These in-depth anecdotes take the reader inside some of the most challenging business climates imaginable and chronicle how these elite CIOs made the decisions that mattered.

• Read detailed case studies of how some of the best CIOs have handled their most challenging business problems
• Learn how the best CIOs anticipate changes to their business and respond—before the business comes knocking
• Explore how these top-flight CIOs make critical decisions around strategy and IT to not only benefit their companies, but in some cases, to save them from becoming obsolete.
• Analyze their perspectives on managing people, crises and balancing the risks and rewards of their "bet the farm" strategies

Confessions of a Successful CIO is the new playbook for learning how to take risks, respond to crises, and create more value from IT. Each chapter presents a different challenge, giving present-day and future IT leaders the chance to examine, analyze and learn so that they can be just as successful as the CIOs they're reading about.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

PRAISE FOR CONFESSIONS OF A SUCCESSFUL CIO: HOW THE BEST CIOs TACKLE THEIR TOUGHEST BUSINESS CHALLENGES

“Successful CIOs take on crazy challenges, solve amazingly complex problems, inspire others to join them, and use each experience to learn and grow. In telling their stories, Confessions of a Successful CIO offers aspiring leaders an engaging mix of inspiration and practical takeaways.”
—Abbie Lundberg, CIO analyst, writer, and adviser; former editor of CIO

“Reading Confessions of a Successful CIO is like attending the best IT Leadership Conference you can imagine, except the only travel required is flipping the cover. You will spend much time thinking about these CIOs’ stories as they apply to your own world as you read the pages. A must read for any CIO, as well as anyone working for a CIO or aspiring to be one.”
—David Buckholtz, Vice President and Divisional CIO, Sony Pictures Entertainment

“We learn so much from others’ experiences, and after reading this, I feel like I’ve been allowed behind the scenes to ‘meet’ and gain the insight of some truly amazing leaders. Nice work! This will be a must read for technology leaders in order for them to fully understand the criticality of establishing vision, taking risks, and most importantly—that while technology and process are important—people are the key.”
—Susan Courtney, Senior Vice President, Technology and Operations, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska

“Reading about the challenges, plans, and execution of strategy that these nine phenomenal CIOs have experienced reminds me of J. F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage. Yes, ‘Profiles in Courage’ for IT executives. Being a CIO in this new millennium brings many challenges. The pace of change and half-life of business plans requires maximum flexibility, reliance on interdisciplinary teams, and courage to take action despite uncertainty. These CIOs accepted the challenge that their respective organizations presented them, leveraged their available resources, and took action!”
—Dennis L’Heureux, Senior Vice President for IT Planning and CIO, Rockford Health System

From the Inside Flap:

CONFESSIONS OF A SUCCESSFUL CIO

The demands placed upon today’s Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are greater than ever before. As IT becomes a more integral part of business operations and strategies, CIOs must be proficient at decision making, which is one of the most crucial aspects of IT leadership. Confessions of a Successful CIO chronicles nine real-world case studies of the biggest challenges ever faced by an all-star lineup of global IT leaders. With each chapter written as a mini suspense novel, readers are able to gain a three-dimensional understanding of each unique IT challenge and learn directly from the failures and triumphs of industry-leading CIOs.

Leading with technology is, first and foremost, about leadership. While there is no “one-size-fits-all” road to success, great leaders, like the ones profiled within this book, are marked by a unique set of qualities: passion and drive to make a positive difference; the ability to engage others to chart the future and define the path; and the paradoxical ability to maintain optimism and perseverance through difficult circumstances.

As described within, the “art of the possible” entails placing big bets and buying down risks by emphasizing people over process. This is an important message, and one that is largely missing from the left-brain-oriented literature that dominates the technology press.

This book includes timeless lessons on how to exploit technology to the benefit of the business and the people within. This isn’t simply a professional resource for CIOs or technology professionals. For businesses of all sizes, managing technology assets is an essential part of everyone’s job, and absorbing the insights of this book will provide leaders with a realistic picture of what it takes to leverage technology and transform businesses.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1118638220
• ISBN 13: 9781118638224
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192