We were saddened to learn that Merv Tarde, one of our original Enterprisers and Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at Interstate Batteries, passed away Oct. 31. Tarde was one of the first CIOS we interviewed when we launched our site last year. After meeting him at the CIO 100 symposium in Colorado we were struck with his passion for the culture at Interstate Batteries, and his focus on using IT to improve the business.
In our first interview with Tarde last year, we asked him what legacy he would like to leave at work, and he was quick to respond that he wouldn't want his business colleagues to worry about IT. He said he would want IT to be performing so well that, rather than worrying about IT, his business peers could focus on how they were going to grow the business.
"When it comes to IT, I would like to think that when I leave, the culture is going to be stronger than ever because it is working with the business, not against the business, to form solutions that would allow us to grow," Tarde said in the September 2013 interview.
Last month, we had the pleasure of interviewing Tarde again. One of the topics that came up was how to help IT teams avoid burnout. We were completely impressed with Tarde's approach to keeping his teams fresh. He explained how earlier this year he helped implement a monthly "blackout weekend" for the IT department. During one weekend a month, there would be no deployments, Tarde said, and there was an agreement that no one in IT would get a work-related phone call or a text message unless there was a downright catastrophe. This allowed IT folks to really relax over the weekend, Tarde said, because they don't have to have their phones by their side.
The blackout weekends had become so successful that there were even a couple of months where there were two blackout weekends per month. In the unpublished article, Tarde said: "The rest of the business understands what we’re doing in IT and they support it. ... It seems to be working well. Morale is up, which boosts employee effectiveness and the excellence of work. And, most importantly, our employees really appreciate it."
It seems to us that Tarde is leaving behind the legacy he wanted. He will be greatly missed.
Community of business-minded IT leaders exploring the evolving role of CIOs as they drive business strategy and inspire enterprise-wide innovation.