Make taking personal time a priority for yourself and your team this holiday season. Three leaders share strategies
CIO Research
CIO Research
Take the stress out of taking time off
Time management coach Elizabeth Grace Saunders begins this article with a dismal statistic: Over half of Americans leave some of their hard-earned vacation days on the table. “I’ve observed that pre-vacation work stress typically falls into two buckets: completing work before your departure and being away from the office. Both of these categories can trigger guilt and even fear,” she writes. In this article, she presents a solution: a four-step preparation plan that can set professional up for success. By planning ahead, partnering with peers, and clearly outlining what will not be completed while away, professionals can truly unplug and enjoy their time off.
Collaborative Intelligence: Humans and AI
When it comes to artificial intelligence, there are common fears and misconceptions that hold individuals and businesses back – for instance, that AI will replace humans in the workforce. But that’s not the most likely outcome, according to H. James Wilson and Paul R. Daugherty, and in fact, businesses that deploy AI as a means to displace employees will not achieve significant performance improvements, they argue. In this Harvard Business Review article, they clearly break down the specific skills both humans and machines bring to the table and why a collaborative approach is the best path forward in the AI age. Further, Wilson and Daugherty provide use cases from businesses who have successfully put the power of collaborative intelligence to work.
How to get yourself invited to important meetings
Have you ever felt the sting of being left out of a meeting you believed you should have been invited to? It seems counterintuitive since most of us try to avoid meetings whenever possible. But when an invitation snub sends misleading signals to your team or keeps you out of an important discussion, you may need to take steps to understand why you don’t have a seat at the table, suggest executive coach Nina A. Bowman. In this Harvard Business Review article, she shares tips for professionals to assess their own value and showcase why they should be invited to important meetings. She also provides all too common scenarios, like the peer who intentionally excludes others, and specific tactics for handling each.
3 transitions that test even the best leaders
Cassandra Frangos is an author and consultant who studies successful leaders and how they make it to the top. Through her research and interviews, she’s also learned what makes them fail. “I found that executives whose careers had been derailed shared many commonalities. Specifically, I found that C-suite executives are vulnerable to career failure when they are in the midst of one of three common transition scenarios,” Frangos writes in this Harvard Business Review article. A leap into leadership can saddle executives with more than they bargained for, for instance. In this article, Frangos dives into three of the toughest transitions leaders face and offers tips to avoid getting tripped up on the way to the top.
How to create a purpose-driven organization
Professors Robert E. Quinn and Anjan V. Thakor studied hundred of organizations and found that: “When an authentic purpose permeates business strategy and decision making, the personal good and the collective good become one. Positive peer pressure kicks in, and employees are reenergized. Collaboration increases, learning accelerates, and performance climbs.” Striving to be a purpose-driven company seems like a no-brainer based on Quinn and Thakor’s assessment, yet many executives intentionally avoid working on their firm’s purpose, they say. In this Harvard Business Review article, Quinn and Thakor offer up an eight-step framework for managers to embrace a purpose that the entire organization can get on board with. It’s more than just a lofty idea, they say. “People who find meaning in their work don’t hoard their energy and dedication. They give them freely, defying conventional economic assumptions about self-interest. They grow rather than stagnate. They do more – and they do it better.”
The ultimate DevOps hiring guide
Not all IT leaders like the term DevOps: Some prefer to just call it the agile way of working. But however you describe it, this style of working – which prizes speed, experimentation, and collaboration, all happening on nimble, cross-functional teams – has taken the enterprise by storm. It has demanded new IT leadership strategies. Above all, it has demanded culture change, as teams ditch old processes, rip down rules between groups, and accept “failures” as quick lessons on how to iterate their way to better products and services. For this kind of change, you need the right people.
Whether you're a DevOps job seeker or you're hiring DevOps experts, this guide delivers peer-to-peer advice from IT leaders and DevOps practitioners, who know the challenges all too well, as well as insights from related experts such as recruiters.
Download the guide for practical advice, analysis, and statistics on the state of the DevOps hiring market.
The new rules of CIO leadership
Are you leading by an outdated rulebook? The future is being built on new technologies, data, and digitization. To transform and compete in the face of disruption, top chief information and digital officers – true transformation masters – are rewriting the rules of CIO leadership.
This new research from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services identifies seven new rules of leadership based on interviews with leading technology executives, including CIOs from Adobe, AT&T, Cardinal Health, Toyota, Vanguard, and Walmart.
Download this report to learn their secrets for breaking down walls, resetting expectations, and leading in a completely new model.
Fast Start Guide: Creating a sense of urgency, with John Kotter
John Kotter, organizational change guru and author of "Leading Change" and "A Sense of Urgency," shares five tips to help leaders infuse a sense of urgency within teams. Get our fast start guide (.PDF):
Hybrid cloud security: 5 questions skeptics will ask
Get advice from your peers on how to get people to buy into your architectural vision and build a strong hybrid cloud security posture. Download our concise guide (PDF).
15 top CIOs share wisdom on creating revenue
How do you please the CEO? Generate new revenue streams for the business. Abbie Lundberg interviews CIOs from organizations including CVS Health, GE, and Liberty Mutual, and explores their proven strategies. Get our Harvard Business Review Analytic Services study.
Download the full report: "Revenue-Generating CIOs: Smart Strategies to Grow the Business"