Are You A Wolf CIO?

The Wolf in CIO Clothing

About four months ago, I attended a Gartner dinner and received a copy of The Wolf in CIO's Clothing from author Tina Nunno. I took the quiz right away (I won't tell you my scoring, but let's just say I am not a lamb), but it's taken me a while to finally read the book.

If you're a CIO or aspire to be one, I suggest you download a copy. It's a quick read packed with key insights on managing relationships, negotiating, championing IT, prioritizing, leveraging information, and, when necessary engaging in warfare.

I won't give away the details, but I will share some of my favorite one-line takeaways. You'll need to read the book to fully understand them.

  • "Happy" is not a business goal. Leaders pursue growth, competitive advantage, mission enhancement, and cost management.

  • Don't bring data to a knife fight.

  • Avoid giving your power to others who will not use it wisely.

  • Sometimes your goal is to successfully choose between bad and worse.

  • Take nothing for granted, and do your research.

  • Treat information as a weapon, and don't load the gun aimed at you.

  • Give them what they really want rather than what they asked for.  
  • Apply precision strikes to prevent smaller problems from becoming larger ones.

  • Wolf CIOs choose to fight the wars no one thought to fight. 

  • Spend too much time on the light side and risk becoming lunch.

Another good read for CIOs and IT leaders is The CIO Paradox.

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About Isaac Sacolick

Isaac Sacolick is President of StarCIO, a technology leadership company that guides organizations on building digital transformation core competencies. He is the author of Digital Trailblazer and the Amazon bestseller Driving Digital and speaks about agile planning, devops, data science, product management, and other digital transformation best practices. Sacolick is a recognized top social CIO, a digital transformation influencer, and has over 900 articles published at InfoWorld, CIO.com, his blog Social, Agile, and Transformation, and other sites. You can find him sharing new insights @NYIke on Twitter, his Driving Digital Standup YouTube channel, or during the Coffee with Digital Trailblazers.