Leadership

Does the EA’s Wardrobe Matter?

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A slightly humorous post on fashion and enterprise architecture. On two separate occasions I’ve been privy to conversations among enterprise architects discussing fashion. That’s right; grizzled veterans (guys) of the business world musing over what to wear. It was like an episode of “Say Yes to the Dress” gone bad. It started with Mike Walker mentioning this […]

Personal Learning Plans Support Employee Retention

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I have been a strong advocate of implementing Personal Learning Plans (PLP) for employees for years.  This concept was introduced to me during my years working at the British Columbia Institute of Technology.  I used the Personal Learning Plan process to help my teams improve their abilities in the jobs they have and to advance their […]

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Where should IT be in the reporting structure?

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Where do we place IT in the reporting structure of an organization? The topic of reporting structures and IT’s placement has nagged me for years.  The typical answer is “it depends” and that is not wrong.  Based on my experiences, I am firmly convinced that IT needs to report to the Chancellor/President/CEO, essentially the top level in […]

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When Free Isn’t Better

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Free is awesome. Especially at lunch. But as they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Giving away some of our own personal value/intellectual property is essential in winning business from others. Its the free sample at the grocery store of the warm, organic bread that lures you into buying the whole […]

Internal Alignment

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Have you ever tried to drive a car where the front-end is out of alignment? I’m no mechanic, but there are several components that make up the “front-end” that need to be adjusted correctly. This includes the front wheels themselves. Otherwise, one can feel the car pull from side-to-side or sometimes just drift while driving […]

Do You Feel Safe?

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  I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about organizations, culture, leadership, and performance. Recently I spoke at the ISM conference in Las Vegas on The Elusive High Performance Organization. (And they are very elusive.) I had the good fortune to hear a number of other people speak about talent management and career […]

We don’t need another Hero

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Developing strategies and approaches to change this culture is key to moving our organizations to a Service Management model. It all starts with taking the time to plan, analyze and implement processes. Not easy but the end results are far more effective than ad hoc solutions created in a time of crisis. We don’t need another Hero!

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Designing for Emergence

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The world around us is becoming more complex, it is almost accelerating away from us. Being able to plan in this ever evolving world is becoming even more difficult as time passes.  New technology, and approaches almost appear daily, which makes planning for these events, almost impossible. Linear approaches to design are no longer the Read More

Four Skills for the 21st Century Leader

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A couple of weeks ago, Accelare collaborated with Penn State and Gartner Research to produce a 3 ½ day executive education workshop entitled “Enterprise Transformation and Integration: Beyond IT/Business Alignment”. One of most interesting presentations was by Al Vicere, Executive Education Professor of Strategic Leadership for The Smeal College of Business on the 21st century […]