8CIOReview | | FEBRUARY 2023IN MY OPINIONWe all have heard of Thought Leadership; in fact, in some areas such as sales and marketing, there are rather robust processes, but what about Information Technology (IT)? The never-ending quest of IT leaders is to become better thought leaders, to keep organizations safe and running, but with the constant technological changes happening, where do we begin? The biggest challenges of being an effective thought leader in technology are technology knowledge and vendor management. Technology is expanding what seems to be an exponential rate and Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Predictive Analytics, Green Tech, Supply Chain, Digital Identity, and overall IoT Security have become focus areas. The sheer number of technology companies is expanding quickly but there seems to be little that ties everything together as evidenced by the continued low rates of project successes. This might be due to biased or myopic approaches in an endless circle of repeating the same old ways because the industry is designed to sell as much software and related services as possible rather than focus on what is best for organizations who are trying to implement technologies for improved and increased data collection and systems integration to improve costs, throughput, quality, and real-time information. Providing the best answers to questions are difficult to wrap up into innovative conversations, so where do we start?Well, let's start with challenging the status quo by understanding how to recognize misinformation, false expectations, and blind spots. The first step is delegating the right tasks to the right people with the right capacity while simultaneously launching plans to increase cross-skilling to help ease monotony and keeping stakeholders in the loop. Secondly, as IT projects are prone to cost and schedule overruns, it is important that leaders provide leadership throughout stages and building a second line of qualified leaders. Honesty and transparency are often lacking as software generally focus on cookie-cutter approaches with a focus on bells and whistles but they should be addressing specific use cases because supporting a deficient system can get costly. Producing content that is well-curated and well-researched around organizational challenges positions leaders as thought leaders.We all want to make the organization a better place as it relates to delivering advanced capabilities, enhance collaborations and information access, providing a robust modernized infrastructure, and driving centralized support while improving security. The business wants to advance business management practices that call for a certain amount of customization and variance to ensure performance of core business functions. These two areas are seemingly opposed in many ways because customizations are more difficult for IT leaders to manage and support which is why knowledge management is becoming more critical as a Thought Leadership principle for IT Leaders. Knowledge management can be a systematic approach of capturing and organizing information to ensure that information is available and people Christopher NicholsBy Christopher Nichols, Director IT/OT Resiliency & Support, Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.ELEVATING THOUGHT LEADERSHIP IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
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