This week’s topics include leadership and information assurance. I hope you enjoy the best of what I read this week.

Leadership

• Very good article: Why Few Executives are Skillful Managers.
• Ted Kennedy, Low Potential Leader You don’t need to have everything figured out by a certain age in order to be successful
• Do you have the courage to say, “No more yes, it’s either HELL YEAH or no” It’s good advice for all of us.
• What to do When You’re Out of Control Most of use do not enjoy the feeling that we are out of control, but it happens more than we care to admit.
• Interesting article on what it takes to successfully implement a major technology project from a CIO’s point of view: New Name for CIOs: Strategic Execution Officer

Other Stuff

• Interesting article on Behavioral Economics: Design Your Customers’ Decisions. You should understand how you can be manipulated into choosing a more expensive product.

This week’s topics include leadership and information assurance. I hope you enjoy the best of what I read this week.

Leadership

• A good reminder to evaluate what makes you happy and to find a way to do that for “work”.  A Bad Day at the Lake is Better Than a Good Day at Work
• Interview with Best Buy CEO: For Insights, Go to the Front Lines. Learn from the people doing the work.
• The Netflix Culture. Would you like to work there? Does your company look anything like this.
• Two Steps to Simplify Your Workday. Are you willing to hold your peers accountable for improving productivity?
• Services Your Customers Really Want. I think this applies to internal and external customers.

Information Assurance

• Cheat sheets on all sorts of topics related to computer networks, security, and even how to communicate better.
• Super-safe Web Browsing – good advice for the paranoid or those who just want to keep their identity.
• More details on the Heartland Credit Card Hackers

This week’s topics include leadership and information assurance, and a fun item or two. I hope you enjoy the best of what I read this week.

Leadership

• Grit better indicator of success than intelligence: The Truth About Grit
• Lessons Learned From 30 Years of Leadership: great advice from Dick Harrington former CEO of Thomson Reuters
• Detachment Leads to Greatness
• Seth Godin’s article The Scientific Method succinctly describes why you should listen and learn rather than defend.
• Finding Forgiveness: An Act of Leadership
• Use your story telling skills to lead: How a 2 Minute Story Helps You Lead

Information Assurance

• If you are in any way responsible for PCI, read this article: An Open Letter to Robert Carr, CEO of Heartland Payment Systems

This week’s topics include leadership and information assurance. I hope you enjoy the best of what I read this week.

Leadership

• 10 Things Business Schools Won’t Teach You Do you folks holding a MBA agree?
• The Value Every Business Needs to Create Now. Very interesting discussion about profits – not all profit is the same.
• Hire People Who Disagree with You. Are you secure enough to hire people who disagree with you?
• 4 Rules for Effective Negotiation
• Collaboration – If it Were Easy We Would All Do it Well This article provides links to more documentation and a video lecture on the topic.
• Calm the Tantrum Throwers in the Corner Office I hope none of you are acting this way or are dealing with someone who is, but just in case, read this article.
• How Women Have Changed Norway’s Boardrooms,

“Women, in sufficient numbers, change board dynamics for the better. Why? Because as a group, women tend to display a different set of characteristics from men as a group — characteristics that broaden discussions, reduce unnecessary risks that a corporation takes on, and punish people who would increase foolish risks.

For instance, women tend to demand more facts and details. Said one former CEO and current board member: “If I had to generalize about the differences between men and women on boards? Women are more interested in getting the facts. Much more prepared; ask many more questions. Men tend to shoot from the hip. Women on boards are also more interested in how the organization will actually work. Think of an acquisition or a re-org to take a company more global. When women are in the discussion, they ask questions like: ‘Don’t just show me the Powerpoint. Who are these people? What are their responsibilities? Matrix type questions. Women tend to see the organization as more of a living thing.”

Information Assurance

• 44% of US SMBs have experienced cybercrime of one form or another. Read this SC article A rise in cybercrime hits SMBs. What are you doing to prevent becoming a victim?
• Nearly Half of Brits Say They Won’t Use Firms Involved in Security Breaches

Don’t let the short list this week fool you. These are all very good articles on leadership.

Leadership

• NY Times interview with Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive of Adobe Systems: “If you set a common vision and then get really scary-smart people, they do things that amaze you.” I love his management philosophy and productivity methods.
• Tammy Erickson’s article in the Harvard Business Publishing, Why Generation X Has the Leaders We Need Now.
• Thought provoking article, What Do You Do? What Do you do? I don’t know about you, but these questions always stump me, and I have to put a lot of thought into them.

I read an awful lot of articles, blog posts, and books and thought you readers might find at least some of them useful. Each week I’ll post links to the ones that I found most interesting or useful. I’ve also created a category, Reading List, so you can easily find and review these lists at your leisure.

Topics included this week are leadership and information assurance. This week I include a video interview about the importance of leadership and communication during tough times.

Leadership

• John Baldoni’s How to Make People Feel Passionate About Their Work Read this one for sure. You owe it to yourself and to your people.
• Another good article by John Baldoni, To Lead More Effectively, Increase Your Self Confidence.
• 3 Questions for Better Brainstorming. Facilitating brainstorming is a critical skill for collaboration.
• Collaboration is more than tools, it starts at the top. Read Breaking the Culture Code.
• From the Wall Street Journal: What Detroit Can Learn From Silicon Valley. Leaders must recognize changes in their industry and be willing to adapt.
• Nine Ways to Ignite Innovation Inside Your Company excellent information, and I can vouch for most of them. I encourage you to read this article and adopt one of these steps and see the difference it makes.

Information Assurance

• A blog post about illegal interception of communications. I happen to believe in our constitution, and agree with the author that there are legal methods to acquire this information, and there is no need to trample the constitution. This is no way for a great country to behave, and I hope we put an end to it soon.

Other Stuff

• Consult remarkable people to help you get a different perspective.
• Get creative to survive the changing economy. An article from US Today.

I read an awful lot of articles, blog posts, and books and thought you readers might find at least some of them useful. Each week I’ll post links to the ones that I found most interesting or useful. I’ve also created a category, Reading List, so you can easily find and review these lists at your leisure.

Topics included this week are leadership, certifications, and information assurance.

Leadership

• Great Communicators are Great Explainers. To be a great leader you have to communicate with those you lead. “What does it mean and why are we doing it?” As a leader you have to consistently communicate this to get your people on board. Read this one if you lead people or plan to lead people.
• Last week I wrote a post about having fun at work, and then I read this post by Seth Godin. You can use this approach to have fun, and improve your customer service or operations or anything that you want people to improve. Make a game out of it. Look for the behavior you want, and you will find it. Have your people look for it and they will find it and will change their behavior to match.
• 5 Things I Wish They Taught Me in School. A good post by Paul Gardner regarding productivity. The sooner you learn these skills, the more productive, less stressed and happier you will be.
• Why Hope Matters Now A good article discussing how leaders can and should express hope to help improve their businesses.
• Deloitte study on use of social media in the workplace. Businesses are at risk of suffering a loss of reputation.
• Q&A with Jacqueline Kosecoff, chief executive of Prescription Solutions, a UnitedHealth Group company, chief executive of Prescription Solutions, a UnitedHealth Group company. Good advice for people, particularly women in management positions. NY Times article and you’ll need a (free) login.
  

Certifications

• juecker.net Jacob just earned his CCIE and he is writing a blog to help others. He created his own blueprint and has posted some questions and answers to sample problems. He’s just getting started, so be sure to get his RSS feed.

Information assurance

• Washington Post article about hacking franchises. This may not be news to some of you, but there are organized groups that control large groups of hacked computers and sell access to those computers to spammers and other criminal types.
• Security Guidelines created by public and private security experts. This list should help you prioritize your security efforts. You can read the article and / or see a list of the controls. This includes a list of Quick Wins that you can implement first, but beware, “… that a Quick Win does not necessarily mean that these subcontrols provide comprehensive protection against the most critical attacks. The intent of identifying Quick Win areas is to highlight where security can be improved rapidly. These items are identified in this document with the label of “QW.”
• Blog post by Dr Anton Chuvakin reviewing the merits (or lack of same) of a letter sent by merchants to the PCI Council. This is a must read if you deal with PCI.
• Deloitte study on use of social media in the workplace. Businesses are at risk of suffering a loss of reputation.