5. Focus On Emotional Intelligence
It is clear that emotional intelligence needs to play a bigger role in the IT space, all the way from the CTO down to the system administrator. The skills to perform a job or a task can be learned, but if the individual performing that job does not understand how to treat people both within and outside their organization, then there could be major issues that may tear the company apart. — Alex Lesser, PSSC Labs
6. Show The Value Of Sharing Data Between Organizations
Be aware of where the data lives, and beware of silos in the data. Information is power, and it can be hard to get people to share. Technology executives must show the value of sharing data between organizations and how the value of combining what they know (along with appropriate processing and visualization) is greater than keeping the data to themselves. — Jeff Catlin, Lexalytics, Inc
7. Call For Candor And Diversity
It’s very easy to build an organization of people who think like you and agree with all of your decisions. All of the best teams are filled with people who are comfortable speaking up and arguing with each other in order to come up with the best solutions. Focus on candor and diversity as you scale your group, in order to ensure that all of your team’s ideas are the best ideas. — Nick Seegmiller, Vivint Smart Home
8. Set A Vision And Strategy That Others Will Adopt
In today’s world of rapid change around business operating models and serving evolving customer needs, technology executives need to operate from a position of setting the vision and strategy for today and the future, which can be understood and adopted by the culture of their organization. An organization of agility always succeeds. — Gabby Nizri, Ayehu, Inc
9. Make A Difference When It Comes To Cybersecurity
Everyone needs to have a fundamental understanding of how cybersecurity impacts their world. It can make or break projects, companies and careers. And the common thinking is that it will only get worse. Technology executives are in the best position to make a difference for their companies and should be a part of security, no matter what aspects of technology they are involved in. — George Finney, Southern Methodist University
10. Learn From Those Doing Something Extraordinary
Don’t believe the hype: The company getting the most attention isn’t necessarily the one doing the most important things. Look beyond the current flavor of the day, dig a bit deeper and discover what people and organizations are actually doing truly revolutionary things behind the scenes. Then examine how you can extrapolate lessons learned to your area of expertise. — AJ Abdallat, Beyond Limits
11. Make Sure Quality Software Is Used In Your Goods
Technology executives need to understand the impact of software on their business. A wide range of manufactured goods — from jet engines to temperature sensors — are integrating into more embedded computing capacity and relying more on software to control the behavior of the device. The quality of that software has a direct correlation with the quality of their brand. — Jeffrey Fortin, Vector Software
12. Discover How Scalable Your Growth Strategy Really Is
Technology executives need to understand how to produce revenue on an efficient unit-economics basis. Too many venture-backed tech companies rely on user growth or topline growth to mask deeper inefficiencies. Unit economics such as your cost to acquire a customer and lifetime customer value are good indicators of how scalable your growth strategy really is. — Cory Capoccia, Womply