John Chambers is 57, which might suggest that he knows less about technology than the typical 14-year-old.
Except that Chambers is not your average fiftysomething. He is CEO of tech giant Cisco Systems, and he spoke with USA TODAY corporate management reporter Del Jones about executives and leaders and how to compensate for their blind spots when it comes to technology.
• A CEO who doesn’t understand technology can rest assured that competing CEOs will.
• Talk to those who know technology better than yourself. Encourage tech experts to be your teachers. Listen.
• Don’t pretend that you understand the jargon. Ask engineers to speak English.
• A love of gadgets is irrelevant. Learn how technology can help spot market changes and achieve goals.
Photo by Jack Gruber, USA TODAY.
Ripley on March 21st, 2007 at 5:14 am
Hi Rich,
I’m not sure I agree with the title Top Leaders WILL Know Technology (emphasis mine.)
It’s been a recurring historical fact that the top technological leaders of their day fail to realise the potential of the next great tech.
Didn’t the founder of IBM work for a typewriter company that failed to recognise the ideas that he put forward as having value.
The IBM failed to realise that the future was more in software than hardware when they signed away the most lucrative part of the computer business to Microsoft?
Then MS failed to see the Web. Enter Google.
It seems to be that all the leaders fall to some upstart somewhere. Sounds a bit like the fate of the gunslingers of the old west. The old make way for the young. :-)