"If you sing for children, you can’t really say there’s no hope” - Pete Seeger

In the course of the week, I was walking across campus and found myself thinking about retirement, change, and the stages of life. Almost immediately, I remembered the work of Erik Erikson, done in collaboration with his wife Joan, that I studied when I was a student like those surrounding me. The Eriksons’ eight stages of life define a series of conflicts, or choices, between two forces and I’ve found their model very useful ever since I learned about it.

Next I became aware that my efforts to stay positive in the face of challenges are sometimes part of the current, seventh, stage of the model that I am experiencing in my life now. This stage is characterized by the choice between generativity vs. stagnation and I am very conscious of that choice, or conflict, as I work to do things that allow me to feel I have made a positive difference for my family, and society.

I think my choice to leave the private sector and work at the university, despite the reduced opportunities for financial rewards, has been part of my response to this challenge. I’ve often explained to others who asked that I’ve found more satisfaction in looking out the window, or walking across campus, and seeing the students working to become themselves than I did in working to make sure accounts balanced in the financial industry that I left for this job. As I see their faces, lined with concern and fatigue as they complete their papers and labs, and study for their tests, and then lit with joy as they successfully complete another semester or graduate with the degrees they’ve earned, I feel I’ve made the right choice. I’ve had the opportunity to make this choice over again a number of times in the 26+ years I’ve been at the university, as I had opportunities to return to the private sector for more money, and I’m satisfied with my decision to stay and retire from higher education.

I admit there are other very important factors influencing this decision. I have appreciated the security of working for a state university, even when budgets have been bad. It has also been exceptionally important to me to be able to remain in the same place as I fell in love with and married my wonderful partner. Asking her and our sons to move away in search of a job that paid more money was never a viable option. Of all the decisions I’ve made in my life, marrying her, becoming their father, and staying in this place is one I’ve never regretted.

Making a difference for my family is the greatest opportunity of this seventh stage of life for me. I’m glad to be doing work that makes a difference, but the reason I work is ultimately to allow me to make a difference for them. As Charles Slater has written, “Generativity, then is primarily the concern in establishing and guiding the next generation.” Working with my wife to provide for our family, and to support each other in our efforts to matter, is the most meaningful way that I chose generativity over stagnation.

At work, even more than at home, this choice is not without its challenges. Leading the team charged with providing effective, and innovative, IT services to a university in the midst of the crushing budget crises of the Great Recession was frustrating and stressful. There were times when I wondered whether we’d prevail, or fail, and more than one time when I feared being dismissed or felt like giving up and resigning. I may be an optimist, but there is a limit to everything! I’ve learned to have a thick skin when presented with yet another complaint about the inexpensive email system the campus selected through a collaborative process when we had to choose between keeping more people employed and a more expensive option for email. I remain grateful for those who struggled alongside me to advance IT services focussed on student success instead.

Have I made a difference? I’ve wondered when progress toward innovative solutions has been slow and we’ve asked our staff to do more with less. Ultimately, after layoffs, we had to recognize the limits of our capabilities and ask them to do less with less. Today, I can answer my question, “Yes. I have made a difference. We’ve made a difference together.” Sometimes keeping essential services available in the face of budget cuts IS making a difference. In addition, I’m confident the organization I lead was in better shape by the time the university hired a new leader than it was when I assumed my leading role. Finally, after fifteen years of advocacy, we hired our first CIO and have begun the changes that will allow us to make a bigger difference together. I was part of that advocacy and I am working to support this change. I believe I will be able to hold my head up as I retire and know my best was very good.

There have been times over these years when I’ve inadvertently combined stages 7 and 8 of the Eriksons’ model and thought of that as generativity vs. despair. I’m glad I’ve been able to stick with generativity in any case! As I prepare for retirement, and the transition to the eighth stage of ego integrity vs. despair in the years ahead, I remain optimistic. I believe that I will be able to continue making a difference for quite some time yet and to answer the existential question of this stage, “Is it okay to have been me?” with an honest, satisfied, yes. I see similarities between the Eriksons' model and the Hindu Ashram system I wrote about in these essays this past July. The Eriksons' eighth stage and the fourth, sannyasa, stage of the Ashram system, where the focus becomes introspective and on leaving this world in the best way, appeal to me in similar ways.

I’m also grateful that I’ve learned since my own days as a university student of the ninth stage that Joan Erikson added to the model in “The Life Cycle Completed: Extended Version” published in 1998. Both the Eriksons lived well into their 90s and Joan learned that a ninth stage was necessary for these later years. She wrote that all the other eight stages are relevant to these years and described the challenge as being that the conflicts are experienced in reverse order. The challenges of age can lead us to mistrust our capabilities, face feelings of isolation, struggle with feelings of stagnation as we face the effort of caring for ourselves, and feelings of despair as we fight to keep the integrity of our minds and bodies intact; and lose some of the battles in that fight.

Ultimately, Erikson believed that in the face of these challenges, “While there is light, there is hope, and who knows what bright light and revelation any morning may bring?”. In her 90’s, she wrote, “Should you be living and coping with all these hurdles and losses at ninety or more, you have one firm foothold to depend on. From the beginning we are blessed with basic trust. Without it, life is impossible, and with it we have endured. As an enduring strength is has accompanied and bolstered us with hope. Whatever the specific sources of our basic trust may be or have been, and no matter how severely hope has been challenged, it has never abandoned us completely. Life without it is simply unthinkable. If you are still filled with the intensity of being and hope for what may be further grace and enlightenment, then you have reason for living”. 1

I hope I have the opportunity in retirement to face the challenges of ninety and beyond, and I hope I can face them with a grace and enlightenment like the Eriksons. I know I will benefit from their insights and courage in any case.

1 Joan M. Erikson The Life Cycle Completed: Extended Version (W. W. Norton, 1998), 112-11

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing." - Oscar Wilde

As I sit down to write today, I am thinking about an important idea I first learned about at SHARE. As my colleagues at SHARE prepare to gather in San Antonio from February 28 - March 4, I am remembering what I learned from them about thinking of IT as a value center instead of a cost center. While I am certain this way of thinking can be important to any enterprise, I am sure it has exceptional relevance in education. As we seek to engage students in learning, IT-enabled experiences offer great potential for value when used wisely.

In my work at SHARE, and with their zNextGen program, I had the opportunity to learn, and share, about the way we can achieve greater value from IT by understanding the difference between a cost-centered and value-centered approach to investing in information technology. Nearly twenty years ago, Professor N. Venkat Venkatraman, now at Boston University, wrote about the value center idea asking IT managers to think of IT in terms of its role as a cost center, service center, profit center, and investment center. In summary, the idea is to consider how IT is delivering value to an organization as we make decisions in how we invest in, cut the costs of, sell, deliver, or outsource IT functions.

This idea has remained relevant and evolved over the years and is one of the two key concepts Hunter Mueller describes as central to the “big shift” in his recent book, “The Big Shift in IT Leadership: How Great CIOs Leverage the Power of Technology for Strategic Business Growth in the Customer-Centric Economy”. It is also recognized as important to higher education and is one of the four tenets the University of Wisconsin is focusing on in its most recent IT strategic plan:

• Elevate the professionalism of IT Leadership and Staff
• Change IT from a Cost Center to a Value Center
• Substantially Increase Investment in Academic Technology
• Transform the UW System’s capacity to leverage academic and administrative technology-enabled services

In a 1997 article, Professor Venkatraman posed a number of questions about how IT can function as a value center that remain pertinent today. Among these, I have found the following questions especially relevant: How can we move beyond leveraging IT for redesigning current business processes to create new business capabilities? What truly distinguishes our ability to exploit IT functionality differently from our competitors? How can we continually achieve and sustain the required strategic alignment between business and IT operations? What are the driving principles for organizing IT resources in the twenty-first century?

I have been particularly interested in how we can make the best decisions about where we might invest in IT in ways that deliver great value in terms of the impact IT can have in supporting the mission of an organization. One of the concepts we discussed at SHARE was using the notion of value of investment (VOI) alongside that of return on investment (ROI). Especially in situations where it is difficult, or impossible, to measure a fiscal return on an IT investment, the notion of ROI can bias our decisions toward being too tactical and cause us to shy away from bold investments that might allow us to deliver great value.

Especially in higher education, looking for ways to measure the value our investments in things like Learning Management Systems in terms of their impact on student outcomes and success could allow us to better understand the true strategic value of these investments. The wise use of other IT tools, like analytics and data warehouses, can help us measure the impact of different tools, services, and methodologies to help us measure VOI.

In our personal lives, many of the investments my family and I have made have been more about value than return. While I don’t think of family life as I do about running an organization, many important aspects of our personal lives look more like value centers than cost centers to me. We do seek a return on investment as we save for retirement and the education of our children. We certainly manage many practical lines of our family budget, including groceries and transportation expenses, like cost centers. Still, there are many significant investment decisions driven more by the value we receive than the financial return we hope to achieve.

When we travel for pleasure, or purchase art, we don’t measure our results in dollars but in how these choices enrich our lives and relationships by allowing us to share joy and experience wonder with our loved ones. When we purchased our home we considered whether it was a good investment financially, but equally important was our desire to live in a place that brought us joy and satisfaction. As we support our sons’ education, we care about the ability it will give them to earn their livings, but even more about how it will enrich their lives by opening new horizons of knowledge and curiosity for them.

At the university, there are elements in our portfolio of IT services that should be managed as cost centers and service centers. For these we should look for the most cost effective approach, and that which allows us to deliver necessary services most effectively. There are also activities that are better managed as investment centers. For these activities, we need to focus our attention beyond cost and ROI on how wise strategic investments in information technology can deliver exceptional value in supporting the academic mission of the university. We need to answer the question "How can IT truly transform teaching and learning?"

In my career, I’ve spent most of my years working in an environment that treated IT as a cost-center. I’m proud that we were able to deliver an IT strategic plan for the university a number of years ago that began to move us away from strictly cost-centered thinking and toward a more value-centered approach. Our university will unveil its new strategic plan, the first developed under our new president, next month. Our new CIO will lead the process of developing an updated strategic plan for IT that is aligned with the mission, and strategic priorities, the university identifies in its plan. I’m excited by the idea that, through this process, we could become true partners with our academic colleagues in working to transform the lives of our students and the future they will shape.

By treating IT as a value center, and measuring the success of different aspects of our work in ways that allow us to better gauge their impact on our mission, I believe we will make wiser use of the true power of information technology.

I appreciate the learning opportunities I had at SHARE that inspired me to challenge conventional thinking and advance my own value as an IT leader. I’d encourage those of you working in enterprise IT to take advantage of these opportunities by participating at SHARE events in San Antonio next week, Atlanta this summer, or in the future. SHARE will come back to San Jose in the spring of 2017.

"The love of family and the admiration of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege." - Charles Kuralt

Today as we celebrate President’s Day in the US, it is a holiday and not one of the 100 Mondays when I plan to write a full essay. Instead, I’ll share just a few thoughts about Abraham Lincoln and also comment on the holiday they are celebrating today in a number of provinces in Canada.

Today in Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan is Family Day. These three Canadian provinces celebrate this holiday on the third Monday in February and British Columbia celebrates it on the second Monday. I think it is a great idea to set time aside for us to celebrate our families and the wonderful love and closeness so many of us are fortunate to have with these loved ones.

I am also reminded today of how very close friends can become another kind of family when we are lucky enough to find that special bond with them. A number of authors have commented on this and I think Trenton Lee Stewart  says it well in his book "The Mysterious Benedict Society” where he writes,"You must remember, family is often born of blood, but it doesn't depend on blood. Nor is it exclusive of friendship. Family members can be your best friends, you know. And best friends, whether or not they are related to you, can be your family.” I’m so glad to have friends like this and very close friendships with my sisters!

Thinking of my family, I was born in Illinois and Abraham Lincoln has always been a hero of mine. As a boy, my bedroom was decorated with pictures, a copy of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and other reminders of this great man. My sweet mother decorated this room for me and Mom and Dad took our family to Springfield to see Lincoln’s home and other landmarks there.

All my life, I’ve thought of Lincoln as a man who searched his soul to choose what was right, and then found the courage to take that action. I was also drawn to him as I read of his early, and lifelong, devotion to reading and education. From what I’ve read of him, it seems he was both strong and gentle, both practical and wise. I admire Washington, Kennedy, and many others among our presidents. Still, Lincoln is the first one I think of on President’s Day.

I will strive to choose what is right and seek the courage to take that action. I hope to be remembered as a gentle man, and strong enough, especially in the strong love I feel for my family and dear friends.

"On the whole it is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.” - Mark Twain

Today, I am thinking about the very strong belief I have had throughout my career in servant, or steward, leadership. I was introduced to the broader notion of stewardship in the context of communities of faith as a boy and young man. A former boss of mine even questioned the use of the word “steward” as having too religious a connotation but I don’t believe this is the case. For me, it is entirely possible to be a steward, or servant, leader in a secular context. I have found seeing myself in this way as one of the most defining aspects of my approach to leadership and management.

Webster defines “stewardship” as “the conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially: the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care”, and “servant” as “one that serves others. a person who is devoted to or guided by something”. I think these definitions are very helpful as I think about this approach to leadership. A servant leader is devoted to serving the goals of the organization, and the needs and growth of the people, she or he serves. Leading with stewardship means acting with care and responsibility for the mission and people that we have been trusted to care for.

I was fortunate to grow up as a child, as a man, and in my career surrounded by excellent examples of this approach to leadership, and be a few clear examples of how the opposite approach did not fit with my personality and values.  My greatest mentors approached their work as stewards and servants. For a long time, I have envisioned the position of the leader as being at the bottom of an inverted pyramid. While leaders closer to the top of the org chart have more access to using authority, command, and control, they also have greater responsibility to serve and to earn the trust of those they are entrusted with leading. For me, the image of the leader at the bottom, serving and responsible to those who report to her or him, is more helpful than the traditional org chart. Authority is to be used sparingly to manage, and in service of shared goals. Service can be used liberally to earn trust and help others grow stronger in their own service to the organization and to each other. With each layer of leadership serving those they lead, we can best empower everyone to give their best.

I have found that some of the best ways to be an effective steward for those I serve as a leader include to:

• Consider each time we meet what they need from me and how we can best work together to advance their personal, and our shared, goals.
• Listen with care to what they have to tell, and teach, me.
• Talk with them about how their ideas can be put into action so they can best make a difference for the organization we serve.
• Learn how they wish to grow and help them identify opportunities to experience that growth.
• Counsel, and coach, them when I see changes they need to pursue to improve the value of their contributions and their relationships with colleagues.

In addition to those I lead, I am also a steward of the organization's goals and resources, and a servant to those who use the IT services our teams provide. I seek to serve them in much the same way by earning their trust, considering what they need from us, listening with care, discussing options with an open mind, and looking for ways we can serve our students, and university, together. When I give myself to service this way, I can also serve as a role model for those I lead.

I also admit that there can be real challenges associated with seeking to be of service to both those I lead and the organization we serve. Every day brings new opportunities to balance the needs of each by seeking understanding, delivering needed services, working to provide opportunities for employees, and honoring the constraints of budget and the strategic needs of the organization. Some of the most frustrating times are those when I must say “no”, or hopefully just “not yet” to something that I agree would benefit those I serve.

Working in the public sector, and in a union shop, presents special challenges. I believe strongly that the union movement has been critically important to achieving fair treatment for working people and that we have all benefitted from the changes achieved by those who fought with courage for the necessary changes. I have been a union member and part of management and I’ve seen the strengths and weakness of our unions today from both perspectives. As with any organization, there are tradeoffs here, too.

Some of the measures that protect the vast majority of our employees who serve with excellence and dedication can also make it harder to take steps to address performance issues for the few who struggle. Ironically, this difficulty contributes to some of our greatest morale challenges. Efforts by our unions to seek equitable treatment for all can sometimes make it harder for us to reward the outstanding efforts of top performers, and to define career paths that provide new opportunity. The ongoing budget challenges of working for a public, state-funded, university, can make it harder to do as much of what we know is right as quickly as we’d like. Still, I’m convinced we must resist the urge to use these as excuses, or to blame issues on budgets or union contracts, and face each challenge with an honest effort to move forward in service together.

Earlier in my career, before I became a manager, I had the opportunity to work in the private sector as part of a very innovative firm offering IT services to the financial industry. I was never a manager there, but I was able to be of service and to act as a technical leader. I experienced the difference their greater flexibility to reward employees financially, and offer opportunities for growth made for me and my colleagues. I saw the fastest technical and professional growth of my career in the exciting atmosphere of this organization and they had the best career path for IT professionals I’ve ever experienced. Ultimately, they were acquired by another firm and the culture changed but I learned a lot about what is possible while I served there.

I also believe the importance of serving at home and in the community is as great, and often greater, than at work. Serving our family with my partner as steward leaders to help our children to the best of our ability has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Watching our sons grow to become men, and to join us in serving our family and community together, fills my heart with joy. Serving as a volunteer for various community organizations has been deeply satisfying for me. Owning my imperfections, hurting when I fail to live up to the calling of honest, selfless, service, and burning to be better for those I serve, especially my loved ones, has brought real meaning to my life.

Giving myself to the service of something greater than me is a choice I’m glad to have made and one I will make again and again. I don’t regret the choice to earn less money as I’ve worked over 25 years in education, or the choice my partner and I made years ago that allowed her to leave the classroom for a purely volunteer role with the Park Service. In return for these choices we have found careers much more satisfying than work that would have paid more. It’s been so rewarding to have the opportunity to make what feels like a bigger difference that matters more.

I believe all of us can serve, and lead, each other and that our teams are strongest when we are open to each other in this way. I feel the same way about service to the world, society, and especially my family and all my loved ones. I am looking forward to continuing to be of service as my partner and I retire together. I think this may be even more rewarding partly because we won't have to worry as much about making a living! Of course, we also plan to have more fun together, especially with our loved ones, and to have time to pursue our own interests in service, creativity, and personal growth. I admit I can hardly wait!

"It's not hard to make decisions once you know what your values are." - Roy Disney

Today, I am thinking about how important it has been for me to identify, and live by, my values in my career. Of course, this is even more important in my personal life! One of the most significant parts of my growth has been learning what is most important in life, and my professional career, and how I can honor that in my actions.

Arriving at a point where I know what I value most has been a process that has taken place throughout my entire life. I hope it is a process that will always continue as I believe I will always have more to learn. This process has been characterized by learning from my mistakes, and through the relationships I have shared with others. Each misstep has held the promise of growth. Each opportunity to grow closer to those I love and respect, or to learn how to distance myself from those who teach me with their bad examples, has given me the chance to test and strengthen my values.

Some of the most lasting lessons have come from times when I have not lived up to my values and suffered the consequences of those poor choices. Learning what I never want to do, or feel, again has helped me make better choices. Even more powerful have been the times when it has taken courage to stand firm in my values. When I could look at the outcomes of my choices and know with certainty that I had lived up to my best self despite pressure from others, or the fear of failure or rejection. Learning the power, and peace, of having no doubts about my actions has fed my desire to do this as often as possible.

Along the way, I have benefited greatly from the support of my mentors. Considering their values, how they lived these, and the choices they made, has been invaluable. Sometimes they gave me something to measure up to. At other times their approaches provided options and contrasts that helped me refine my beliefs and strengthen my commitment. There is such a thing as a negative mentor and I also value those who showed me examples I’ve worked hard not to emulate. As I came to understand my own values, having the context my mentors provided helped me test and shape what I believe.

As I grew, I learned to recognize that my relationship to my values changes, and that even aspects of my values themselves change over time. One of my mentors shared a story from his own life that has stayed with me and that I have told to a number of my colleagues and protégés. As a young man, he had worked hard to examine his feelings, beliefs, and values, and he had reached a point where he had great confidence that he understood them well. He told me it felt like he had these sorted out as though they were a collection of precious things placed carefully in order in their boxes on a shelf. Years later, in the midst of a serious crisis in his life, he realized these values no longer served him well. This was a great surprise and he told me that he learned he needed to take those boxes down from the shelf and reexamine their contents from time to time.

His experience has helped me over the years as I test and examine my values, and how well them serve me and match my character. Just as he taught me, my values may change as I gain more life experience. Even more important for me has been learning how my understanding of my values, and my appreciation of how I can best live in accordance with them, evolves over time. I have also learned that the same values apply to my professional and personal life and that the only meaningful difference is in how I can best apply them in each context.

Some of the values I have recognized as being of greatest importance to me are these:

Collaboration and communication. I seek to listen to what others have to share and to respect their contributions, and values, even when they don’t agree with my own. I presume competence, and love, in the other. In sharing what I have to contribute, I am open and honest and try not to take it personally when my contributions meet with opposition, disagreement, or even disrespect. I meet others open to working together with them to pursue common goals and to giving my best efforts to help the team succeed.

Acting with integrity and meeting others with trust. I do my very best to be honest with myself and with others, to be gentle in my honesty, and to act in accordance with my values in the best interest of those we serve. I enter into new relationships with trust and work to earn my colleagues’ trust each day.

Authenticity and optimism. I speak and act in ways that genuinely reflect my character, thoughts, and values. I see the best in others and work to make the best of every situation. I believe we can make a positive difference together and experience great satisfaction in the process.

Helping others grow and putting others first. I seek the best for others by considering what they need from me, and by seeking to help them achieve their objectives as we work toward our common goals. I look for opportunities that will support others’ professional development and expect them to make mistakes. I value that this is a way we all grow stronger and wiser by learning from experience, and accept that some mistakes are inevitable as we challenge ourselves to be out best.

Equity. beyond equality. I believe that it is fundamentally important to work to create an environment where each person has a fair and equitable opportunity to realize their individual potential. Equity means seeking justice and will sometimes mean we need to go beyond providing equality. It includes a commitment to the demonstrable fact that we all benefit when we embrace diversity and to work for social justice.

Taking responsibility. I accept personal responsibility for honoring my commitments, and for the results of my actions. I must be ready to admit when I am wrong and to apologize for my mistakes. I must also be prepared to engage fully in responding to unintended consequences of my best intentions. I once had a manager who insisted we never apologize in our communications with those we served and this is an excellent example of negative mentoring. I can’t imagine a career in service that would not include many situations where a sincere apology would be required to honor my values.

Respect. I treat others with respect and expect to have to earn their respect through my actions. I treat others with dignity, compassion and empathy. Earnestly desiring to be respected myself, I know this is only possible when I meet others with genuine respect.

Being of service. I seek to be of service to those who work for me, those I work for, and especially those we serve together. I believe we will achieve the most meaningful and lasting results when we all approach one another with this attitude. I find that one of the most satisfying things in life is to make a positive difference. This is especially true when we can make a difference together.

Humility. I do not seek to draw attention to my contributions but to instead recognize that each of us brings real value to the work we do together. It is often someone else who has made the most significant contribution and I am genuinely grateful to be part of a team of talented and dedicated professionals. When our efforts are successful I would rather give the credit to others. I am content to be one member of the team when we succeed and prepared to take perso responsibility when the teams I lead are not successful.

Above all, to do what is right. In the end, I find that any decision becomes simpler when I apply this value. I do not minimize the challenge of determining what is right in some situations. Still, the effort to work this out is always worth the effort. If the way forward is not yet clear, I believe we have more to learn before making a decision. Once the right choice is clear, it is easier to act even in the most difficult circumstances.

My values affect what I decide to give energy to, to pay attention to, and to prioritize in taking action. They filter out distractions and focus my thoughts on what truly matters. Roy Disney was right. Once you know, and live, your values, making decisions is much easier and more effective.