The responses I provided to an "anonymous" media outlet series of queries on May 12, 2017:
My responses ended up being included in an article on "The Enterprisers Project" (June 8, 2017), a collaborative effort between CIO magazine, Harvard Business Review, and Red Hat, alongside 8 others including the CEO of Sencha and CIOs from ServiceNow, Humana, and Adobe. Extent of quote highlighted in orange. Above image from cited article.
Media: Change is a constant in IT. How as a leader have you become more comfortable with uncertainty?
Gfesser: Being comfortable with uncertainty is a must in IT. Early in my career, I attempted to eliminate all uncertainty, but came to realize that this goal is unrealistic in most scenarios. Some might recall the Donald Rumsfeld quote that addresses what is known, what is unknown, and the four permutations consisting of known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns. Recognizing that these latter two permutations exist but are potentially not discoverable is necessary as an IT leader.
Media: How do you quickly refocus when thrown off course?
Gfesser: I remind myself that working in an agile manner helps enable the ability to steer in a different direction than was otherwise planned. While it is important to understand that planning is important in IT, focus directed toward creating detailed plans that are likely to change tends to lead the creator to think about the sunk costs involved in this type of activity, potentially increasing the likelihood of change resistance.
See all of my responses to media queries here.