More from the Author

• Book | 2012

  Harder Than I Thought: Adventures of a Twenty-First Century Leader

  Robert D. Austin, Richard L. Nolan and Shannon O'Donnell

  Being a great leader today is much harder than you think—meet Jim Barton. He's a newly minted CEO, rising leader of a firm in transition, and manager of massive complexity—thanks to our incredibly networked and increasingly unpredictable world of business. What if you were in his shoes? If you're a top executive today, you probably are. "Harder Than I Thought" is a fictional narrative that puts the increasingly complex job of Chief Executive in a very real context. It serves as a practical guide by allowing you to walk alongside Jim as he takes on his new role and all its attendant challenges. Jim's story—developed in collaboration with seasoned, real-life CEOs—includes crucial lessons for anyone hoping to master the new-world skills required of successful business leaders today. As the narrative unfolds, Jim grapples with an array of business crises, some he inherited and some of his own making. As events push this new leader to the edge of his abilities, he seeks counsel from a panel of advisers—resulting in a wealth of teaching moments bound to keep you captivated. Experts agree that many twentieth-century leadership practices won't work in the turbulent twenty-first century. This engaging book gives you the insights you'll need to navigate in a fast-changing business landscape.

  Citation:

  Austin, Robert D., Richard L. Nolan, and Shannon O'Donnell. Harder Than I Thought: Adventures of a Twenty-First Century Leader. Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.

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• Article | Academy of Management Learning & Education | September 2009

  The Technology Manager's Journey: An Extended Narrative Approach to Educating Technical Leaders

  Robert D. Austin, Richard L. Nolan and Shannon O'Donnell

  Technology management poses particular challenges for educators because it requires a facility with different kinds of knowledge and wide-ranging learning abilities. We report on the development and delivery of an information technology (IT) management course designed to address these challenges. Our approach is built around a narrative, the "IVK extended case series," a fictitious but reality-based story about a newly appointed, not technically trained chief information officer (CIO) in his first year on the job. We designed the course around a narrative and composed the narrative in a specific way to achieve two key objectives. First, this format allowed us to combine the active student orientation typical of case-based approaches with the systematic construction of cumulative theoretical frameworks more characteristic of lecture-based methods. Second, basing the narrative on the monomyth—a literary pattern common to important narratives around the world that encourages students to more fully inhabit the story's hero—leads to fuller engagement and more active learning. We report results using this approach with undergraduate and graduate students in two universities located in different countries, with executives at a major multinational corporation, and with participants in an open-enrollment program at a major business school. Student course feedback and a follow-up survey administered about one year after the course suggest that the extended narrative approach mostly achieves its design objectives. We suggest that the approach might be used more widely in teaching technology management, particularly with "digital natives," who have come of age in an environment crowded with engaging approaches to communication and entertainment competing for their attention.

  Keywords: Information Technology; Management; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Business Education; Multinational Firms and Management; Entertainment; Communication; Curriculum and Courses; Framework; Design; Goals and Objectives; Learning; Information Technology Industry;

  Citation:

  Austin, Robert D., Richard L. Nolan, and Shannon O'Donnell. "The Technology Manager's Journey: An Extended Narrative Approach to Educating Technical Leaders." Academy of Management Learning & Education 8, no. 3 (September 2009).

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• Book | 2009

  The Adventures of an IT Leader

  Robert D. Austin, Richard L. Nolan and Shannon O'Donnell

  Becoming an effective IT manager presents a host of challenges-from anticipating emerging technology to managing relationships with vendors, employees, and other managers. Ultimately, a good IT manager must be a strong business leader, not just a technical specialist. By inviting you to "walk in the shoes" of an IT leader, this book will help you better understand the role of IT in your organization and navigate your own career with greater confidence. Accompany Jim Barton as he struggles through a challenging first year as the IT director of IVK Corporation, handling (and fumbling) situations that, although fictional, are based on true events. You can read this engaging narrative from beginning to end, like a regular book, or treat it as a series of cases. You can also skip around and use the book to satisfy your most pressing needs. For example, need to learn about crisis management and security? Read chapters 10-12. Or formulate your own responses to a CIO's management obstacles by reading the authors' recurring "Reflection" questions. You'll turn to this book again and again-thumbing through to reference critical chapters when you face troubling IT-related issues in your own career. [Amazon copy]

  Keywords: Books; Leadership; Crisis Management; Personal Development and Career; Relationships; Safety; Information Technology;

  Citation:

  Austin, Robert D., Richard L. Nolan, and Shannon O'Donnell. The Adventures of an IT Leader. Harvard Business Press, 2009.

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