My Thoughts on achieving your dreams.... mine is becoming a CTO with a large company....

I am currently enrolled for a degree and my assignment this week was chasing your dreams and what steps one must take to achieve them... so I took a moment to write my thoughts on the matter.

When thinking about my desired position (Chief Technology Officer - CTO) and what I would have to do to properly prepare myself to be successful, I would have to say that planning and management would be key components for success; however networking and peer confidence in my abilities to succeed as a CTO are the vital pieces.

When analyzing something I usually take a step back and study people first. Getting a better understanding of the way they think, they way they perform and most importantly how they handle pressure provides me with all the tools that enable me to learn and ensure success. Understanding the key requirements of the position and studying individuals that hold these positions today; enable me to see how they've succeeded and how they failed. Closely monitoring CTO's in multiple companies (some successful and some unsuccessful) allows me to see trends and patterns of failure and success. Then I can apply them to my career and watch for signs (I call them red flags) to ensure I don't make the same mistakes someone else made before. This will help me achieve better success not just in getting the position, but being successful in that position once I am there.

I am lucky in that I work for a public company that has CTO and CIO officers, what makes me lucky however is that I know and work with them personally all the time; so this gives me an advantage is that I get to learn hands-on by shadowing them and working alongside them on a day to day basis. This also gives me the ability later on in my career to network and request references from these individuals (who are respected by their peers) to ensure I stand out from the crowd of applicants for the position. This is the key part of networking that not a lot of people take advantage of when trying to reach their dreams.

The technology field is very different from many other fields in that a degree is a "nice to have" and not a "must have". Knowing the right people and having the respect of those people usually plays the biggest part of the equation when trying to move into a new career.

Using tools such as LinkedIn will enable me to get great references I can use later and more importantly tap into old resources and co-workers who might enable me to solve an issue within the company and be a "superstar" asset to the corporation. Having the ability to tap into resources, friends and knowledgeable people is the ideal environment for a successful CTO.

Now this sounds like a lot of work to achieve success in this position and this is where flexibility comes in. Learning the important pieces and not getting stuck on the little ones is very important. Ensuring that you allow yourself enough time to really learn how things work and then apply them correctly, accurately and successfully is the best way to achieve success. This is what differentiates the good CTO from the best CTO.

We have a saying at our company "It's all about the people" and I believe that 100%. I believe that companies come and go (especially in this economy) and it's the people you work with that you take or take you with them to the next company that tend to matter most. Having a good amount of resources that you can leverage and who in a moments' notice would work with and for you are key to achieving success as a CTO. These are the people that will work alongside you to make the company bigger and better.

To me the nine steps outlined in chapter 10 (of the book I am reading for class) are right on key, I live these on a day to day basis in my career... However if I have to pick the top 3 ones that I think as more important; I would say they are as follows:

Dream - I am an entrepreneur at heart, so naturally dreaming is part of being me. I dream and dream big on my day to day life. I live by the belief that if you are going to go for it, you should aim high... if you miss at least you'll hit a star... Don't sell yourself short, ever.

Wayne Gretzky once said "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, so take a chance and shoot!" This is like dreaming to me, if you don't aim high and dream it will never happen.

The next one on my list would be read, read, read. Technology as we all know is challenging and moves pretty fast. The reason it is challenging is because the moment something is used it is antiquated and new solutions and tools need to be implemented to stay up with everyone else. It's like buying a computer and the moment you set it up it's an older model. The same is true in all aspects of technology. Keeping this in mind, you must read and stay up to date with all you can (many different technologies, techniques, products, etc) to ensure you don't become a caveman in the field. This is the faster way to career suicide.

Last, I would have to say is shadow as much as you can. No one ever gets to the top alone, ever. Being lucky plays a part in the road to success, but the ability to work with peers and learn from them is probably the most important part of the puzzle. If you are lucky enough to know an individual that does what you want to do, pick their brain, ask questions, study them and learn how they are successful in what they do. These are the building blocks that will make you a success.

Now going back to "all about the people part"... Things to keep in mind are that you are never ever going to agree on everything. Some things you will ask yourself why are we doing it like that? Or shouldn't this be done this way to achieve better results/profits for the company? This is where you must learn to deal with conflicts. Picking your battles is a big part of success in my mind. I believe this can also be called dealing with the politics of a corporate environment.

I have on many occasions had to speak up or point something out that made someone look bad, but instead of "throwing them under the bus"; I made suggestions that enabled them to see the issues without hurting any ones feelings or causing issues down the road. This enabled me to get better results for the company without burning a bridge that I might need to tap into at a later point in my career. This is where dealing with conflict becomes part of my specialty and why it would make me a great CTO somewhere down in my career. I have the ability to lead, follow and learn easily, as easily as breathing is to all of us, but what I believe my strongest point lies is in the ability to talk tech and business easily and translate things without losing details. I can talk to a real technical individual and point out solutions or risks then turn around and have a corporate discussion with someone that has no technical background. This is the largest piece I have seen to being successful as a CTO because it ensures that you can drive the results needed and more importantly ensure that everyone is speaking the same language.

In closing, I believe that hard work will be the most rewarding piece of the equation when trying to achieve success.

To quote Guy Kawasaki in "Rules for Revolutionaries" to be successful you have to "Think Different".

You have to "Create like a God, Command like a King, Work like a Slave".

These are the key fundamentals to success in the IT field and unless you live your life by them, the ability to be successful in most cases will not be possible.

I hope this clearly outlines what I believe I need to do to be successful. What are your thoughts on the matter.. how do you see yourself achieving your dreams?

Pablo