This episode explores the power of long-term networking and why IT professionals should consistently maintain relationships with colleagues, former coworkers, managers, mentors, business contacts, and technology professionals.

Long-term relationships can create opportunities for career growth, knowledge sharing, mentoring, referrals, collaboration, and professional development.

Related episodes: Professional Connections; Technical Thought Leadership; Thinking Like a CIO.

In Part 2 of this three-part series, we continue examining different types of difficult employees and practical approaches managers can use to address challenging behaviors.

Related episodes: Part 1; Building Trust; Employee Loyalty.

As technology professionals move into management, they often face a difficult question: How much time should they continue spending on technical knowledge versus developing management, leadership, business, and interpersonal capabilities?

This episode explores the role technical knowledge plays in effective IT management.

In Part 1 of this three-part series, the ITML Institute examines different types of difficult employees and the management challenges they create.

Understanding the type of behavior you're dealing with is an important first step toward choosing an appropriate management approach.

This episode explores five reasons IT professionals can benefit from teaching, mentoring, coaching, and sharing their technical knowledge.

Teaching can strengthen communication skills, deepen your understanding, increase your visibility, build relationships, and establish you as a trusted resource.

This episode explores how IT Managers can work more effectively with Finance, including communicating about budgets, costs, investments, priorities, business value, and financial expectations.

Understanding Finance is an important part of becoming a stronger IT business partner.

This episode presents six ways IT professionals and managers can begin developing a CIO mindset. Moving from technical or operational management toward executive leadership requires broader business thinking, strategic perspective, financial understanding, organizational awareness, communication, and leadership.

This episode explores how IT professionals can work more effectively with vendors, establish productive relationships, communicate expectations, manage performance, and create better outcomes.

Strong vendor management can help IT organizations improve service, control costs, manage risk, and maximize the value of external partners.

This episode provides three practical steps IT professionals can use to improve their chances of getting meaningful, high-value projects.

This episode explores what IT Managers should consider when evaluating a contractor-to-employee conversion, including performance, skills, organizational needs, cultural fit, cost, and long-term value.

This episode provides 10 practical ways IT professionals can build and maintain relationships with colleagues, former coworkers, managers, mentors, business contacts, and other technology professionals.

Networking isn't simply about finding your next job. Strong relationships can provide knowledge, mentoring, career opportunities, referrals, and professional support.

This episode provides 12 practical tips for writing better business emails and improving professional communication.

This episode discusses two challenging but achievable steps technology professionals can take to build their reputation as technical thought leaders.

Technical thought leadership can increase professional visibility, strengthen your reputation, expand your network, and create career opportunities.

This episode provides seven practical ways IT Managers and technology professionals can improve communication with business users, avoid unnecessary technical jargon, understand business needs, and build stronger relationships.

This episode presents 10 questions IT leaders can use to stimulate innovation, challenge existing assumptions, identify opportunities, and encourage their teams to think differently.

Innovation isn't simply about adopting new technology. It also involves processes, services, problem solving, culture, and delivering greater value to the business.

This episode examines how managers can approach promotion decisions fairly and effectively by considering performance, leadership potential, readiness, skills, organizational needs, and future responsibilities.

This episode provides six practical ways IT professionals can influence their managers, communicate ideas, build credibility, and increase the likelihood of getting support for important initiatives.

This episode explores how technology leaders can communicate with their managers, understand executive priorities, build credibility, communicate problems, and gain support for important IT initiatives.

Managing up isn't about politics. It's about understanding organizational needs and communicating in a way that creates better results.

This episode explores productivity and the importance of understanding when and how you work most effectively. Learn how recognizing your personal productivity "zone" can help you prioritize important work and become a more effective IT leader.

This episode examines how IT leaders can encourage innovation while managing security, privacy, governance, compliance, data protection, and organizational risk.

This episode explores building effective peer relationships, collaborating across departments, resolving disagreements, coordinating priorities, and achieving organizational goals.

This episode presents six ways IT Managers can approach organizational and technology change more effectively through communication, planning, engagement, and leadership.

This episode explores why IT leaders need to become advocates for their teams, communicate accomplishments, recognize employees, and explain IT's business value.

This episode explores proactive career management for IT professionals, including identifying career goals, developing needed skills, building professional relationships, and positioning yourself for opportunities.

This episode explores ways IT leaders can improve Help Desk customer satisfaction and the overall user experience through communication, responsiveness, service quality, expectation management, and relationship building.

Related episodes: Advocating for IT; Working With Other Managers; Communicating With Business Users.