In an interesting trend, many of today's IT leaders lack the traditional technical from the ground up background of the past and instead benefit from a well-rounded business and technical resume. John Reale, CIO of USG, had a background in accounting, sales and customer service before he entered his company's technology division. The final move was something that he never really planned for himself.

In the past, USG had looked outside to fill the CIO position. However, based on the endeavors that the company was undertaking and the need to more closely align the business objectives to IT, it was the right time to look internally. Of his appointment, Reale said , "It was the right thing to do at the time and it's been a tremendous learning experience, but it was never a goal of mine to be a CIO."

However, it was his experience in other areas that led him to a successful career as a CIO.

Reale said that the time he spent on the business side, was crucial to building the relationships he utilizes today his current role. His sales experience, along with his corporate office background, allowed him to learn "how the company ran" and what was expected from a customer point of view.. We started looking at where the sales force could be more effective. That's when I started with IT. This initial experience was with a major Sales Force Automation (SFA) implementation project.

After his stint in sales, Reale ran USG's consolidated Customer Service Center in Schiller Park, IL. This is where he learned the value of information. "Information is critical to providing good service to our customers as well as creating efficiencies internally for the company." He started to realize the power that technology and information systems could bring to the business. "We are only as good as the information we provide. So it better be right and it better be fast." This was the beginning of the company evaluating and eventually implementing its first enterprise wide ERP.

Reale was initially the business sponsor of the ERP project prior to moving into his current role of CIO., Reale quickly found out that managing an IT unit was not quite the same as sales or customer service and that it took a different approach. In his opinion, sales and customer service are more relationship driven and people are more willing to take on certain risks. IT is a world that is built around a process and a proven methods.

"When you are in sales and when you are in customer service you motivate people differently," he said. "It's almost a more optimistic view. People are more willing to take things on faith... If we do this and if we believe in it ... it's going to work." In technology there is more of an "engineering" frame of mind. You need to show people first. It is more black and white and with less comfort in taking risks. "Being a CIO takes much more of a methodical management approach to management where as sales and customer service is more of an emotional approach," he said. But in the end it all comes down to motivating good people to do the right things. And we have that here at USG.

Reale finds that his role now can be successful without being high-profile. In IT, many times, it is a job well done when everything continues to run normally and it is not making any headlines. "I have learned in this job that successes are sometimes measured in non-events," said Reale. "Meaning, if it's a non-event, there are no problems, therefore, it's been a success." An example would be seamlessly and non-disruptively upgrading systems.

Reale has also learned that discipline is an important quality that every leader should demonstrate. It may seem impressive at first if employees are capable of being their own bosses and taking on numerous tasks at once, but in the end, it is much better if we know our roles and can continually perform the same important functions.

"We have somewhat of a hero model here and I have grown up and have been a part of the model during my 20 plus years with the company," said Reale. "We - as an organization - we have always been very conscious of our costs. So from the staffing perspective, we have always asked our people to be multi-taskers. Our people have been great; they have been heroes, when something comes up people are willing to go above and beyond their call of duty into fix things." But now he says that he is learning that to be an effective and scalable organization it is necessary to spend a lot more time planning than reacting. "I am learning that discipline is one of the keys to have in an effective organization."

USG continues to invest in leadership and learning. It has a program that helps groom its future leaders, and while they may be able to stand out as individuals it still all comes down to working hard and in a team environment.

"In our emerging leaders program we look at people that can have an impact on the business that are, obviously intelligent, are motivated, that can bring in their own ideas but also adapt those ideas in a collaborative manner with the team to make things actionable and deliverable and to move the company in the right direction," he said. "You can have the smartest person in the world but if they can't work as a team, they are going to struggle throughout their career."