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.