Marci Brown, executive director of the Tar Heel Triad, a 22,000-member Girl Scout council in North Carolina, praises Balestrino's technological outreach, which has included projects such as the development of a Web site for training adult volunteers. The objective is to get more women into IT careers. She has already met with women business leaders in Silicon Valley, and she says her role will be to provide ideas and support to senior Girl Scout leaders. By Dan Verton Frank Colletti knows what it's like to take a bullet. After all, that's what an IT leader and innovator must do sometimes for the greater good of the team and the customers.
Leaders protect their people and hold the team together in the face of problems or mistakes.
And mistakes are inevitable when you're an innovator. It's critical now more than ever that if we ask people to take risk and move quickly, that we don't punish them when things go wrong because of it. So keeping my staff motivated hasn't been difficult, either. Innovation requires taking risks but also listening to your customers, says Colletti. The result was immediate.