SIM Chicago Gala - Lessons from an Economist

SIM Chicago hosted a fantastic Spring Gala last week with Austan Goolsbee. Approximately 235 of the best IT leaders in Chicago gathered to hear a great talk. Here are 5 things that I came away with from Austan:

Seriously Funny.
It is possible to be both very serious and passionate about your craft and be very funny and entertaining. In fact, it’s exponentially more effective. Many of us tend to take ourselves too seriously. Others may use humor to cover for the lack of content. If Austan can entertain a packed house when discussing global economic trends, surely we can let our proverbial hair down a bit to engage our team and our stakeholders more!

Flawed Models.
As technology and business leaders, we all have them: models built on years of historical data that we rely on to help us predict and shape the future. Yet, what happens if the models are wrong? Apparently like the Fed, we look for excuses of that one exception which explains away the flaw. We need to make sure to evaluate the performance of the models over the long-term. We need to understand the fundamentals of our industry and our customers well enough to immediately ask whether our assumptions from the past are still relevant in today’s fast moving environment.

Have a World View.
It struck me as Austan was speaking of the importance of having a world view. As leaders and experts, it is important not just to know the underlying business basics, but to also stake a claim on how it all comes together. Where are we going? How will our world be different in the future? What fundamentally should we be doing about it?

Smart People Differ.
Throughout his talk, Austan could easily discuss other theories from other extremely smart and successful people. Even with everyone agreeing to a basic set of facts, which of course is foundational, other experts’ world view may differ from yours. That’s not just ok, it’s extremely important and enlightening. Be able to understand those differences, be respectful, take the opportunity to learn and challenge your own assumptions when this happens.

Hope.
After sharing some not so optimistic opinions on the near future, Austan highlighted a bright future driven by the fundamentals of investment in human capital, technology and the entrepreneurial spirit. That message couldn’t have resonated more given the room was full of CIO’s from SIM Chicago who understand people, technology, and innovation. I couldn’t help but think about how that fit so perfectly with my mission at Expert Interview.

Thanks again to Austan, our programs team, our sponsors and our members for another successful Gala! Looking forward to more events like this one!