ROCHESTER ? Teri Takai has learned many valuable lessons during her last three years as the state of Michigan’s Chief Information Officer that she believes are the result of experiences that all technology managers can appreciate.

“The first lesson is that technology leadership is not really about technology,” Takai said during a speech May 18 at the Michigan Technology Leaders conference. “It is about managing change with technology solutions. And I have seen that the transformation is a journey, not an end point.”

Takai came to Lansing in 2003 with the administration of Gov. Jennifer Granholm. At the time, each state department had its own IT staff and its own IT system. How bad was it? Well, there were 70 different versions of the state government?s two e-mail systems. Takai?s first assignment was to consolidate all of that into a single department.

No one in any of those departments supported her plan. And they certainly did not want her job to be the cabinet-level position, which it became. It wasn?t until Takai had completed 22 months on the job that state employees realized that she wasn?t going away and gave into her demands.

“We really underestimated employee resistance,” she said. “As a result we had to spend a lot of time teaching leadership skills.”

That was just the beginning of the challenges. Most people in state government really didn?t understand information technology, she said. Her department had to learn to explain to a state legislature, which was pretty much computer-illiterate, why it should spend $365 million dollars a year, or $1 million a day on the IT infrastructure that kept their desktops functioning.

“That showed us that selling good ideas is as important as having good ideas,” Takai said.

“But, they knew where to find us when something stopped working.?

That was the another lesson learned.

“Nobody talks to IT unless they are mad at you.”

She had to hit the ground running, consolidating all of the departmental IT functions as state government transitioned from the leadership of former Gov. John Engler to Granholm. She said the transition from a Republican to Democratic administration and all of the political power plays that went along with that made it even more difficult.

Another challenge she had to deal with was working with a staff that was reduced by 15 percent thanks to an early retirement package.

“We had to maintain momentum without wearing out or welcome or our people.”

The tight state budget has also put a cap on the possibility of investing in new, experimental technology.

“The last thing I want to do is to be on the front page of the Lansing State Journal or the Detroit Free Press in a story about investing taxpayer dollars into a technology that was a disappointment.”

She also has learned the importance of “keeping your friends close but your competition closer,” learning from everyone around you and every once in a while, “taking brave pills so that you can stand up and be counted.”

Takai also said that it is important for IT managers to learn to prioritize their life, something that is much easier to say that it is to do. She also knows that from personal experience.

“Everyone I worked with at Ford thought I would be taken out of their in a body bag because I had such a passion for my work.”

Perhaps the most important things Takai feels she has learned as Michigan?s CIO is that being an IT manager is not a popularity contest “because they will never love you.” And as former U.S. Senator Bob Kerry told a new leader of the Internal Revenue Service, “Make sure you have a dog at home that is good, because you will need a friend.”

This story was written by Rod Kackley, MItechnews.Com?s reporter for metropolitan Detroit. If you have a story idea, email it to [email protected]