With all this ammunition, I finally presented my case to the CEO. It didn’t take long for him to recognize the potential value of a fully implemented ERP/POS system. He began to see that not implementing the system would be a greater gamble than implementing it. My partnerships with the CFO and the executive vice president of sales paid off as they backed me. The CEO embraced the project and became its biggest cheerleader.

Within nine months, we had the system up and running. The CEO bragged about its huge success. The CFO felt that he had made one of the best financial decisions of his career. And the IT department’s image was transformed from technology dictator to solutions provider.

With our new ability to capture a holistic picture of our customers, we found out?surprise!?that they are predominantly female, approximately 43 years old, with a household income in excess of $75,000. Consequently, you are now much more likely to see our ads during Friends than Monday Night Football. We use focus groups to better understand our customers (whom we now know), and we spend our advertising dollars more intelligently. The entire personality of the company has changed. Our salespeople now protest only if their POS system goes down.

The whole experience reminds me of an article I read in the Harvard Business Review by Abraham Zaleznik, which contends that one key difference between a manager and a leader is the leader’s ability to change the way people think. I agree. I believe that this principle, executed in a nonthreatening manner, is a critical skill for CIOs as they interact with others in the company.

Today, Mattress Giant is definitely a company that is thinking differently. The proof is in the pudding: It is projected to set record-breaking sales this year.