Rising star Jim Barton has decidedly mixed feelings after being selected as the new chief information officer at the fictional IVK Corporation. On the one hand, he lacks an IT background; on the other, he's ambitious and up for a challenge. And a challenge it is: When Barton takes over as CIO, his company badly needs a jolt of energy and expertise to grow and to resuscitate its declining stock price. The chief executive who promoted Barton is hopeful but hard-nosed; and Barton's IT group—while talented and tech-savvy—is impatient, even borderline dysfunctional. So begins Barton's wild ride and ultimately an excellent journey to learning effective leadership skills in The Adventures of an IT Leader (Harvard Business Press). According to the novel's creators, a fictional approach allowed them to blend real-life incidents they had encountered as managers, consultants, and educators working with a diverse set of companies. "In this way, we could pool all this knowledge and distill it down to the essential principles that CIOs can generally apply, regardless of industry or size of firm, while describing 'realistic' and