Over the years, I've had the opportunity to work with a variety of companies on projects that encompassed all aspects of technology, software development and management. While at times, these assignments were undertaken as a consultant, it has always been my belief that once a task was undertaken, it was my role to be a member of the team and function as any other employee.

Sometimes this involved taking a leadership position, sometimes it meant working in a secondary role, but it always succeeded because of the collegial nature of the relationships.

At Liberty Travel, where my role lasted nearly two years, I was involved with everything from hiring a new CTO and Vice President of Engineering to developing a strategy for software development and acquisition. At Hewitt,it was working with one of that firm's largest clients.

The bottom line is that flexibility has turned out to be one of my key attributes. I've observed that many otherwise successful and smart managers fail because they are unable to adapt to changing situations. Having been successful with a singular approach in a previous job, they fail to recognize the need to assess a new assignment and to take into account differences in management, culture and industries.