Monday, June 20, 2016

The CEO-CIO Connect

My social media feed recently included an article from Maven Wave Partners' Fusion Blog titled, "CIO vs. CEO: Finding Middle Ground." (note: I used to work at Maven Wave several years ago.) As it was my former employer and I'm a new CIO, I had to read it. And it was thought-provoking indeed -- I didn't necessarily agree with many of the premises, the primary conclusion was spot-on:

"When the CEO and CIO can find middle ground and work together as true partners, the enterprise will achieve true competitive advantage..."

Within the article, the points that stood out to me were (1) the disconnect between the CEO and CIO, and (2) the CIO as a business commodity. Each deserves further consideration, especially at at time where fewer people want to be a CIO.

The disconnect between the CEO and CIO

The article states, "Clearly, the CIO and CEO have roles with notably contrasting job responsibilities... The CEO often understands the core business and customer demands better than the CIO." I'm not going to disagree with these on principle, and it's easy to see this as the world as is. At the same time, we in IT leadership have been told again and again that we must, MUST understand the business in which we operate in order to be a strategic partner and not a business commodity. Virtually every CIO success story I've read can be summarized as follows:
  1. CIO meets CxO
  2. CIO and CxO form partnership around common cause
  3. CIO and CxO make big initiative happen, increasing visibility for both
One of the reasons I was attracted to my current position is the shared idea that the CIO and CEO in fact have roles with notably comparable job responsibilities. Yes, we do different things for the organization (and I'm still figuring out mine). But we share the broad responsibility of both taking the "across the organization" strategic view and enabling ongoing operations. This dual responsibility distinguishes the CIO from a director of IT, who focuses more on operational excellence and continuous improvement within the technology function.

CEOs and CIOs both have the responsibility and opportunity to span the organization.
CIO as a business commodity

So what about the CIO being a business commodity? This is certainly one way to be perceived, especially if the CIO presents as tactical rather than strategic. It's tempting to create an IT strategy, but that helps separate technology from the business. IT strategy also tends to focus on things IT thinks is important, which rarely match what the CEO is trying to do and gives the impression IT isn't part of the team. 

Instead, the CIO's goal should be to ensure technology is part of each facet of the corporate strategy. Ideally, meeting this goal involves the CIO having candid, business-focused conversations with the CEO and being at the strategic table, and doesn't involve the intricacies of platform as a service or network segmentation. However, the world is far from ideal, and the CIO may have to work hard and long to get to that point, possibly exerting influence less directly to get to the table.

This all sounds great in theory.

Doesn't it? That doesn't mean it's an impossibility in practice. Where a CIO begins has everything to do with context -- not every CEO is ready to integrate technology into their everyday thinking. But they don't have to, at least not in detail. If the CEO is willing to consider technology in terms of the same goals as everything else -- help the top line, help the bottom line, and mitigate risks -- then perhaps the conversation can get underway.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Being new again

I just started a new job as a nonprofit institution's CIO, leaving my last employer after almost six years. I'm excited for many of the usual reasons, but one of the biggest short-term drivers of my enthusiasm is that I get to be "the new person" for a while. It's one of my favorite roles to play in an organization, for several reasons:

1. New people are more likely to get time to learn.

Being at work usually means, well, getting things done. There are tasks to complete, deadlines to meet, meetings to attend, emails to answer, and so on. The day-to-day grind can keep a person so focused on the immediate matter or locked into the Pavlovian call-and-response of the email client that taking time to learn (or even think) simply falls off. It's not inherently bad, but needs to be acknowledged.

New people don't yet have all those things to fill your calendar. Instead, they have a lot of information to take in and parse. The organization is new, and perhaps the industry is as well. Colleagues need to be identified and met; history needs to be articulated and contextualized. This all takes time, and the first days/weeks/months are the most likely time to get considerable time to devote to this.

2. New people can ask all kinds of questions.

Organizational culture usually includes a certain amount of jargon and shared information specific to that entity. With that comes an expectation that each person understands why things are done the way they are. After all, each person is part of the organization, right?

New people fall outside this model, to their (and the organization's) benefit. New people can ask, "why is [thing] done this way?" and challenge conventions through honest inquiry. In the best-case scenario, this yields affirmation of well-working practices and thoughtful conversation and follow-up on practices in need of change. The new person can even help make an immediate impact by being part of those changes, during which they can demonstrate the capabilities and experience for which they were hired in the first place.

3. New people can determine their story.

Joining a new organization is significantly different than taking a new position in the same one. In the latter case, the social network and institutional knowledge are already in place, and colleagues are more likely to already know you and your story. After a while, this can sometimes be a hindrance: a person ascending to a leadership role may have to deal with perceptions formed far earlier in their career.

New people have virtually no story on arrival. At most, there are impressions from the interview process and any announcements made organization-wide. There certainly isn't the unabridged history from the previous organization(s). As a result, new people get to decide their story and how to reveal it over time. Maybe great achievements need to be adopted or lessons from past experiments need to be learned. Maybe a particular mindset needs to be set or affirmed, reinforced by past examples. A person has great influence over their professional identity, and this is most true in that early period with an organization.

4. Newness is fleeting, but it's great while it lasts.

Of course, one can't be new forever. Work has to get done, after all. How long newness lasts depends on the culture -- sometimes it's measured in weeks, while other times years can go by to still be new. No matter the duration, it's a thrilling time to learn everything, ask good questions that foster conversation, and get established in the best possible way.


Much of my thinking on this topic comes from Damon Phillips' class on network structures when I was at Chicago Booth. I took this class in my first quarter, and have gone back to it in each of the four organizational moves I've made in the past ten years.