By Naked CIO, 10 August 2009 12:01
COMMENT
Why is it so difficult to find a great CIO? Because the business will not support them, says the Naked CIO.
I read with interest a recent article by fellow silicon.com columnist Tim Cook about how hard it is to find good CIOs and how the job market is still quite active.
It got me thinking about how companies work at senior levels.
The article began with a profound anecdote, in which an executive asks his board whether any of them had worked with an outstanding CIO.
The response?
"Not one of them had. Some of them had worked with good ones but not great. All of them had examples of poor experiences with the role," Cook wrote.
I have the answer as to why: there is no incentive for other executives around the boardroom table to help a CIO succeed. Moreover, many executives in actually set up IT leaders for failure and succeed themselves because of it.
This 'breeding of failure' increases the challenges that companies face to really capitalise on the power of their technology projects.
Senior executives see IT leaders as slaves to their desires, not business partners trying to reach the same goal. They also expect technology departments to get things done in record time without proper clarification of what needs to be done. They just expect us to get it.
When CIOs ask the business to get involved in IT projects, it gets someone of marginal seniority to take part - and refuses to get involved as much as it expects the CIO to be involved in business projects.
What is more, in many cases this is a calculated response. Senior leaders and board members love having excuses and there is no better scapegoat in any company than IT and the CIO in charge of it.
Businesses need good CIOs but no CIO will ever succeed with his/her peers working towards his/her ultimate failure. This is one of the reasons why CIOs need to be represented on the board, so they have a forum to out those who implicitly are have negative effect on the value of IT in an organisation.
I do not want to stereotype all corporate executives - I realise some are supportive of IT leaders. To all those executives I will say: in order to have a positive impact on IT in your organisation, you must be an active rather than passive supporter.
That means you must ensure your departments are involved and act as a champion to those IT projects that impact your business area. All IT systems are tools for your employees to perform their jobs and helping IT design the best tool will ultimately help your business.
It confounds me that senior executives often don't support IT within their organisation. I just don't understand why they wouldn't.
The only answer I can come up with is that it is strategic for senior executives to have a failing IT department to blame - they can then deflect criticism directed at them and point to others' failure, all to make themselves look better.
This type of attitude is cowardly but so common in modern companies and modern boardrooms.
Next time a CEO asks his board whether anyone knows of a good CIOs, maybe he should start by asking them if they have are willing to let a CIO be great even if it may show up some of their own weaknesses.
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Naked CIO: Well done, at last a response between columnists that engages both sides of the arguments and challenges represented in the modern boardroom. Whilst not a CIO; having engaged CxO level individuals, too often have I discovered internal conflict and boardroom poker being played by those at the table.
Often consultancies will power map the organisation to determine who best to 'lobby' in support of the consulting engagement, leverage this internal lack of senior leadership cohesion as a means to further the assignment(s).
And a closing quote from a Change Manager (Organisational Development and Learning) in an enterprise said it all;
"Thats how things work around here"
2. John Jameson
I think that you are missing the point. Do you think that when the HR director has a great idea everybody jumps on board and gives them all the support that they want? Surely one of the skills a great CIO would have is the ability to inspire their colleagues and make things happen in the less-than-perfect world in which we live.
3. Charles Smith
I find myself in agreement with the Naked CIO!
I've seen many cases where the Finance Department is totally inefficient yet the CFO then proceeds to teach the CIO how to suck eggs. Usually the next CIO then has to try and pick up the pieces.
I've seen good IT professionals lose their jobs as the result of dumb spreadsheet errors by financial controllers.
To show balance I must add I've also seen some brilliant CFO's.
4. CHA
Like any area there's an element of truth in everything thats been said.
What hasn't been mentioned to date is how much value CIOs could add by being bolder and data driven. And by that I mean being prepared to have transparent conversations and often difficult conversations with business leaders about all aspects of service design and delivery in business stated terms . All too often the business leader to CIO conversation has failure built in because it is based on too many assumptions.."oh we thought we had 24hr support on everything so no wonder the systems are always going down when we need them" rather than a collective view, and dare I say it at a detailed level, of what it takes to make the business successful over its various 'business cycles' and having an ongoing conversation about what it will take to maintain that service as for example business volumes grow or margins fall .
Being prepared to collaborate with the business leaders in a way that helps them to really understand the IT requirements to run their businesses and to create options for them to consider just like any consultant or designer would do goes along way. It's an approach that's good for business in that the pressure is on for both sides to really understand what it takes to create successful outcomes...and especially in these times when you cant just throw a huge hosting contract at applications and forget them for 5 years!!