101 Backseat Drivers

Surviving—and Thriving—as the CIO for an IT Company

With today’s accelerated business pace, increasing compliance requirements, and ever-changing technologies, the role of the chief information officer has never been more interesting or challenging. That’s especially true if—like me—you’re the CIO of a company that provides IT products or services. CIOs of IT companies have many extra and unique challenges that our colleagues in non-IT industry sectors don’t typically face. However, by overcoming these hurdles—and creating greater effectiveness and collaboration—IT CIOs have the chance to play a greater role in their companies’ overall success.

EMBRACING YOUR REALITY

When you’re the CIO of an IT company, the good news is that you have many technically savvy people who are ready, willing, and able to contribute to your efforts.

Unfortunately, that’s also the bad news.

Whether it’s managing user expectations, cultivating relationships, or putting together the company’s long-range application architecture, the CIO of an IT company must always remember that the organization he or she supports will have a strong inclination to get involved in IT on some level. Whether that interest or involvement is constructive or obstructive largely depends on how the CIO leads.

The overarching strategy is simple: embrace the reality that you will have many well-intentioned, passionate “backseat drivers” who can add value to your IT efforts. Compared to the casual indifference that many of my non-IT-sector colleagues face from their organizations (and sometimes that’s a best-case scenario), I believe that the interest and involvement from people across my company enriches the IT process.

I have hundreds of people who are willing and qualified to share their opinions and experiences with me and my team. I benefit from the collective experience of a large number of IT-savvy people who understand IT and our company’s target market, and bring lots of thought leadership to our endeavors.

But the real benefit is that this is a two-way street. Through a willingness to put aside the egos and embrace the dialogue with an open mind, we can have a much stronger business relationship and be viewed as a trust-worthy partner in business strategy and not merely a replaceable, disposable, undifferentiated utility service. I don’t know of a single CIO who wouldn’t want that.

LEVERAGING THE TALENT

For a CIO, it sounds like a dream. You walk down the hall and enter a room full of skilled application developers. About the only thing that could be better would be an office tower full of application developers. Just the thought of that much talent under one roof sends shivers down my cost-constrained spine. Given the relentless upward compensation trends for skilled technical workers—if you can even find them—the inclination to leverage those internal skills in an IT company is hard to resist. The good news: there’s no reason to resist.

Of course, you just can’t walk up to your vice president of R&D and ask him for resources for your important project and expect to get them simply because you asked nicely. You have to set up the request and make it both relevant and meaningful to senior executives and the company. You want to present ways to leverage this talent into an ongoing partnership. Your mutual appreciation for the challenges of IT gives you a common ground—there’s the expectation that you understand each other’s business.

In exchange, we often become an “alpha” test site for new/upcoming versions of our commercial products. Rather than being a burden, this is a collaboration that represents a tremendous opportunity for us to return the favor and understand our company’s customers much better.

As a result of this partnership, I’m able to play a much larger external role for my company. I have the insight of practical, applied knowledge of how our products work and how our customers can use them—which I can reflect back into the market with a great deal of credibility in front of customers and prospects. By playing a sales role for our company, I can increase my department’s profile and value. I want my department to be viewed as far more than a utility provider—I want IT to be seen as a resource that helps expand our business.

THE SHADOW ORGANIZATION

In every organization I’ve ever been associated with, there is always a “shadow” IT organization—call it the “underground IT,” if you like (in some cases, “the resistance” might be even more accurate). And if you think you don’t have one, you’re more than likely in denial.

Although the shadow IT organization’s appearance and mission has changed over the years, the overarching principles are the same. Either it emerges from functions that have more immediate and different needs that are beyond current capacity or ability to service, or it’s coming from a new generation of workers, many straight from universities, entering the workforce with fresh, new, and exciting ways of working and collaborating. In decades past, it was the proliferation of the personal computer. Today, it’s social networking, collaboration, wikis, blogs, and the emergence (again) of the Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) market, formally known as ASPs. The current generation entering the labor market has not known a world without the Internet, social networking, and collaboration tools. Unquestionably, this is a healthy dynamic—and one that the CIO and IT must embrace.

Not only will this new generation change how companies attract talent, it will also increasingly demand and expect technologies and access that will challenge most organizations that are even slightly concerned about security. These people are not primarily career minded; they’re primarily lifestyle minded. By showing its progressive ability to adapt and embrace these paradigms—and to both educate and be educated—IT can play an important HR role. This can become an organizational imperative because if you don’t figure it out, the shadow IT organization will rise up to fill the void.

Making this leap and keeping current with new environmental demands is essential in any IT organization to contain the shadow IT organization. But now imagine you have literally hundreds of staff that are technically savvy and not only know how to put the stuff together for their own needs, they also know how to run it under the radar.

Instead, with informed leadership from the CIO, people are more likely to adhere to and take greater responsibility for the corporate agenda that, ultimately, helps the CIO more easily achieve results with less emotion and greater efficiencies.

MANAGING INTERNAL PARTNERSHIPS AND RELATIONSHIPS

In most IT companies, there’s usually a healthy tension between IT and other business units. But no more so than between IT and an R&D organization. Usually, the R&D team has deep knowledge about technology, but, at times, it can lean toward more the theoretical than practical application. It’s the IT department’s job to complement that with pragmatic perspectives on how that technology gets applied in the “real world.” Show them clearly that you know that creating a technology product is difficult and that you have a strong appreciation for their profession. Then share your product experiences as well. You may very well be the most knowledgeable user they encounter.

You also may find yourself responding to a well-meaning (but frustrating) “Greek chorus” from your (internal) professional services organization that believes they can implement the latest software system you just licensed far more effectively than the IT organization Find one or two outspoken or influential champions and get them to present to your implementation team—they often have excellent insights and experience. And you can use those input sessions to preempt any potential user objections down the road.

MANAGING EXECUTIVE EXPECTATIONS

Like any CIO, or any professional for that matter, you need to carefully manage expectations up your chain of command. After all, chances are the typical CEO at an IT company reads many of the same magazines and attends many of the same conferences you do. He or she talks to peers at other companies and can get just as excited about an emerging technology or trend as you do. Here, you’ll rely on your strongest diplomatic skills to explain the realities behind your technology opinions—current realities of the production environment, budget, labor, organizational readiness, etc. Most rational CEOs will understand they have a business to run like any other and face all the same “laws” of IT. Applying technology should always be led by business need to resolve issues or capitalize on opportunities, and most of the CEOs I’ve worked for always understood that approach and appreciated the need to manage IT in that manner. But there has been the occasional need to manage egos or acquiesce to a passionate, if not misguided, CEO.

It’s a similar story with board neutrality. Key board members must have the confidence that the CIO is not bowing to pressure from other board members who are executives at other technology companies. The vendor/customer dilemma becomes even more critical here. Given today’s governance climate in North America and abroad, not only must any transaction with a board member’s company be perceived as neutral—it must be backed up with actions. By operating under facts, not emotions, you can minimize the risk exposure. For example, rely on audits, independent experts, and third-party assessments to bring defensible reasons for your purchase and budget-allocation decisions. Don’t allow external board members to run roughshod over your carefully thought out opinions and judgments. Any other course of action is perilous.

Boards of publicly traded companies are there for oversight. They are not there to serve an operational role. When those lines get blurred, it is difficult to achieve the level of neutrality that is expected in today’s real world—know the difference in behavior and work closely with the CEO and board secretary to stay neutral.

PREVENTING EMPLOYEE CHURN

Like many organizations, the IT department at a technology company can experience painful churn as employees develop skills and seek new opportunities elsewhere. However, at a tech company, many times those poaching recruiters are your colleagues down the hall. Good IT pros are hard to come by, and when a star emerges in your organization, it’s difficult for the company to resist redeploying that talent to revenue-producing or billable areas of the company. If you step back and put the company first, this is healthy, beneficial, and the right thing to do.

However, you have a business to support, and running the farm team for technology skills inside the company has to be balanced with the priorities of managing the operation. You need commitments from other departments and clearly defined rules of transparency to govern intra-company transfers to ensure your needs, as well as the needs of the company and the employee, are properly and effectively managed.

From the employee’s perspective, the urge to move is understandable. In a technology company, the R&D department is the promised land with plenty of budget and visibility. Strong retention policies and strategies in your own IT department—including fair and open career pathing—can help you keep your employees engaged and happy as they continue to develop their skills.

Developing and leading an IT organization in the midst of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of expert technology professionals is an exhilarating experience for a CIO. You’ll need to be on top of your game, able to manage various personalities, be open to challenging opinions, and be willing to listen openly to well-intentioned—for the most part—colleagues who want to share their input on direction and strategy.

But if you’re equal parts committed technologist, business strategist, juggler, diplomat, and leader, you’re well on your way to success. And if you’re a CIO with any depth, who has not yet taken a leap from the tenth floor, you’ve likely learned long ago how to master all of these skills.

by Claudio Silvestri