A vitriolic CXO exits, what next for the team ?

The Hindu scriptures and mythology teach that in the end good always wins over the bad or evil; I am sure that other religious books and local historical tales give the same lesson to one and all. Sayings like “You reap what you sow” or morals from fables such as “what you give comes back to you” are timeless and have been seen and experienced. The corporate world has also seen its share of rise and fall of corporate heroes and villains who rescued or trashed a company with their antics, not counting the indelible scars on the culture and people.

He was flooded with messages when one such malevolent head rolled recently; congratulatory, and messages laden with relief and happiness, calls for rejoice, and finally voices of hope for the future. The team had suffered the tyranny for what appeared to be an eon, giving up hope of salvation; some left for whatever options they could fine, some without. Emerging from the oppression the team called to seek his interest in returning to lead them once again to pinnacle of achievement and glory that they had dreamt of during his leadership.

The havoc created by the malicious being had infected the entire company across layers and had also spread to some of the partners who were bewildered by the unilateral and at times irrational decisions. No one knew his source of power which seemed absolute with no observed opposition to the bullying leading to speculation. His large coterie of spineless and visibly sub-optimal talent revelled in derived supremacy despite their lack of results. Casting aspersions and restricting every move, he ensured the exit of the leader who had brought respect to the team.

Heads rolled when the business failed to benefit from the random decisions of the nepotistic person; it was easy to blame the old team labeling them incompetent for the new strategy that he had outlined. Survival instincts of remaining members made them shed personal and professional pride acquiescing to the absurd while waiting for salvation. With passing time the famine of results began to surface the shallowness and lack of domain knowledge or skills; buzzwords and bravado were inadequate cover for performance that made mediocrity look good.

Karma finally catches up and it did in this case too validating folklore and restoring faith in the defeat of nefarious elements ! Eventually the Board and shareholders saw through the façade albeit after much damage was done; he was stripped of self-bestowed powers and side-lined from various functions he had taken under his wings. From the shadows emerged some of the trusted members who had given their entire working lives to the company with sweat and blood that raised a sense of balance and relief among the survivors.

On their request, he met some of the team members privately and advised them to forge ahead with the plan that he had set for the enterprise; after all it had the endorsement of the management and the Board. Nothing had changed on the ground; some of the projects that had begun during his tenure had seen success, others taken up by ardent followers of the fallen had nothing to show except excuses for what did not work. He asked them to realign to the new old leadership and their work ethos to create magic that they were capable of.

He had attempted all that he could, appealed unsuccessfully to the leadership who were cowering due to the acidic lashing from the vitriolic power hungry person. It had taken huge effort to emotionally detach from the dream and vision that he had nurtured to life; it was anguishing and painful to see the plan being shattered, the team being bullied by minnows, their spirit broken. He had stayed connected to the team through their travails. His heart wanted to go back and finish the broken unfinished castle, his mind chastised him not to.

The team needs a savior; should they seek their mentor or find their own way through the broken path ? The team can survive without him though they would thrive with him on their side. Organizations have resilience which allow them to bounce back most of the time. Does the saviour need the team to bring back days of glory for the team, the company and himself ? What if the demons of the past were still not fully exorcised ? History teaches us that Organizations have recalled past leaders to revive themselves and they have recreated the magic !

Scaling IT with the business

It appeared like a losing battle for the CIO; he was struggling to keep momentum going with new initiatives as well as running the business as usual. Most function heads had begun raising voices in review meetings; the CIO had been unable to find time to attend the last two management meetings trying to solve one crisis while other fires burnt bright. He was running faster than ever before to stay in the same place but was unable to; despite best of intentions and good past performance, the CIO was facing a credibility crisis now.

It was a traditional company with nondescript existence for a long time with unimpressive growth and undifferentiated products. They hired people below market median who worked with them until they retired; you could find employees with impressively long careers in doing the same thing for decades. They had invested in IT along with everyone and like everyone they had stuck to automation basics. Everything worked but never reached a wow ! Parallel systems continued thereby rendering the entire framework a passive failure.

Then something explicable happened, no one knows what changed but the company found its mojo after a long time; the business started beating market growth and acquisitions added to the excitement. It brought lot of expectations and the demand on IT suddenly multiplied. New opportunities required new skills and way of working for which the CIO and his team were unprepared. They toiled longer and harder in a quest to meet the demand; they did deliver more than they had done earlier but somehow it did not seem enough.

The CIO had hired based on need and the team was happy to find stability which they valued; they were good in a passive way and executed the orders they were handed. They never had the opportunity nor the need to collaborate or take first steps; the company was satisfied with what they had. Over the past year the CIO attempted to change team behavior and found capability improvement had limitations. Training, coaching and mentoring got acknowledgement of lessons and then they would be back to normal as soon as they went back to their workplace.

Pressure on the CIO and IT team increased manifold creating a cycle of underperformance and frustration on both sides. Adverse impact to process and efficiency due to lack of IT solutions began affecting the business. Not seeing any visible change, Human Resources was confidentially tasked to build a parallel team including finding a new CIO ! The news trickled back to within the company after some time leaving the IT team scurrying for survival. Shaken the CIO conferred with the team to explore avenues to bring themselves back into relevance.

Variations of this situation repeats itself in many enterprises where IT teams fail to keep up with changing expectations. As a C-level executive, the CIO is expected to anticipate change and plan for it rather than been told what to do; inability to demonstrate leadership results in change of CIO who pays the price for failing to scale and change with the times. Sometimes the IT team sees forced attrition and collateral casualties which leaves the team either weakened with the exits or strong with infusion of fresh talent.

It is imperative for CIOs and IT teams to anticipate change to stay relevant in the new business; they are expected to be equal partners and work across layers to institutionalize new technology enabled processes. Failing to stay relevant (see Stay Hungry, Stay Relevant) will create situations described above. The problem is a lot more widely prevalent than acknowledged; the real CIOs are able to thrive in this uncertain world, the wannabe CIOs and IT Managers sporting the title give away their lack of maturity and ability.

The CIO rose to the challenge; seeking help from industry peers, he worked with HR to segment the team into groups based on competency and capability. The group low on competency and capability was outplaced with help of IT partners; competent team moved into operations while the capable teams were happy to move into other functions. The last group which had competency and capability scaled into business facing IT roles. Fresh blood inducted into the team strengthened the organization ability to move with the times.

The CIO earned his position onto the Management table where he was welcomed as an equal.

Selecting the right candidate

The flood of resumes was overwhelming; I was surprised by the numbers wondering if there was a crisis out there with people wanting to leave. Maybe it was the company and its reputation that created a pull of sorts that the applications found exciting. Or it could be that the economic situation has resulted in uncertainty in their current positions and thus they sought a comparably stable environment. Anyway the problem of plenty was a good problem to solve which gave us the option to choose from the best and the brightest.

Sifting through the lot it was difficult to shortlist probable candidates; everyone appeared to have been there done that, a menu card of technologies that they professed to know and work experience that would make you want to hire them right away bypassing the process. Discounting spelling errors in favor of experience, the final list of interviewees was drawn up. The list was not as short as expected, but then we did not want to miss out on deserving candidates just because they had turned off spell-check or had bad grammatical mistakes.

Not having conducted so many interviews at a go, they had to be spread over 3 days with almost 20 candidates. In tow a HR colleague and the functional lead who wanted to evaluate technical skills, armed with a formal assessment sheet to capture impressions, we started the process; questions were divided to suit our respective functions. HR would break the proverbial ice, settle down the person, my teammate tossed difficult technical questions and I looked at attitude and confidence. The days passed by in a whirl and we had a winner !

We have been taught to keep our demeanor friendly and suppress emotions while conducting job interviews; it was difficult to hold on to sanity and control laughter in few occasions. The journey to the end was excruciatingly painful and frustrating; the candidate with the perfect resume turned out to be a disaster. She had put in all the right keywords, technologies and projects; she had been in projects with the technologies in a role that barely gave her basic understanding. Scratching below the surface revealed no substance.

Another one believed that he scored 10/10 on every skill mentioned in his resume and that he had reached the pinnacle of learning. He was stumped on most of the questions which led to his quick exit. One candidate kept repeating that the information about the projects he had worked on was classified and that he was under NDA and thus could not talk. One person narrated the long story of her life for about 30 minutes immune to any attempts at interruption. We thanked her for the enlightening moments and heaved a sigh !

The quality of most discussions made us wonder about current state of knowledge and expertise; or is it that the unwanted and incapable having realized their shaky existence decided to seek newer pastures. Are these the types who find themselves on the left side of the traditional HR performance bell curve ? My HR colleague mentioned something about finding the right talent through references and not an open process. Junior and mid-level hiring filtering done by executive search companies and headhunters is typically based on keywords.

The selected candidate did not have all the skills required for the position; he was short on qualifications though the experience was relevant. Knowledge on technology was above average with understanding of his own limitations. He demonstrated how he stayed abreast of current trends and could articulate how he worked in teams. His enthusiasm and candid responses had all of us liking him; his can do attitude clinched it in his favor. We exchanged notes and everyone was in agreement; so we made him an offer.

We were pleased with our find and wanted him to join us expeditiously. He accepted our offer and promised to revert on when he could be part of our company. Weeks passed and HR kept following up on his joining date. One day I receive an email: “I thank you for your offer and opportunity to work for your company; I have carefully considered it and after much deliberation and discussion, I have decided to stay back with my current employer. I wish you all the best and hope our paths will cross again in the future”.

Life is tough !

A new government

The country is going through the most complex exercise of voting for and electing new representatives to the government. Selecting amongst the candidates is difficult; some of them are easy to disregard as they have no visible credible experience to stake a claim to the seat. Handfuls have relevant experience and on paper they look like good options.  References to past work demonstrate their ability to deliver and execute; a couple have the backing of their respective political parties who lend the promise of a collective manifesto.

Every 5 years this process repeats itself, sometimes a little earlier if the incumbent government is unable to serve out a full term. Soon we will have a new government, a new head, a set of ministers who will vie for the most visible and high profile ministries. The correlation between portfolios and core competencies is always a good thing to do; however many a times that does not happen. Bureaucrats and the staff within the ministries does not change much, they follow the new directions set by the ministers irrespective of expertise.

Running an enterprise is very much like running the country, especially a large diversified group with interests in varied businesses. Each company and function has a head that is selected from outside more often than inside. The selection is most of the time purportedly on core competency and merit. The difference between a government and an enterprise is normally the available options from which a candidate is chosen. In a government, the candidate is from the elected party, in the other case almost everyone can apply.

Government portfolios are presumably distributed by the head of the winning party and head of the country collaboratively. Most often decisions are based on seniority, past experience, credibility and interest. Cross functional movements are the norm and it is expected that the person would do equally well in the new function too. The rationale here is that a leader need not be a functional expert; the team has adequate skills to advise the leader on the best options when taking a decision. We know how well this process works.

In the corporate world the skew is more towards functional expertise while selecting a person. Cross movements do happen at beginning and mid-careers; moving up the ladder, these are rare. Leaders at the top take on additional responsibilities at times; lateral moves occur but are not frequent. Success rates are higher in comparison as everything is expected to be time bound. It is not a sure shot recipe for success; we do observe failures across the board, many attributable to the leader not being effective or fitting in.

It is not necessarily the interviewer or selectors inability to assess that result in a bad selection. Drawing parallels, it is evident that the best person does not always get selected for the job; favoritism and at times other factors like past workplace association, belonging to same religious sect or geographical area, been to the same school/college, having the same ideologies, result in sub-optimal choices. While not always avoidable, enterprises do watch out for such hires critically lest they end up with unwanted baggage.

It is relatively easier to replace a person within an enterprise as compared to the government; performance appraisals even though many a times skewed do elevate non-performance. On the other hand, recently observed citizen activism has its place in creating change. Cabinet reshuffles however move the problem from one area to another; this is rare in the enterprise though not unheard of. Are there learning that can be applied to enterprises to not follow the same path that ails many parts of the government ?

I believe that when we choose an elected representative or a new hire, in both cases rigorous due diligence is essential. Our choices can come back and haunt us not just in the short-term but also in the long-run. Both impact our lives and future; we tend to spend more effort in our workplace due to impact proximity and blame bad decisions to the ill choice of others. If we want control of our future and destiny, we have to exercise our rights and influence outcomes. Can we afford not to ?

You decide, you have a choice !

Talent Magnets

Seasons’ Greetings and a Happy New Year 2014 !

Last week I met with two old friends who I had not met for a long time; one for more than a decade, the other a little less than that. The first was a successful technology entrepreneur; the second had made a successful global sales career. After the nostalgia was behind us, the dinner conversations ended up exchanging notes on attracting and retaining good talent. Across different geographies and specialties, both berated the fact that finding good people had become even more difficult with passing years.

We agreed that the situation had deteriorated with increased competition and changing aspirations of the newer generation. Not too many were thinking of long-term careers, most worked like mercenaries willing to change allegiance for an additional few pieces of silver amongst other things. The new talent pool does not want to wait for grass to turn green; they look at the other side and whenever the grass appears greener, with no thought except of them, off they go gallivanting leaving their companies in a lurch.

Ruminating over these thoughts it also occurred to me that there are a few individuals in the industry who are never short of talent and are able to retain their teams with ease. They took on existing teams changed a few ingredients, added some fresh blood and within no time had a great team working like Swiss clockwork and delivering to promise. Whenever they needed resources, skills or expertise, magically they found the right people. In almost all cases, attrition within their direct reports was tending to zero.

What makes these individuals better leaders equipped with an ability to create success oftener ? Why are people willing to join their teams leaving behind whatever shade of green their grass was ? How do they keep their teams motivated as to not look for alternatives ? Their teams consistently deliver and are seen as a cohesive unit which knows where they are going. Do they do things differently that the team is always charged and willing to stretch ? What is it that makes them talent magnets ?

Talking to many such motivated team members over the years I found the big difference was the aura of credibility these leaders had carefully developed around themselves. They were themselves highly motivated, principle-centred and self-driven. Across companies they were able to engage CXOs in meaningful discussions around outcomes and then disseminate the messages within their teams. The resultant momentum between their peers and teams rarely found budget challenges or reluctant users.

The team members were coached and mentored by the leaders with continuous feedback and feed forward connecting them to the vision, the goal and the tasks. With freedom to take risks and fail, the teams found themselves pushing their performance with rigor that they did not know they possessed. Thus they found success more often with lesser bottlenecks because they knew that their leader would always stand alongside. They respected their leader’s ability to help them find answers when they needed.

Their ability to sell a vision and the direction they were taking the company and the function was unparalleled; they created excitement with their stories; industry case studies validated the fact that these were not fiction. The message that I got consistently was that they were passionate about what they did and the passion was infectious. I was surprised by the commitment levels and connect with what the team members were doing and the fact that without exception they looked up to their leaders as role models.

Can this be emulated ? I believe so as many such team members have risen to become leaders in their own right and practice the same principles that they were subjected to. The multiplier effect is not yet high; the roots are taking shape and they are themselves becoming talent magnets. Picking some of these learning I have been fortunate to find hidden reserves within teams and attract talent from outside over the years. I hope that the force of attraction and cohesion is stronger than another force applied by someone else.

What is your ERP strategy ?

Technology evolution has created many opportunities and challenges for IT departments. The pace of change in recent times has been going up exponentially with obsolescence setting in faster than the adoption curve maturity. Each new flavor  trend and hype creates a flurry of activity which forces the CIO to react. Despite claims of various consultants, there is shallowness of expertise to get some real stuff done. Today it may be difficult to find COBOL programmers; it is equally difficult to find UX or Big Data experts.

Every company and function wants to retain talent and leverage the years of experience and expertise rather than losing them. This is more so if the person is really good at what s/he does; which is why we have retention plans, fast-tracked development, high potential identification and many other financial and non-financial incentives. We also face the challenge of managing a few members who have failed to change with the times and are unable or unwilling to adapt to the new world.

The technology treadmill keeps some of us running to explore and evaluate how and what could be potential uses that will create a differentiation. We embrace the technologies when something works and soon you find the trend becoming main-stream with everyone following. Consultants, vendors and tech media keep the hype high with new buzzwords and technology lead disruptions. The already scarce resources end up stretching to explore the opportunities over and above their operational activities if any.

Operations are necessary and critical to ensure that business as usual continues while the new stuff keeps the excitement going. Most enterprises have teams that either built the systems a few decades back or were part of the teams that conceptualized the implementation. If you are lucky they have been able to re-skill and stay current while managing the legacy. It is also possible that some have not been adept. Many organizations outsource the legacy sustenance and thereby the BAU operations.

The challenge that many face is to find productive use for the team members that failed to stay current with technology or business. These old-timers built the legacy that did well for the business contextual to the need at that time. With evolution their inability to adapt makes them dead weight in the current hyper-competitive business environment. The quandary for the CIO is to find useful work for them or find a humane way for their easing into other functions or out of the company.

One of my CEOs in the past had remarked of this phenomenon “We offer employment to qualified people on merit, we do not guarantee employment”. With profitability pressures and economic uncertainties this is true even for the better ones with work not just shifting to lower cost but also adding on to existing staff. Do more with less is here to stay and the bar keeps rising every year. Discussing this with a CIO, when she asked me “What is your ERP strategy ?” I was stumped.

ERP is presumably the new term for Early Retirement Plan, effectively created and deployed with HR. Her company had moved off the legacy technologies that had survived more than two decades and through the planning process she had attempted to re-skill the old workforce offering those positions that would have created a graceful exit over a period of time. Most took the opportunity clutching straws and made the grade. A few who did not had to be offered the new ERP !

In some companies old tech still stays, so do people; the pressures of current technology enabled disruptions will require them to sooner or later transition to newer and contemporary solutions. Recent times have seen many transitions from custom legacies to COTS systems to compete in the new normal. The eventual will arrive; CIOs need to hasten their people strategies to ensure that they are not left with a situation where they are pushed to a wall to take a decision.

All ERPs require planning, so why wait ?

Hyper or Mediocre IT ?

The number of IT professionals taking on to consulting after multiple changes are increasing. A lot of them were considered high potential when they worked within corporate IT functions. Some of them were also CIOs who chucked their cushy jobs to explore entrepreneurship. I started tracking down some of them to find what made them take such a step. The answers were surprising and not so surprising when analysed rigorously.

Now consider that in recent times the lament gaining popularity is the inability to find good talent; with global competition and willingness to relocate, good professionals are always in demand. And the good ones always find it easy to bag the next opportunity. That being the case, why is it that CIOs are struggling to hire and retain good talent ?

Every manager or leader has one key benchmark when interviewing people; it is they themselves. We hire people based on our own competencies. Most (fortunately not all) managers want to hire staff with equal to or lower skills than themselves especially for senior positions. Maybe it is their perception of threat to their own positions; maybe it is a low risk model when you know that the person will not be disruptive by challenging the managers’ decisions. This manager wants to know everything and be part of every meeting thereby becoming the bottleneck to progress. S/he feels insecure when new solutions are presented by others which impact his domain.

A great way to maintain status quo or keeping the lights on; in this case the CIO will perennially be challenged and discuss BITA (Business IT Alignment). The team at best delivers mediocrity and is relegated as a support function with limited participation in activities outside of their function. Organization culture too contributes to this state compounded by the CIO not reporting to the CEO. I have seen good CIOs get out of such companies as soon as they could.

Now, when you look at high performance teams, the leader acknowledges the need for diversity and challenging status quo. S/he has always hired different skillsets and encouraged open innovation. One of my observations was that these leaders define the direction and then get out of the way leaving the teams to soar to new heights. They do not micro-manage, they facilitate and encourage the team. Making mistakes is acceptable, repeating them is not. Attrition is normally low.

I believe that to create a winning team and not an also ran, the CIO needs to balance command and control with empowerment. Everyone does not need close supervision; neither can everyone be left to do their own thing. Delegation is good; however delegation does not imply abdication of responsibility. Incorrectly delegated work can lead to challenges and success denied; the CIO should own up to equal share of success and failure. After all you cannot be the father of success and know no failures.

An old adage, “People join organizations, people leave their bosses” holds true today more than ever. It is not an Oscar award speech but many leaders acknowledge their teams as the reason for their success when felicitations come the way of winning teams. The team too holds no grudges against the leader who is held high in trust and respect. The new age CIO is making these choices, are you one of them ?

Offsite Meeting effectiveness

Every leader at some time seeks to engage the team in thematic exercises that are personified as offsite or outbound programs. Most of these are facilitated by external trainers who engage the team in field or classroom exercises. Typically such events spread over 1-3 days in out of city resorts where the external environment entices the participants while they struggle with the agenda and expectations. Almost everyone looks forward to such a sojourn from day-to-day work.

Over the years I have attended and conducted over a dozen such programs with teams, large and small, across organization layers. All of them were great experiences and opened up a new line of thought, provoking some action or reaction with me as well as other participants. Many companies conduct these annually by department or sometimes horizontally taking layers of management for team building, bonding and improvement of cross-functional dynamics.

In the last outbound program one of the participants posed a question to the moderator, how can we ensure that the learning from this program stay with us and bring about positive change? The volatility of learning defies expectation and evaporates by the time everyone reports back to their workplaces. Nonetheless this does not deter teams, companies and trainers world over from conducting such programs. The moderator promised to revisit the question before close of the program.

CIOs probably manage the most diverse teams with skills and competencies that are specialized in their own right. Be it infrastructure which can be subdivided into network, servers, data centers, or core application stacks that require technical, functional and architectural expertise; all of this and more form a typical IT team. Each professional equipped with ‘professional arrogance’ believes s/he is unique and better than the other. For the enterprise to function cohesively, these teams have to work in tandem like the machinery in a shop floor lest production come to a standstill.

The siloed nature of teams creates friction as well as competitive spirit that require the CIO to balance internal expectations with the expectations of the business leaders and customers. Outbound and offsite meetings thus serve an important purpose of breaking the ice, bringing together the teams even if for a short while, and provide a platform for exploration of themes that bring success to the team. It is foolhardy to expect everyone to create the same level of benefit for themselves; if some of them find their change agent, the event has served a purpose. It’s analogous to a classroom where all the students listen to the same teacher but hear differently.

Coming back to the moderator of the last outbound, in the final session, he said, “I am sure you liked parts of the program, participation level was great. I had nothing to give to all of you; it’s for you to decide what you want to take back.” Well said indeed, because no one can ensure what you take away from any program, discussion or stuff that you read; it’s a choice the participant makes based on his/her presence, participation (or lack of it), fiddling with the phone, or side talk.

On another note, Zig Ziglar said, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing, that’s why we recommend it daily.”

A year of active blogging

Many moons back, this column was conceptualized based on the intermittent musings posted on Oh I See. It has evolved with feedback from readers and critics in equal measure who keep providing me with feedback, headlines and thoughts that can be converted into a column. The weekly frequency has settled down to a couple of hours over the weekend — after many hours during the week has been consumed in figuring out what matters — amongst the many wanting attention.

CEOs, CIOs, students, techies and business readers have written back with their views; some in agreement, a few in disagreements. I learned different perspectives from both — views that added to the richness that I consume and try to disseminate across this column. The Gonzo approach (a la Hunter Thompson) to Oh I See appears to bring out the warts, moles and at the same time, airbrushed images that attempt to make them palatable. Until a few weeks back, I was ignorant of this branding, until it was pointed out by the editor at TechTarget. I am simultaneously suitably impressed and humbled.

Celebrating a year of Oh I See and reflecting back on the various topics that were brought up, discussed, debated, challenged, analyzed, I hope that you would have gained something; a laugh, a connect to the CIO reality. If nothing else, it’s a smile or a frown — hopefully not a grimace. But if your reaction was indeed extreme, did it stimulate you enough to write back? And if not, then you better do it the next time.

Last week was great. I managed to catch up with some old colleagues whom I had mentored. It was heartening to see them achieve new peaks in their career. The event that brought us together from different parts of the world was better than most, since it had limited product pitches (which were relegated to one-on-one meetings, though some did escape). The learning was indeed that irrespective of geography or industry (specific and additional challenges could be regulatory), experiences across the globe seem to mirror each other with fair consistency. Similar challenges and opportunities observed during discussions with peers from China, Japan, and other countries reinforced the belief that the human factor overrides all other forces.

Is there a Holy Grail for the CIO that can overcome the nemesis of IT? Something that manifests itself as one or more of “Alignment”, “Change Management”, “Budget pressures”, and “People issues”.… Someday, I hope to find the illusive mantra that CIOs can universally apply under most situations to overpower Medusa.

Back to Oh I See and the journey through the year, I hope the coming year will have a lot more to discuss and write about. Amongst the feedback, my favorite quote comes from someone who aspires to be a CIO. “I don’t need to read books or take management training from any business school any more. Your regular articles on different sites like STL center, Oh I See, IT Next, etc are enough to fill all the required skills and capabilities in me to get and justify with the position like CIO /Head IT.”

How to overcome a recalcitrant staff member or Wally like behavior ?

CIOs often come across situations where they realize that certain individual(s) in their team are unable to deliver even basic results. Typically, such individuals may have survived multiple bosses, or been in the company for a very long time like Wally (from the famous Dilbert series). All efforts to bring about change may have yielded microscopic results. Let me use a couple of examples to illustrate such cases.

You go into a management meeting along with some of your team members; the expectation is to gain consensus on the way forward on a difficult project. All is going well, till silence falls with uncomfortable stares. Or the meeting is halted because one of your team members blundered and lost all gained ground.

Another case is a review meeting with the CEO on what IT is doing. You get started, and then get hit on the head—one of your staff members has not kept promise despite reminders and follow-ups. It was something that you did not focus on, considering the task’s facile nature (which any idiot would find difficult to go wrong on). But then, you are now at the receiving end.

In both cases, you may feel like strangling the person. But, that’s not the corporate way of dealing with frustration!

So the first response seems to indicate that you “fire” the person. That’s an easy solution, but should be the last resort. Instead, here are some other alternatives that you could review:

1. Assign a coach to the person with daily/weekly feedback without holding anything back.
2. Give the truth as it is, along with advice for improvement.
3. It could be professional arrogance (“I am better than others”) that translates into negative attitude. Introduce him to others who are better and show him the reality.
4. Put him on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan). Make it clear why he is on PIP—that it’s not because of work, but attitude.
5. Assign him away from the “critical” nature of the work, which works at times to demonstrate that he is not irreplaceable. It may moderate his behavior.
6. It could also be a genuine case of incompetence. Try training.

If all these steps don’t work, then the choice is obvious. But that’s also a difficult act to execute!

It’s important to take action sooner than later, as you may risk polluting the contributors and good staff. Delay will encourage the person to continue his (mis)contributions to the department. I have observed procrastination becoming the nemesis of many CIOs, so all I can say is, ACT NOW !

Is the CIO going through an Identity crisis ?

No IT event is ever complete without discussing the evolving or changing role of the CIO. This has almost become a flogging horse; surprisingly the people engaged in discussions are consultants, academicians, vendors and also the CIOs. All of them have aired their views and opinions, all of which indicate that the CIO role is changing and the incumbent should not be a CIO, but move laterally within the enterprise. Not that other CXOs are discussing how to become CIOs !

The role of the CIO has come into existence for just about a decade now and most of the IT leaders worked hard to get to this position. The transition from EDP Manager to CIO has indeed been a dramatic change and revolution for many individuals as well as organizations. Moving from a support tag to a business enabler and now with stake on the board table, the CIO has indeed proved it beyond any doubt that s/he is a leader in her/his own right contributing in many cases a wider perspective than other CXOs with visibility and insights from the entire enterprise.

Is it that the IT leaders of today are not performing their role adequately or they are dissatisfied with the laurels bestowed upon them ? The CIO is expected to be in touch with almost every trend in technology including but not limited to hardware, networking, software applications, tools and devices, telephony and mobility, and along with all this, the business too. In business, they are expected to understand the products and services, sales and marketing, production and back office, finance and accounting, legal and administration, processes and measurement, dashboards and analytics, not to discount people management and negotiation skills. Are we somewhere expecting the CIOs to be a compendium of all the superhuman heroes rolled up into one ? I have yet to come across such expectations from any other CXO in the company, including the CEO.

So what is causing this ? It would appear that the CIOs are to a great extent fuelling this debate and my hypothesis is that having moved rapidly into a role of prominence, they now want more even though there may be no more to have in many cases. The success through the journey has created the taste of blood with no easing of the adrenalin rush. With the current level of expectations and performance, the possibility of a burnout is higher than any other outcome. Some may be able to move mountains or climb the peaks of the Himalayas, but these are and will continue to be exceptions.

If a CIO is asked the question “Are you satisfied with your current role ?”, the answer would surprise many. So what’s the predicament in being a good CIO ? Does it spell the proverbial end of the road for the IT leader ? It’s a question that cries for an answer and the CIO is expected to find the answer without consulting the wise men in the mountains. Everyone has some advice on what next thereby demeaning the role to being lower in ranking to other CXOs.

I believe that the CIO should credibly communicate the contributions towards the successful and smooth functioning of the organization. The scorecard should mention the improvements made possible with the help of IT, new customer segments served enabled by analytics, additional revenue generated through new capabilities or services, or earnings realized with efficiencies that were made possible.

So stop debating the role of the CIO and move on to consolidate the position of strength with pride that is unique to the role. Debates and views will continue to distract the IT leader towards perceivably greener pastures. Lateral movement is finally a matter of personal choice.

This blog was first published on the CIO Klub website (http://www.cioklub.in/cio_says.htm) on May 11, 2009

Are you creating IT leaders

I get asked the question many times by different people, what has been your contribution to your company or the IT industry at large ! Earlier the focus was on answering the question based on the projects executed by self or the team, then it shifted to measurable value to the business and the wonderful "IT-Business Alignment". Somewhere down the line when that came with ease and almost became routine (with some notable exceptions), I began to think about how have I and how can I contributed to the IT industry.

Thinking through my journey over the last 25 odd years, I am able to create 2 distinctive stages. The first was when I was learning and following instructions of other business and IT leaders. While I did contribute to the discussion and influence the direction, my contributions were in the realm of project management, technical disciplines, and execution.

The second stage in which I continue today and been in this role for the last decade or so is when I was driving the direction, creating influence across the IT organization and business adoption of IT. But that was only part of the role I played. The realization that teams can be effective irrespective of the mix of people and skills, with some mentoring and coaching, there was a subtle shift towards encouraging people to start working independently.

Over the years, this nurturing became a habit and the bright team mates started blossoming on their own. All they needed was the impetus and encouragement that they have the potential which can be tapped into to develop into leaders in their own right. A few took on the opportunity and a few viewed it as a challenge; most of them however dived in with some conviction created out of their self-esteem stoked with a mix of mentoring and some pushing.

The result after a decade is that almost a dozen have achieved success and become CIOs in their own right contributing well to their organizations. For most of these talented individuals, some of the influence of thought stayed. They have become business IT champions and not technology professionals attempting to get budgets sanctioned for every small project.

What have you as a CIO been doing ? Are you creating followers or leaders ? Do you acknowledge talent by providing them the platform to grow or like some hire people who will not threaten your existence or position. I do know of a few such individuals (not necessarily CIOs only, but even CEOs and other CXOs) who will by design hire mediocre staff so that they can be at their beck and call, and not challenge them.

It's an elongated period (rather than a moment) of pride to see them grow and take on leadership positions; some of them humble me by mentioning that I played some role in their ascent. I wonder where do I go from here ?