Being 'Strategic Enough' to Keep Your CIO Job

Over the past 18 months I have noticed a new phenomenon: Some of my most experienced and successful CIO peers have been losing their jobs. These are the IT leaders that taught me how to avoid ERP disasters, how to implement a PMO, on whom I relied to deliver an effective and innovative e-Commerce strategy. These have been some of my go-to people in learning what it means to be a CIO. Yet, they are now looking for their next, great opportunity.

This situation bothered me enough that I decided to do an investigation. I talked with each of my displaced mentors and, in some cases, if I had a good contact, talked with their companies. I wanted to find out what was happening, how the environment had changed, what these incredibly successful IT leaders were now lacking.

My CIO friends were as surprised at their situations as I was. They talked about some project and process failures but those were mostly in the past. They thought things were going reasonably well – as well as things can go it IT – and they were pushing the right projects and improving IT operations.

The story I got from their companies was different. In every case, when I talked with the company president or VP of Human Resources, the answer was that the now-former CIO was "not strategic enough." Now, since most people have their own unique definition of “strategy” I pressed a bit more to understand what they meant. It seems that not being strategic enough means not using technology to push innovation forward.

We are not strategic if we are not delivering a mobile strategy, a social strategy, an analytics strategy, and collaboration strategy, and, I suppose, a customer mind-reading strategy. And, all of this in addition to never having an operational or project performance hiccup. That all sounds good and nice but how can we do it?

What Defines a Strategic CIO?

I try to be “strategic enough” in several ways:

• I meet with my leadership team peers to learn about their short- and long-term plans. I project those plans onto current and future technologies and present back to them ways we can use technology to achieve their goals.

• I conduct a range of experiments to try out advanced methods and technologies before anyone knows they need or want them. We recently finished a little analytics skunk works project that will make a huge difference in the success of our students. No one asked for the project. Very few people knew about the project. We tried some things that failed and then found something that worked. When we unveiled what we had done, everyone thought I was a strategic genius.

• I push for continually improving IT transparency. I want to remove all of the mystery about both IT and technology. I share the status of projects. At the same time, I almost never talk about technology features and functions – I focus my conversations on business goals and drivers for success.

• I invite my business peers to learn about technology with me. If I find an interesting technology that I think will advance our cause, I invite others on the management team to learn about the technology with me. This has led to some interesting reciprocal education. For example, our Chief Marketing Officer now invites me to learn about marketing methods.

• I am always in the “Yes” business (and if you are in the "No" business, get out of it). I actively pursue and say, “Yes” to anything that will make life easier – even if it conflicts with a service I already provide. I had a remote user backup solution – it was hard to use, did not work all that well, and everyone pretty much hated it. When I heard that one office had signed up for a consumer, on-line back-up service, I did not punish them, I embraced the service and made it available. One of the key aspects of consumerization is the wave of lightweight, easy-to-use consumer applications that are now available. I say “Yes” to these whenever I can.

I might lose my job for a variety of reasons but, if I have my way, it will never be because I am not “strategic enough.”