Why CIOs Should Take a Cue from Historians

There’s a saying amongst historians, particularly in relation to events in Europe over the past few centuries: “Hungry people are dangerous people.”

It’s a simple adage, but it acknowledges an historical pattern that has occurred over and over again. When a population is underfed they get desperate, and when they get desperate they’re likely to do dangerous things, such as revolt against their ruler.

Over time, smarter rulers – kings, princes, governments – learned that, no matter what else was occurring, their first priority was to make sure that people had enough to eat. That was not always possible, of course, and many a ruler lost their throne, and sometimes their head, for being unable to feed their people.  

The IT Organization’s Historical Patterns

Like historians, CIOs are in a position to recognize the historical patterns and themes of the organization, even if they don’t go back hundreds or thousands of years. And that’s important. The reason it’s important is for the same reasons it was important to European rulers – by recognizing and learning from what has occurred in the past, there’s an opportunity to improve future outcomes. Think about the number of IT initiative failures in any given organization, and across the industry, and it becomes clear that the lessons from the past are not being given their due consideration.

How might CIOs channel historians in order to improve the success rate of the IT initiatives at their organizations? When historians want to study something from the past that they’re not familiar with, the first thing they do is to gather as much information about it as they can. That is often done in the following forms:

1. Secondary sources – written documentation about the event or period gathered by others after the fact
   
   
2. Primary sources – written documentation about the event or period produced by those involved in the event
   
   
3. Oral primary sources – interviews with those involved in the event.

This happens to be a good model for CIOs to follow, particularly those who are newer to an organization. For whatever the issue or initiative is, CIOs and other interested IT leaders should start with the existing secondary sources – usually things like meeting minutes, project status reports, presentations, etc.

From there they should review any direct communication and collaboration between the participants. That might be things like emails between participants if they’re available, or issues and concerns that may have been documented by participants, or even meeting notes that might have been created during the initiative or event.

Finally, the CIO should personally interview those who participated in the initiative or event to create an oral history from those involved.  

History Reveals the Culture of IT

Put into practice, such an approach can pay big dividends for a CIO. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a new CIO in a new position, or a veteran CIO in an incumbent organization: showing the willingness to spend the time and energy to more fully understand why something happened the way it did – for better or worse – sends a strong message that the CIO cares about getting it right for the organization.

For example, it’s often the case that newly hired CIOs want to set their own course and agenda, something that’s completely understandable. In truth, the reason they were hired may have been because the organization was interested in a different or new business technology direction. However, this situation often can lead to the perception - as opposed to the reality – among the IT team that the CIO is not interested in understanding the culture and constituencies of and in an organization, or is not interested in engaging with people to understand what happened, what their needs are, or what their challenges and opportunities might be.

Once that perception is out there, it’s difficult to correct. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be corrected or altered, but that takes a willingness on the CIOs part to engage with the history of the organization, the IT division, or the initiative. In other words, to do what a historian does with a subject matter.

Granted, thinking about the methodology historians employ to approach an historical event seems, at first blush, to be completely disconnected from the methodologies that CIOs use to get their jobs done. However, that’s actually the point. Anymore, CIOs no longer just play the role that’s described in most CIO job descriptions. According to the media and conference agendas across the industry, they’re innovators, catalysts, technologists, strategists, business domain experts, and many more things. One wonders if the majority of CIOs in the industry really view themselves that way, and if they do, how they plan to get from where they are today to where they want to be tomorrow.

Use the Historian’s Approach

If it were me, I’d start with a history lesson. And it’s not because history repeats itself. Every historical and organizational situation is different from the past in some way. More correctly, it’s human nature that remains almost universally consistent, and that’s why it’s important to consider a historian’s approach as a CIO.

As Mark Twain once famously said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” That’s something that CIOs and other IT leaders need to remember.