In May 1940, an increasingly nervous House of Commons met to debate the best way in which to conduct the war with Nazi Germany.
The occasion is now best remembered for Conservative MP Leo Amery’s famous denunciation of then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain: ‘You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.’
Chamberlain resigned within days and Winston Churchill was soon leading the country in his place.
Sometimes, it seems, it is just time to go – your efforts are no longer welcome and your support has evaporated.
But how does a chief information officer (CIO) know that the time is right to hand in his or her cards and leave the scene? After all, Chamberlain had a 68 per cent popularity rating just six months earlier.
What are the warning flags that signal no further progress can be made and it is time to find another challenge?
‘The chief executive not taking your calls is probably not the best sign,’ jokes Sharm Manwani, a member of the senior faculty at Henley Management College and an expert in CIO career issues.
‘Having an IT open day and no one shows up,’ adds Ade McCormack, founder of management consultancy Auridian.
The real answer, suggest the experts, is that the IT leader has to be able to recognise his or her own particular strengths and contribution, and map that onto the current reality of the organisation they are expected to serve. If there is a mismatch, it is probably time to look elsewhere – or look at major changes to your approach.
‘The first thing to ask is if the organisation you are in sees IT as an internal factory, which just supplies things in the cheapest and most efficient fashion, or as a service and a value-add,’ says Marcus Blosch, research director on the executive programmes service of analyst Gartner. ‘This is the best way to start asking what you want to do as a CIO: does the company have ambitions that you can help meet?’
The problem comes down to a mismatch between where the CIO thinks he is going and where the organisation thinks the CIO is going, says Manwani.
McCormack adds that typical warning signs for a breakdown in the IT-business relationship include negative attitudes by IT staff to users, and a general disillusionment with IT across the organisation, which suggests a need to reconnect IT and business urgently.
But that is just the start, says Blosch. He identifies three major types of IT leader: technology, business process and business leader CIOs.
The first set of professionals are strongest on technology itself, seeing their job as being the technical expert in IT architecture. ‘They are excellent at keeping the email working and are most comfortable working in a back-office environment,’ says Blosch. These individuals most closely resemble the traditional IT director.
Those in the second intermediate group see their value as using IT to increase specific parts of business efficiency – for example, around a single main business process – and are very strong on operational application of IT.
Finally, there are the probably still rare but growing set of CIOs who style themselves as mainstream business executives who happen to be in charge of technology.
‘These guys want to be visible, and are always wanting to show how IT can contribute to the bottom line,’ says Blosch.
Manwani, citing research into the IT executive population, agrees that there are three types of CIO, although the way he divides them up is slightly different.
‘You have the problem solver, whose focus is on fixing things and getting project delivery back on track,’ he says.
‘There’s the incremental or stakeholder CIO, whose mission is to deliver good governance and increase overall efficiency. And finally we have the radical transformation CIO, who is only really happy when things are buzzing and there is lots of change and new technology being introduced.’
Using these broadly similar matrices, IT leaders should be able to assess what sort of CIO they are – and look at what their employer really wants at that moment. And guess what? They are not always the same.
‘If you are a technology guy, and the business needs someone to lead from the front, or you are the business CIO and all they want is the lights kept on, or close co-operation with the chief executive to tighten some business aspects, you could just be in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ says Manwani. ‘If you are a problem solver and the chief executive thinks he needs a radical transformer, there is going to be a clash.’
So the task is clear: define what you are and where you are, and take it from there. But that is not as trivial a job as it sounds, and Blosch cautions against complacency.
‘You have to be honest about what you can do and where you want to go, and indeed if you can get there,’ he says. ‘This is where we would recommend working with someone such as a coach or a trusted mentor to get that 360-degree evaluation that you probably need to understand what your brand really is.’
The good news is that IT people could be better at this than they may think. ‘Apply the same sort of logic and systems analysis to yourself as you would to a project,’ says Blosch. By the same token, analyse the industry your company is in: what does it need from IT to meet its challenges?
Once the analysis is over, what to do? Is it always time to write your farewell speech, or can the leopard change its spots?
‘It is possible to change from a problem solver to a transformer. Possible, but I think painful,’ says Manwani. ‘It is probably far easier to find a new chief executive you can relate to, to be honest.’
Blosch adds: ‘Project manage your career and perform a life audit on yourself as a project. If you do that and you keep on feeling frustrated that you’re not seeing the benefits you want, it really is time to go.’
Which brings us to the main lesson: changing organisation is realistically your best bet if you are offering IT guidance that is not what is being asked for.
‘Ultimately, your success as a CIO is more likely to come from the culture of the organisation you are in, than you as an individual,’ says Blosch.
‘So, if you are in the wrong role in the right company but try to chance it, you stand more chance of a breakthrough than being in the right role in the wrong company that just doesn’t get what you do.’
What are the signs that IT is taken the right way? ‘When the IT director or CIO, being one of the highest-paid people, is sitting on the board,’ says Auridian’s McCormack. ‘Where he or she acts as the digital coach to the other people on that board – and where very definitely he does not report in to the finance director – that is never a good sign.’
Is that the cue you need to revise your CV – or reassurance you are in the right place? Only you can answer that, but make sure you can do so objectively.
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