The CIO’s job is the hardest in the C-Suite

by

 

kozzi-businesswoman_carrying_cube_small

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again.  The CIO’s job is the hardest in the C-suite.   A true CIO is expected to do everything from technology strategy through IT operations.  This means that the following demands and threats are constantly pummeling the CIO:

  1. Project failures – IT is generally running some of the largest, most complex, most strategic projects in the business.  We’ve all seen the studies on failures.  Have you seen the one by McKinsey that 17% of large IT projects are so disastrous they threaten the very existence of the company?  Even if the CIO isn’t managing the projects directly, he has to be on top of their status, issues and risks to ensure more of the projects are a success.
  2. Operational failures – This is typically a pretty small part of the CIO’s job, but unfortunately, when the network or critical business apps go down, everyone looks at the CIO. She better know enough to dive in and manage the crisis. This means she has to be on top of the risks and issues to ensure problems are identified before they take down the company.
  3. Security threats – This one would keep me up at night. It is hard to get the right attention on this until things go wrong. Luckily, boards are getting more and more interested in this topic, so the CIO is now tending to get more support here.
  4. Peer relationships – The CIO is in the unenviable spot of needing to be responsive and helpful when things go wrong, but also needing to find the right time and way to give strategic advice.  It is hard to balance those two roles, and that’s arguably a full time job in its own right.
  5. Technology trends – A good CIO is not only talking to his business peers about their business strategy and specific business needs, but he is also counseling them on how technology trends will impact the company.  He needs to be up to date on where they are going with mobile, analytics, social, cloud and more.  Some of this can be delegated or outsourced, but the CIO really needs to understand these trends in some depth to be a good strategic adviser.
  6. Vendor ambush – The phone rings off the hook and emails swarm the CIO’s inbox.  She could spend all her time just meeting with all the various vendors who insist they have the answer that will save her.  But, some of them actually do, so she will want to spend some amount of time doing this, but picking the right vendors and seeing through the vaporware is a skill in itself.
  7. Coaching and mentoring – The CIO tends to have some of the largest, most diverse pools of talent in the organization and they are a tricky crowd to motivate and develop.  Architects require a different kind of coaching than the service desk manager.

I am in awe of my clients who do this job with ease.  It seems like 7 different jobs to me!  And I can’t think of another job that has the same significance of demands and threats as the CIO must face every day.

READ MORE

The Magic of Mortals

The Magic of Mortals

Daily we wake up to new developments in automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML). Across sectors and industries, automated solutions prove highly successful in surpassing the capacity of the human brain for certain tasks, improving...

read more
Leveling Up: How to Hone Your Skills at Home

Leveling Up: How to Hone Your Skills at Home

Leaders have been trying to crack the code on talent development for years. Recent studies have shown, however, that strength-focused leadership [read: intentionally elevating the qualities that already come naturally to us] is the clear winner for developing talent...

read more
Fake Case Study: Jack of all trades vs. Master of One

Fake Case Study: Jack of all trades vs. Master of One

  Listen to any earnings call or executive presentation and you will likely hear the terms “top line” and “bottom line.” These are words used to describe a business’s performance. According to Investopedia, the words are defined as follows: Top line refers to the...

read more
Your Personality Is Showing

Your Personality Is Showing

There I was, minding my own business one evening, digging into my organization's SEO performance (as one does), when I came across something interesting. Search terms related to "MBTI" — or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, developed by Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel...

read more
Lessons From a Change Manager Who Hates Change

Lessons From a Change Manager Who Hates Change

Hello. My name is Monique, and I’m a change manager who hates change.   After years of receiving “consulting therapy” from various mentors, I am now able to say these words out loud and proudly. But for a long time, it felt more like an admission of guilt. I mean, who...

read more
Creativity as a Cure

Creativity as a Cure

The topic of creative solutioning has been front and center these days as we talk more and more about organizational adaptability in the face of dynamic and uncertain times. For example, I recently read about a project that got me thinking about specific priorities...

read more
Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company — Why Now?

Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company — Why Now?

Big news over here as we close out the year - we have been acquired by Pariveda, a 750-person consulting firm in 12 markets across North America! We are now “Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company” and I’ll be serving as the Managing Vice President continuing to lead...

read more
Thought Ensemble Joins Pariveda Solutions!

Thought Ensemble Joins Pariveda Solutions!

Dallas, December 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Pariveda, a leader specializing in solving complex technology and business problems, announces the acquisition of Thought Ensemble. With the addition of Thought Ensemble, Pariveda now provides holistic business strategy,...

read more
Thoughts on Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act

Thoughts on Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act

It was about a year ago that we first started hearing about Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (SB19-085) and I knew it was going to be national news. We’d just gotten past the “Rocky Mountain High” jokes, and our lovely state was trying to break new ground...

read more