Kyle Field at Texas A&M

Photo by StuSeeger

After an embarrassing loss to Kansas State last weekend, my Texas A&M football team responded with a resounding whooping (that’s a Texas term) of the Texas Tech Red Raiders Saturday in Lubbock, racking up a 52-30 victory.  This is a big win for our program, for sure.

Whenever the discussion involves Texas Tech, the idea of a “system quarterback” usually is in the mix.  The concept of a system quarterback is that a well-defined system made up of coaches, culture, personnel, league and offensive philosophy together can make a solid but not spectacular quarterback flourish.  In Texas Tech’s case, their Coach Mike Leach has helped several quarterbacks put up unbelievable numbers – however, none have had anywhere near the same kinds of success in the NFL.  Some attribute this disconnect to the idea that Leach and Tech have established this kind of system.

Similar conversations exist at the NFL level too.  A QB like Trent Dilfer was never considered a superstar, but when put in a system at Baltimore, he won a Super Bowl.  The inverse could also be discussed (see Dan Marino in Miami).

Does a Great System Make a CIO Better?

Could a similar situation exist for senior leaders in top companies?  Could some companies have a system that combines coaching, culture, personnel and a set of core processes (plays) that could make its leaders better?

GE comes to mind.  It’s generally accepted that GE knows how to build good general managers, CEOs in particular.  Diamond’s founder and chairman, Mel Bergstein, describes this kind of company as an “academy firm” and talks about Goldman Sachs as having a similar capability.  A University of Western Ontario study found that GE has an exceptional management development process and that ex-GE managers bring significant enterprise value to their new companies.

In understanding exactly what kind of system GE has built and the value it adds, they used the VRIO framework to analyze it:

• Value – can it directly address opportunities and be applied to threats?
• Rarity – do other firms have this resource?
• Imitability – can other firms quickly/inexpensively replicate it?
• Organization – is the firm organized to take advantage of the resource?

Using the VRIO lens, the Western Ontario team concludes that GE’s management development program adds sustainable competitive advantage.  While not easily replicable, H-P, Johnson & Johnson and a few other companies are also known for leadership development.  Within these companies, the CIOs and CIOs-to-be take advantage of their general management program along with their peers across the organization.

However, I wonder if a company can have a system that is particularly well-suited to help a CIO excel, even if it doesn’t have a program and culture like GE’s?  Thinking out loud, here are some of the characteristics that I think create an environment in which a CIO can excel:

• Products: information-based products or significant information “wrappers” around products (eg, UPS)
• Organization: CIO core member of executive team; clear responsibility and accountability across IT leaders (enterprise and BU CIOs)
• Innovation: IT is looked at as a leader in enterprise innovation

I’d be interested in hearing about organizations in which IT leaders flourish.  Thanks for your comments.

by Chris Curran, with research by Michael Mariani

I am very passionate about coaching team sports and have been a basketball player most of my life. So, I read with great interest a recent MIT Sloan Management Review article, What Can Managers Learn From College Basketball?

There are three very interesting points:

1.  That the majority of new jobs are sourced through “weak ties,” not close relationships. (I never heard this before, but it makes sense.  Interestingly, I heard the same thing at a presentation last week by Andy McAfee on Enterprise 2.0.  The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon in action?)

2.  Between 2001 and 2007 more than 280 coaching changes were made across 341 colleges in the study.  See any parallels here to the CIO tenure situation?

3.  Many of the coaches are part of one of eight “family trees” – The John Calipari Tree or The Rick Pitino Tree, for example.  Furthermore, being part of one of these trees improves your chances of landing good jobs.

This got me thinking:  Are there family trees for the Chief Information Officer profession?

To begin exploring this question, we started with the CIO 100 and supplemented it with LinkedIn and biographical data available on the web.  For anyone who has tried to develop an easily understandable network map of customers, contacts, etc. you will know that it is a difficult task to identify links and make any sense out of them.  That said, we think there are some indications that CIO trees do exist.

After spending a few days digging through the data, a few trees seemed to emerge.  One example was around John McKinley, the CIO at GE Capital, Merrill Lynch, President/CTO at AOL and now a partner with a digital business incubator, LaunchBox.  Here is an example of some of the IT leaders who were in John’s organizations and their current firm:

Since I don’t know anyone on this chart, it only represents leaders who were working in the IT organizations during John McKinley’s tenure and went on to CIO positions later in their careers.  Given all of the IT organization variants, it’s also unclear what kind of reporting relationships existed in each organization and how much influence or opportunity for mentoring there was.  But this data can at least fuel an interesting discussion.  The idea of a CIO leadership tree seems a even a little more plausible at GE, given Jack Welch’s history of developing future corporate leaders.

The other interesting question explored in Daniel Halgen’s original study, “All in the Family: Network Ties as Determinants of Reputation and Identity in NCAA Basketball”, is if members of strong coaching trees are more resilient in the job market.  His research found this to be true and that the jobs were more prestigious for those affiliated with the trees.

I wonder if by more prominently highlighting our leadership lineage, we can land more desirable jobs?  Food for thought.

Along with IT project failure rates, the average time a CIO stays with a company is one of the most often quoted metrics in our trade. Recent studies cite that 1 in 4 CIOs are fired for poor performance and CIO’s have an average tenure of 4.4 years. These don’t seem to bode well for the CIO. Why is the tenure so short?  And, is this seemingly short tenure really a bad thing?

While certainly not scientific, I’ve been trying to find similarities and differences in the CIOs I work with as they enter a new job and navigate the waters of the enterprise. By personally observing 30+ CIOs over the last 10 years or so and adding to this the observations of my Diamond partners, I have developed a perspective that tries to match the core skill set of a CIO with the point in a company’s developmental lifecycle. I believe that these matches (or mismatches) can lend some insight into the reasons that CIOs do or don’t last in their role.

There are several views of the types of CIOs and I have my own version:

1. Strategist – very strong CxO collaborator who brings innovative, often disruptive thinking to an enterprise, visual communicator, conceptual and is frustrated with detailed planning
2. Transformer – comfortable directing large portfolios of projects, both strategic and tactical; great team builder and communicator; develops and understand business cases
3. Value Manager – comfortable optimizing IT’s processes and platforms, very good sense for IT efficiency and effectiveness; effectively understands and applies benchmarks and frameworks such as CMMi and ITIL

When a new CIO enters, it is interesting to look at where the enterprise is in its developmental lifecycle. I define the developmental lifecycle as having three simple stages:

1. Evaluation -assessing its business design in light of competitive pressures, cost challenges, or M&A opportunities
2. Change – planning and implementation of a new business design
3. Stabilization – operating the new business design and measuring its actual versus desired impact

Obviously, there is a strong correlation between the CIO types and enterprise lifecycle stages (funny how that works). So, my proposal is this:

A CIO will be most successful when his or her skill “type” matches the developmental stage of the enterprise.

Assuming you have a good skill match as a new CIO, the next question is what happens when the enterprise shifts into the next stage. One of three cases exists:

1. The CIO combines good relationships and a strong IT leadership team to handle the different IT leadership needs
2. The CIO doesn’t have what it takes to manage the transformation and leaves/asked to leave as the effort stalls
3. The CIO is “bored” with the changing role and eventually leaves

Before you dismiss the “bored CIO” as a ridiculous scenario because it doesn’t fit you or your colleagues, take my word that they do exist. In fact, they are some of the most effective and creative CIOs out there.

Consider one CIO I am working with now who is a “strategist” (my term not hers). Over the last five years, she has had three CIO positions in different companies. Her style is intense and creative. She sees her role as a disruptor and seeks to turn the enterprise on its head to get real transformational value from IT. Along the way, unfortunately, her style can create relationship challenges and she tends to leave. I would say that in the end, she puts firms on a better path then when she got there. In fact, she is to the point where she considers herself more of a contractor than an employee. This model may not fit you but it does exist.

From a career management perspective, it may be eye opening for you to think about what kind of core skill you have – strategist, transformer or value manager. I’m not saying that you don’t have or can’t have some of the other two, but one is likely dominant.

Now, consider what your firm is trying to do.  Is there a match?

If not, what can you do about it?