CIO: Who do you work for?
I was reading yet another interesting Seth Godin post and it triggered me into applying his wisdom to the world of the CIO. Stretching Seth’s point, projects can be structured as follows:
-
To please the boss
-
To please yourself
- To please the market.
Convert this to the IT function:
-
To please the board
-
To please the IT function
- To please the users/customers.
Pleasing the board
This is the normal dynamic and to ignore the wishes of the paymaster would be unwise. However the board often has a short-term focus and no real understanding of what IT can do for the organisation in the medium to long term.
Pleasing the IT function
Playing with the latest technologies or being seen to be an early adopter of Google Apps might get the attention of those within the industry. But much like web designers trying to impress web designers the overall impact of a fancy piece of functionality may not be of value to the user. The dynamic in the market is to please the IT function as getting to use the latest whiz bang technologies can help future-proof one’s resume.
Pleasing users/customers
These are the people that matter. They are at the business-end of the technology. When it works they are raving fans, or at least taking a step down the path to trusting you. These are the people that pay you salary. They are the reason the IT industry exists.
I would extend this community to include the shareholders. It’s their business. The local community and the environment need also to be part of your stakeholder community.
Once you have a clear idea of whom you really work for, then the value of your personal share price will rise as will your marketability.
@
Ade,
I could not agree more… and might I suggest it is when we forget that it is the needs of the customer (both internal and external) that matter most, that we get ourselves in real trouble.
This applies both inside and outside of IT. Take for example the financial services industry. If the banks and other players had only remembered that their real purpose was to help people and companies realize their finance goals, their hopes and dreams, there would have been no sub-prime housing loan and asset-backed paper crises, and the world economies wouldn’t be in the mess they are today.
Here’s hoping that going forward the IT world will lead by example.
Somebody has to!
@
Thanks for your comment Jim. You are right. Greed rather than service was the main driver. Financial services organisations need to be measured by some sort of metric that ensures they remain focused. Perhaps a ratio such as service:greed index is needed. Not sure how that information is captured. Perhaps customer complaints to director remuneration could be a starting point?
@
Thanks for your emailed comment Ben – “Surely the role of the CIO is to educate the board about what the clients (and shareholders) need and keep the techies from doing what they would like to do !”
Absolutely. However that requires boardroom credibility, influence and genuine leadership skills. These skills do not accrue when travelling the traditional technologist-to-CIO career path.