Recently, I had a conversation with a former colleague who is about to embark on a new journey in his second role as a CIO. I had a separate conversation with someone who is contemplating making the rise towards the role. I realize that overtime I’ve had lots and lots of conversations and I’ve also met some stellar leaders and some not so stellar. I am still a work in progress and enjoying the journey of everyday trying to become a better leader, better business executive, and a better CIO. I wanted to post a quick list on what I think are some of the critical skills for a CIO.
Five core skills every CIO must continually improve
Of course, there are dozens of items I could include. However, here are the top five in my opinion:
1) RELATIONSHIPS – You have to be able to deal with and be accepted by people in various groups. Expect that in a typical week, you might have a meeting with a peer about a failing project, with vendors to negotiate a contact, with your CFO to review budget, to an external sales call with a client, to a strategic conversation with your CEO, to handling a sensitive issue with an employee. Each relationship is different and requires an ability to adjust your style while remaining authentic.
(See my prior posts on relationships. )
2) FINANCIAL ACUMEN – Master your budget. Know where you’re on target and where you have options to better manage. Don’t depend solely on the Finance function. They may provide you the numbers and the insight, but you get fired or rewarded for results. The temptation of mini technology liters is to spend a lot of time with their infrastructure team and their developers but then to forsake time with the finance leadership. That is a fatal mistake.
3) BUSINESS ACUMEN – you must know the business almost as much as the business development and sales teams. The risk of not working hard to know the businss is being left out of important calls. Or worse, you get invited to “the table”, but only acknowkedged when discussing specific technology issues. If not careful, you will get relegated to corporate stuff and controls.
4) LEADERSHIP – As anyone in the field will know, IT can be thankless. You rarely get calls when things go well, but let the ish hit the fan and your voicemail box is full. Your team needs inspiration and encouragement without pandering or coddling. Tough love that holds them accountable but allows for fast failure and supported recovery. You must have your Henry V moments on St Crispins Day, but also your Harry Potter vs Voldemort one on one battles where you are leading by example. Firm but fair leadership when you are also under pressure can be incredibly tough.
5) HUMILITY – no matter how hard you try, from time to time you will find yourself doing stuff that is “beneath you”. If I had a dollar everytime the entire room looked at me when a PC wasn’t able to connect to the projector, or the CEOs iPhone wasn’t working, I could at least buy a nice dinner or so package. Like it or not, if you have technology in your title, Wharton MBA or otherwise, you will at some point be asked to fix the meeting presentation system in a meeting with the Executive Committee. And you will have to graciously ignore the fact that Joe D. Salesman simply didn’t know how to hit page down to advance his slides.
Being a CIO can be one of the most rewarding, challenging, and exciting opportunities in your corporate career. You will meet amazing people, network amongst technology visionaries as well as business leaders, and drive significant transformation in your company. It can also be highly frustrating and boy will you be tired. A lot. However, continually working on these particular skills will make you and your company more succesful.
What are some expectations you have of your CIO (or, if you are the CIO, of yourself) and does he or she live up to those expectations? What skills would you add to my list?
Perhaps the most common thing I heard during the first few weeks after my firm joined forces with another firm was this seemingly simple yet incredibly important statement: “I don’t know Adam’s style yet.†That can’t really be rectified with an email, or a blog, and frankly most teams will just have to get to know their new boss as a matter of course. That said, I was curious to know how many people are asked this question and how do you answer it.
Do you talk about your personal life and what matters outside of work to allow them a glimpse of who you are? Do you talk about your operating principles, your values?
I will suggest there are a few things that make me who I am and I am happy to share these things. But I’m not sure if this actually answers the question.
Who am I?
1) I am passionate about diversity in all aspects of the word. Born and raised in Chicago, I have lived in St Louis, New York, Philadelphia, London and Johannesburg for periods of time and have become who I am from a bit of each of those experiences, plus my travel to over 40 countries. Being “global†is to me the greatest way to leverage and learn from different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Anything that prevents truly gaining this leverage is a problem. In this way, I am a bit stubborn (cue the next bullet)
2) While on the cusp, I am primarily an extrovert in that I get lots of my energy from others. On the Myers Briggs scale, I am an ESTJ (“Executiveâ€) with all the positive and negatives of that personality type. (I do, however, feel that I am an ISFJ in my personal life and as I get closer to a team, I start to lean a bit more in that direction.) I love building and managing teams, organizing them for success, and moving on to the next initiative or program. When I have gotten myself to a certain model, I do struggle at times changing my mind. Yes, I can be stubborn. You can ask my partner or other family members!
3) I believe that leaders emerge from all levels of an organization and have personally seen relatively junior colleagues rise through the ranks with a little nudge and lots of support. Nothing excites me more than witnessing this, even when it means someone that has developed with me outgrows the nest and must go elsewhere. I want to be a part of this journey for colleagues in my current team.
So, how does this work? If you are unable to work with me for several months, to truly get to know my style and values, would these three items give you a clear enough sense of who I am? How would you describe yourself to a new team? As importantly, what would you want to hear from your new boss?
I recently visited with family in North Carolina and found a box of old books. One of them was called “Just Being Happy: A little book of Happy Thoughts”, edited by Edwin Osgood Grover. I loved seeing it. It was a compendium of quotes in the days before the Internet and Twitter. Copyright 1913!!
One of my favorite points from the author was in his explanation of why he curated the book.
The pleasure in happiness comes in the pursuit and not the attainment of happiness.
I agree. Will I ever be completely satisfied with everything, content with every day at work, joyful in every conversation with friends or family, or pleased with every bill or obligation? No!! But I’m going to enjoy trying to be happy.
Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:
There is a beautiful and an ugly way in which to say almost everything, and happiness depends upon which way we take. You can upset a person for the whole day by the harsh way in which you may call him in the morning, or you may give him a beautiful start by the cheeriness of your greeting. So not only in words but in all the little common courtesies and duties of life, think of the beautiful way of doing each. – Delia L. Porter
Do not keep the alabaster box of your love and friendship sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier. The kind things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go. – George W. Childs
Life is short, and we ever have too much time for glad denying the hearts of those who are travel linde dark journey with us. O be swift to love, make haste to be kind! – Amiel
Be Well. Lead On.
Adam
Adam L. Stanley
Connections Blog Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
Wow. It’s 2015. I can’t believe another year has come and gone. I joined a new company this year. Met dozens of new people. Learned more about myself and what matters. Watched my neices and nephew mature and change. Lost a few of my favorite entertainers. Added a couple of countries to my travel list. Purged a few negative relationships. Made the Crains Chicago top tech list and breached the 5000 followers level on Twitter. Found a lot of gray in my beard that was not there last year. And some things started hurting for no reason. Sigh. Enjoyed several new restaurants. Rejoined a gym and actually went for quite a while. And, most importantly, I ended the year more at peace than I started it.
So now it’s time to start a new year.
New year.
New beginnings.
New perspectives.
New opportunities.
So what are you going to include in your new year resolution? Here is what I would suggest:
1) Forgive someone this year. Someone once said that it takes a strong person to say sorry, and an ever stronger person to forgive.
2) Fall in love with yourself again. Sometimes your fiercest critic is yourself. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross has a popular quote I love > “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.”
3) Give more. You don’t have to have loads of money to make an impact. Think about what little things you can do to help out others. Give $5 more each month than you have in 2014 to an organization or religious institution that does something positive.
4) Lead on. Mentor someone or commit to being a better boss or team player. Take charge in an area that has chronically lacked leadership. Make a difference.
5) Hug more. Go do it now. Give someone a hug. If you’re not a hugger, just give them a smile. You will change their day.
This is the easy stuff.
Yes, I’m a little bit hoaky. Perhaps idealistic. But I’m pretty sure I won’t go to the gym five times a week all year. I likely won’t lose 20 pounds or find my six pack abs. So, when it comes down to it, the above items are much more realistic!
So, I resolve to do the above five things. Join me, or let me know what your resolution will be. May the year 2015 be your best year yet.
Could it be that your Mr or Mrs Right is standing in front of you at Starbucks or Protein Bar?
Can you live without it for a week? Day? 5 minutes?
Put down your smartphones people. Let me repeat. Put down your smartphone. Well, after you read this blog of course.
Every morning, I stand in line at Starbucks waiting for my daily grande black eye and roasted ham and swiss sandwich. Yes, a creature of habit, I get the same thing every day, 510 calories of buttery goodness. But I digress. As I stand in line, I look at the diversity of people standing around me. I see tall and short. I see black, white, Latino, and Asian. I see thick and thin. I see business women, artists, bicycle messengers, and lawyers (lots of lawyers, actually). I see gay and straight, tall and short. Lots of people I find attractive, and some you might find attractive even if I do not. And, more often than not, NONE OF THESE PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY TALKING TO EACH OTHER. No actual engaging in human interaction with other beings. What are they doing? They are on their smartphones.
Texting. Facebooking. Snapchatting. Emailing. Tweeting. Blogging. Calendaring. Working. Planning. Doing just about everything except actually communicating with people nearby.
And all I can think is, what a missed opportunity? Growing up, I remember my mom taking me to the grocery store with her. While waiting in line to checkout, inevitably, she would end up in conversation with the person behind her. My dad would share his opinions with just about everyone he ran into in a local hardware store or at the police station after work. I grew up communicating with people and the love of communicating, coupled with my fascination with people watching, has been with me for decades. Enter smartphones.
And now, yes, I find myself standing in line searching for the latest blog by Switch and Shift, seeing what my colleagues are chatting about on Yammer, religiously following back on Twitter, and fighting the never ending battle to clean out my email inbox (Sad reality: It will never happen. Just accept it.) So, lest I be called a hypocrite, I will admit what I am asking you to do is difficult. INCREDIBLY difficult. Â But let’s try it together.
Let’s put down our cell phones.
1) Set a target for how long you will leave it in a drawer or the car.
Only you can decide what is a stretch but realistic target in terms of period of time. Could be a a week? A day? How about an hour during the business day? 5 minutes?
2) Go somewhere you go fairly regularly, and strike up a conversation with someone around you
During your no cell phone (day/week/hour/minute) make a visit to a grocery store, coffee shop, food spot, office break room, or anywhere you typically find yourself on a fairly regular basis. Do what you normally do EXCEPT use your phone (to completely avoid temptation, pay with … gasp … CASH rather than using your smartphone payment app). If you, like me, get energy from others and are more extroverted, strike up a conversation. If you are more of a people watcher, just observe the traits, attitudes, outfits, hair, whatever! If you are bold, flirt with the amazing person you now realize comes to the same place at the same time every day.
3) Encourage someone else to do the same thing.
You will meet someone cool, notice a new hair style or fashion, or maybe even simply realize for the first time how good your coffee tastes when you drink it piping hot and only focus on the experience. Share that with someone, share it with me or others on this blog. Spread the word.
With so many dating sites around, perhaps some of you are spending this time on these sites, editing your profile and replying to messages? There are sites for Christians, Jews, farmers, baby boomers, gay men and lesbian women, millionaires, and more. And I have many many many friends that are long-term or recently single. As I look around at the heads bowed down, eyes focused on phones and tablets, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps we are missing something fairly basic.
Could it be that your Mr or Mrs Right is standing in front of you at Starbucks or Protein Bar? Look up. Now!
Be Well. Lead On. Adam
One final note >>>
Pedestrians: Put down your cell phones. Unless you live in a city that has one of these special cellphone lanes. Yeah, I think its pretty sad too!
Inspiration and courage must come from every level of your business if you are to be successful.
Most of us have read dozens of articles about amazing leaders and superstar management teams that make all the difference. And I do completely agree that success without good leadership at the top is near impossible. But a recipe for personal failure is to expect all wisdom and guidance to come from on high. I continue to hear people ask for vision and inspiration from the top. And, yes, I agree this is critical. But it is important we remember just how inspirational we can be to each other. A group of smart people in a room thinking positively and acting on such positive thinking can go so far.
I often talk about leaders at all levels and encourage you to be the leader that drives the change you want to be. There are people out there that are looking to YOU to make them feel purpose, to make them want to stick it out and fight as hard as necessary to get things done. Yes, they will enjoy watching CEO videos, seeing values presentations, and the like, and they will get vision and inspiration from there. But YOU have the power to influence daily and I urge you to do so.
Be well. Lead on.
Adam
Adam L. Stanley
Connections Blog Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
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Perhaps the most common thing I heard during the first few weeks after my firm joined forces with another firm was this seemingly simple yet incredibly important statement: “I don’t know Adam’s style yet.†That can’t really be rectified with an email, or a blog, and frankly most teams will just have to get to know their new boss as a matter of course. That said, I was curious to know how many people are asked this question and how do you answer it.
