CIO by Committee

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Team Huddle by tenaciousme

We’ve had some good discussion on this blog, on LinkedIn IT Leadership groups and my CIO.com blog about the requisite skills and experience for a successful CIO. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to hear two talks at a CIO conference Diamond sponsored that I’d like to combine into some observations about building teams and specifically, the CIO’s leadership team.

The first speaker was Bill Rollwitz, an organizational psychologist and leadership coach who spoke about emotional intelligence. Along the way he spoke about the need for leadership teams to understand and balance the strengths of each. One thing he said really stuck with me:

Our performance reviews and development plans should focus more on improving strengths than on improving weaknesses.

Supported by research, his point was that since each member of a team may not be the best public speaker, for example, figure out what they ARE good at and maximize that. So, help the person or two who is good at it get better and let the others develop their core skills in analytics, design, modeling, recruiting - whatever. As much as this makes total sense, it is still not done in most organizations with whom I’ve worked.

The second speaker was Rollin Ford, Wal-Mart’s CIO.  He is an excellent speaker and storyteller and I encourage you to hear him speak if you get the chance.  Rollin comes from a supply chain background rather than growing up in IT.  While I feel pretty strongly that a CIO must have a deep understanding of technology and its business impacts, its clear that there are many out there, including Rollin, who have been successful without a long career in IT (interestingly, Rollin interviewed for an IT job but chose working in a DC instead).  The backstory of his remarks was that their innovation and management of the technology to support over 8,000 stores is a team effort.

CIO by Committee

In keeping with the idea that the operation of IT is a lot like a complete business, it is important to think about the various types of skills and management styles beyond the typical functional areas, like apps and infrastructure.  For example, some of your team will be better suited to drive the analytical thinking required to measure IT’s effectiveness, while others will be better fits for broad communications to customers and business leadership.  Configured properly, the set of complementary strengths represented by your leadership team are very powerful - but you have to know who is really good at what.

You can either guess at your team member’s strengths or you can use a more scientific method.  I’m a big believer in the uncanny accuracy of the well-established behavior tests, such as Kolbe A and Myers-Briggs.  With a formal or informal view of your team, there are two questions to ask:

  1. Is the team balanced across leadership and behavioral traits?
  2. Are the roles each member is performing a good fit with their inherent behaviors?

I’m reminded of an old friend who would always tell me “You’re a better creator and I’m a better editor.”  We arrived at a comfortable working relationship through trial and error.  While it may be good enough to develop a perspective on your team’s strengths organically, a more measured and proactive approach should yield a higher-performing team.

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  • I agree that finding someone’s strengths and positioning them to be able to use them is often the best way to turn a low performer into a high performer. I’ve seen times when someone is shifted to a different type of position and they outright fail, after having been an outstanding performer in their previous position. Not everyone is (or wants to be) good at everything.

    Taking a more scientific approach to this viewpoint could only help a leader get a better feel for their team and possibly how to hire in the short term. My only caution is not to put someone in a corner based on a personality test.

  • I agree that finding someone’s strengths and positioning them to be able to use them is often the best way to turn a low performer into a high performer. I’ve seen times when someone is shifted to a different type of position and they outright fail, after having been an outstanding performer in their previous position. Not everyone is (or wants to be) good at everything.

    Taking a more scientific approach to this viewpoint could only help a leader get a better feel for their team and possibly how to hire in the short term. My only caution is not to put someone in a corner based on a personality test.

  • Thanks for sharing-excellent post!

    The “CIO by Committee” in my mind is the “Office of the CIO”. Here’s what worked well for me in assembling the OCIO: through behavioral interviewing, understand each team member’s strengths; create an organizational structure to leverage those strengths; empower them to take action so we create a strengths-based, outcome-focused workplace.

    “First, Break All the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman was a key element and required reading for the team.

  • Thanks for sharing-excellent post!

    The “CIO by Committee” in my mind is the “Office of the CIO”. Here’s what worked well for me in assembling the OCIO: through behavioral interviewing, understand each team member’s strengths; create an organizational structure to leverage those strengths; empower them to take action so we create a strengths-based, outcome-focused workplace.

    “First, Break All the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman was a key element and required reading for the team.

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  • About the point that you mention of focusing in strengths I recommend you read this book from Gallup Organization: First, break all the rules ( Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/ykddtb5 ) that emphasize this point to manage talent in big and complex organizations.

  • About the point that you mention of focusing in strengths I recommend you read this book from Gallup Organization: First, break all the rules ( Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/ykddtb5 ) that emphasize this point to manage talent in big and complex organizations.

  • In looking back at past IT management roles, I found the most effective leadership team is when the levels in the org chart worked to leverage each others strengths. I may have been more analytical and technical, but my boss was more relationship and external party’s motivations focused. We combined to leverage our separate skills into a stronger, more cohesive management vehicle. Instead of trial and error, in this case, it was his/her leadership to be candor-us up front to quickly arrive at the combo working arrangement.

  • In looking back at past IT management roles, I found the most effective leadership team is when the levels in the org chart worked to leverage each others strengths. I may have been more analytical and technical, but my boss was more relationship and external party’s motivations focused. We combined to leverage our separate skills into a stronger, more cohesive management vehicle. Instead of trial and error, in this case, it was his/her leadership to be candor-us up front to quickly arrive at the combo working arrangement.

  • Dean Nicolacakis

    Chris, I think you are spot on both about playing to individual strengths and to about building a renaissance team not looking for renaissance people. In IT groups, it feels like there are two parts of the organization where this is most important and where the typical gaps happen. The first is between IT and the business, the second between the application team and the infrastructure team. In many cases at my clients these folks aren’t only on different teams they are in differnet cities and even work for different companies. They associate themselves functionally instead with the projects they all work on. It seems to me that part of the improvement answer lies in redefining what team is most important to deliver results.

  • Dean Nicolacakis

    Chris, I think you are spot on both about playing to individual strengths and to about building a renaissance team not looking for renaissance people. In IT groups, it feels like there are two parts of the organization where this is most important and where the typical gaps happen. The first is between IT and the business, the second between the application team and the infrastructure team. In many cases at my clients these folks aren’t only on different teams they are in differnet cities and even work for different companies. They associate themselves functionally instead with the projects they all work on. It seems to me that part of the improvement answer lies in redefining what team is most important to deliver results.

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