The CIO Playbook, and the Seldom Run Plays with Big Payoffs

The average chief information officer tenure in companies is between three and five years. It’s tough to be a long-term CIO when there are so many diverse projects, demands, and challenges. Then, there’s the political side as well.  

The CIOs I know accept these realities. They appreciate the variety of the work and challenges, and they relish engaging with new technologies that bring value to the business. They also know that the main plays in their CIO playbooks that they must absolutely run well each day. Those revolve around motivating staff, securing talent, ensuring that IT projects and initiatives are in good shape, building trust and sound working relationships with vendors and partners, and smoothing the way politically for IT with users, line managers, other C-level executives, the CEO and the board.  

These “proven plays” work, but there are also non-traditional plays that CIOs can run from their playbooks that can be rewarding and career-enhancing. 

What are they? Here are some examples: 

1. Learn finance! A surprising number of CIOs preoccupy themselves with IT, but remain relatively uninformed about the business, company operations, finances, and the key financial ratios by which the company judges itself. This lack of financial knowledge puts CIOs and their managers at a disadvantage in budget appropriation meetings. They stumble when they try to show the return on investment of a new technology or project they want backing for, or they have trouble articulating in financial terms just how a particular technology investment will contribute to corporate wealth. 

Related:MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Highlights CIO Leaders, Innovative Startups

CFOs know this. This is why CFOs can be tough as nails whenever a CIO tries to justify an IT investment. 

Fortunately, there are CIOs who turn the table on this dynamic. 

They make it their business to understand everything there is to know financially about their companies, including the key financial ratios that the company measures itself against. They study quarterly results and projections, and they ask questions. In short, they put themselves in a position where they can go “toe to toe” with the CFO in financial discussions.  

If they have difficulty understanding finance, they take classes. The end result is that they gain credibility with the CFO and the other budget approvers, and it gets easier to obtain funding for IT work.  

2. Assume end business responsibilities. Some years ago, there was a corporate movement to migrate non-IT executives through IT so they could acquire working technology experience. These tours of duty didn’t sit well with IT professionals, because they were working for bosses who didn’t know anything about IT. 

Related:Changing Role of the CIO

Since then, some CIOs have chosen to flip the script by moving into executive positions in the business in order to broaden their skills and demonstrate their business acumen beyond IT.  

I’ve seen CIOs head up departments like manufacturing, marketing, engineering. product development and strategic planning. In so doing, they became integrally acquainted with the profit-making and operational areas of the company. Some even moved into CEO positions. 

If these individuals had stayed in their CIO positions, they would never have been considered for CEO. It took getting directly into the business in an executive position, and proving themselves, for them to get the promotion. 

3. Start a for-profit IT. Almost every IT department comes up with an inventive piece of software, or a product that has the potential to be commercialized. What normally happens is that IT uses this innovation internally for the betterment of the enterprise’s IT, and it ends there. 

However, some entrepreneurial CIOs have recognized that innovation doesn’t have to end in internal IT. 

These CIOs have identified unique products and services that were innovated in IT and could be commercialized and sold for profit to others. 

Related:First Days on the Job as a CIO

A prime example is in banking, where banks with expansive IT operations and data centers have offered the same set of IT services that they provide internally to smaller community banks that don’t have the ability to fund full-blown IT departments. The smaller institutions pay a monthly fee to the larger institution for IT services, and the large bank’s IT department becomes a profit center. 

Another scenario occurs when an IT department develops a valuable add-on module or feature for commercial software that IT uses. The software vendor wants this add-on for its own offering, so it licenses and/or purchases the product from the IT organization. 

In still another case, the company decides to form an online profit center with digital products, so it taps the CIO to be the president of this spinoff profit subsidiary. 

In all three cases, the CIO has the potential to become the CEO of a spinoff unit. 

4. Serve on a board. CIOs often have opportunities to serve on boards of directors. Whether they serve on the board of a for-profit or a not-for-profit organization, they obtain valuable experience on the strategic side of the business, and they have the dual responsibilities of organizational and executive oversight. 

The value of being able to state in your CV that you are on a board cannot be overstated. It shows prospective employers that your understanding of companies is well-rounded. As a corporate executive, you understand the daily operations; and as a board member, you know strategy. 

Serving in a board capacity is a strong jumping-off point for CIOs who aspire to be a CEO someday. 

A Last Word 

For CIOs who want to be something more than CIO one day, it isn’t necessary to view the CIO position as your career end point. What you will have to do, however, is broaden your experience and expertise so that others can see your business acumen.