CIOs: Want to get onto the Board? Just 'running' IT isn't enough

For our third round table a few weeks back we took on an issue dear to the hearts of IT execs: getting a seat at the decision making top table. And who better to talk through this one than a roomful of CIOs who were on their own firms' boards. Your first tip for moving up is to stop saying "the business". Stop saying it now …

[fnusnu]

Chatham House rule

There is only one! http://www.chathamhouse.org/about/chatham-house-rule

[Anonymous C0ward]

Re: Chatham House rule

You don't talk about Chatham House.

[Pete 2]

Director of gubbins

The role of the directors is twofold.

First, to have a plan for the future of the business (which could include fixing any existing problems) and to be able to communicate that plan to the senior managers who's job it is to execute the plan. Directors aren't the "do-ers", they express a wish and others are resonsible for carrying it out. If you ever see a director of IT doing a technical job, something has gone terribly wrong.

Second, to be responsible both to the shareholders and the law for the operations of the company. As it turns out, large companies have many IT related legal obligations (security and protection of data being just one). However, it's not the job of an IT director to specify the "how" - that's too low-level - they specify the "what" and leave the "how" up to the minions, but with final say over all and any proposed solutions.

As such, it makes complete sense for an IT director to be only partially IT-savvy. Just as you don't expect a Network Manager to know about the header fields in an Ethernet packet. An IT director needs to work at the "block" level of infrastructure: a computer centre here, a D.R. site there. And to be aware of which directions the industry is moving in, in order to increase the IT value to the company: do we stick with our own operations, or do we outsource? do we put everything in the cloud?

However, since practically everything in a commercial organisation is money-driven, it's not unreasonable for an IT director to be better at doing spreadsheets than installing Linux.

[verbaloversupply]

Re: Director of gubbins

Your post worried me after the first paragraph. I see your point that directors shouldn't be overly operational but it's too narrow to say never. Going back to the shop floor is valuable, as is giving attention and training to your people as you want to build in succession, also good for the team to see managers getting hands dirty when need arises.

If you consider/refer to your people as "minions" (even in jest), this managerial style is technically known as "being a bit of a knob" (not even worth an expletive).

You should not be giving the final say over any and all decisions, like some petty lord. For major projects, your job should be exploring if there are alternatives, testing it makes sense and looking for holes, you are ultimately responsible but you need to trust your team and give them the freedom to make mistakes (as long as it's not catestophic) so they can learn and grow.

Partially IT-savy? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially if making decisions on Disaster Recovery and locations, in the context of your post this was chilling.

If my network manager didn't know about packet header fields I would be worried, they wouldn't know where to start if an issue occurred that wasn't a simple solve, that is fairly fundamental knowledge (yes I'm being obtuse).

Financial decisons made from looking at a spreadsheets, pandering to short term shareholder interests, ignoring the advice of people that know what they are talking about, gets you Sony type disasters.

[jtaylor]

Another great article

I always learn a lot from Dominic Connor's articles, and this is particularly timely for me. Many thanks!

I once worked at a company where the CIO told us that IT's focus would be on this list of business units that provided "durable competitive advantage" to the company. I replied that he should either get IT onto that list or outsource us. Several years and weak CIOs later, the company has made its decision.

I'm curious about something. Is the idea that a CIO would take a position on the Board of Directors of another company, or the same one? I'm not sure how one could both report to the CEO and oversee the CEO's performance, at the same time.