I have spent most of an incredibly busy March as a stand-in CIO while my boss was away. After three weeks of my first real taste of a C-level role and board member, I find myself grateful for the experience and thinking about all the things I've learned. Time for some reflections.
The job itself was obviously truncated - covering is an inherently tactical affair whereas a job like CIO is strategically focused. So I had an easy ride from that angle - large amounts did not need doing in the timeframe. What I DID do involved a lot of reporting and representation. Much more than my current role, I had to think about information flow across the department and that naturally led my mind straight to the way the processes were set up. Our department has been entirely overhauled over the last twelve or so months, and it was very interesting getting a different perspective on how this fits together and where we can work out kinks to prevent our own internal reporting industries wasting time re-collating information instead of letting it flow.
In fact, I find myself thinking about the process far more than the content. How do we get information from team to division to report to governance board while retaining its accuracy? Of course, the quality does matter - over the last few weeks I've fronted reports to the exec board, the spend group, the risk board and the directorate board to name just a few. There is no way I could have written all this myself, even with the information immediately to hand and that of course leads back to ensuring the processes are in place to create good submissions "automatically" with my input being editing and guiding the narrative of each submission.
Setting this up for success is utterly critical. I'm going to write a proper post on this sometime, but my feeling on my current job is that when one removes the fluff, I have two objectives - create clarity and make time to support / guide people. This was amplified again as CIO. I've already started updating the way we plan inside Engineering to more directly feed into some of the governance processes, removing some of the kinks mentioned above, and now The Boss is back I am going to spend more time working through this. I've been working on "create clarity" since day one, but I've got a different perspective to work from now.
So what else? Well, the flow described above creates more and more dependence on the people in the department. The more senior I get, the more I see this shift from doing to coordinating and this was a surprisingly large additional step. I thought I'd already shed all remnant of actually doing things myself, but apparently not. It re-highlights the importance of building a high-performing culture and all the questions therein - about trust, development, setting and maintaining standards, etc. These few weeks have also showed where I've been too tolerant - or perhaps more accurately where my tolerance will get me in trouble if I do a CIO role properly. In my current role, if something isn't quite done on time there is usually enough space for me to help them out or do bits myself. As the CIO, this is not possible. They have to perform and if I need to course-correct, I have to be able to explain and set them going with a minimum of my own input.
This creates additional pressure on me to always excel at communication. Always write clearly, speak clearly, show strong direction, etc. No ambiguity. It also requires more of others, and I found it interesting quite how acute I felt the need for clear and timely communication almost above getting the answers I actually wanted. One of the last things I wrote to the department was a gentle challenge to us all to think about how we can communicate better and cut down on noise.
It also emphasises something I've always told people who want to move into more senior roles. Know how to take ownership of a problem. The value to someone in a role like this of someone being able to remove a problem from your shoulders and make it all work without too much from you is phenomenal. Importantly, this is not just "offer support", it's do, own, lead. For me, it's the golden ticket to being noticed and given further opportunities. As it happens, it's also much better for the CV / interview.
Another aspect of the CIO job was the sheer volume of reading. I have to read a lot as a director, but the number of papers and (hhgggnnn) PowerPoint decks that need absorbing is ridiculous. I found myself reading them in the evening, when I could get a drink and be much more confident of a few quiet hours without any interruptions. This, of course, did wonders for my work-life balance. It highlighted three things to me. First, the importance of getting submissions in on time as the knock-on effect can be board members getting 130 pages of "excitement" to read for a meeting 48 hours away. This was ... not a highlight. Second, the importance of writing clearly and effectively and spelling correctly. Especially in Word, where mistakes are underlined. Get it right. Third, I'm going to have to develop my speed-reading skills.
However! There were some bits that were easier. While there was a huge amount to do, I found the immediacy of my normal job diminished. That is, there were many things I needed to look at but I could choose my approach much more and spend less time in meetings than I normally do. So while the volume was huge, I did find myself with a bit more time to breathe and consider. It was weird and I think this reflection is more that I need to change how I approach my day to day.
Also, it was very interesting seeing all the department machinery working away. There is a great quote from Yes Prime Minister (which I can't put my hand on right now, so you'll have to suffer my paraphrasing) where the PM is talking to his Private Secretary about the role and the PS is explaining that while there are many things the PM SHOULD do and any number of things the PM CAN do, there is actually very little the PM HAS to do. The CIO role felt like that - if I'd sat back and waved things onward I could have gotten away with doing very little for quite some time. So the old systems analyst part of my brain turns towards the problem of maximising that - which is the question "how do I build a department that doesn't need me". I actually mentioned this concept in the interview for my current job so it's nice to have it reinforced.
Not that everything was plain sailing of course. I had to intervene in a few projects to help them back on track. I had to front a few concerns and problems to the wider organisation, and internally. My favourite moment, however was in the dying moments. I told my colleagues I was logging off for the weekend, and thanked them for all their support. I had one last quick look at my email. Then the website blew up. P1 incident, all the sirens going.
Who said technology doesn't have a sense of humour...
