Do the people who work with the IT capabilities you provide believe you are authentically committed to their success and well-being? Does the IT organization view complaints as gifts? Is the IT mindset: Complain once, “Let me fix it”; complain twice, “Shame on me”; complain three times, “I should be replaced”?
History is full of stories of bad things happening when the people in charge lose sight of the interests of the communities being served. French King Louis XVI being a classic case in point, having lost his head to the guillotine because he didn’t understand the plight of the common man. CIOs need to dismantle the components of stakeholder workplace and marketplace experiences and understand how everyday phenomena are impacted by IT.
Envisioning the future
One of the hardest things about the CIO job is that you must be five-nines perfect in the present and be borderline prescient about the future. In a perfect world, your “today” IT would be better and different than your competitors and your vision of the future is differentially more compelling and achievable.
