Give Me a C-I-O

by Shelley Sessoms

Thornton May was there when the term "CIO" was coined. And he's here now, cheering these executives on. If you know May, you know he combines a scholar's passion for empirical research, an entrepreneur's capacity for identifying opportunities and a stand-up comic's gift for storytelling. This IT futurist recently took some time to tell sascom his story. Read on ...

I read a quote recently that said you are a groupie for CIOs. Since you know this group so well, I want to get a feel from you about what you have learned from CIOs. What are your observations?

May: Well to qualify that, I was actually involved in this industry before there were CIOs. In 1987, a research team that I led was working with a fellow named Bill Synnott. Bill was the vice president of data processing at the Bank of Boston. In his memoirs, The Information Weapon (published by John Wiley, 1987), the product of our collaborative research came out and that was the first time the phrase "chief information officer" appeared in print. So while I was involved, Bill was actually the person who coined the phrase – but we all contributed heavily.

At that time, information technology was viewed merely as a mechanical process whereby you automated existing operations. We had bigger plans for it – we actually thought that IT could be strategic. And specifically, IT could create competitive advantage. But as you look at the operations, structure and staffing of information technology organizations, which at the time were called data processing organizations, there was no player who was responsible for thinking strategically. So we had to create a strategic person, and that was the chief information officer. So that's where that term came from.

So by definition, a CIO has multiple roles and responsibilities. One being the care and feeding of the machine, but the other, more important role – and now, much more relevant and predominant role – is to create visions and opportunity. What we're seeing, and this is why we're so excited about what's going on with SAS, is the transition from information technology as a mechanical art – the care and feeding of machines and devices – to a liberal art, the creation of meanings, definitions and celebrations. It's very exciting.

What created this transition? What reversed the trend?

May: I think we've finally gotten good at managing the machines. It's taken 20 years, but people were always surprised when the technology worked. Now it's a surprise and a potential source of a career defenestration if the technology doesn't work. So you're seeing a lot of consolidation in that area because the expectation is that the thing will work and will deliver the anticipated benefit.

What about the folks who report up to CIOs? Have you heard differing points of views from those people, as opposed to the CIOs themselves?

May: In our research, we have discovered a phenomenon that can only be characterized as a crisis of IT leadership. At the IT Leadership Academy, located at Florida Community College in Jacksonville, we surveyed 1,500 IT professionals. We were fascinated by the revelations. We surveyed 1,500 CIOs from large (greater than $1 billion in annual revenues), midmarket (revenues between $500 million and $1 billion) and emerging (less than $500 million in annual revenues) companies.

We asked those CIOs, "Do you think your direct reports have the managerial skills and the leadership skills they need to lead in the future?" Eighty percent said, "No."

Then we asked the CIO direct reports, the second and third levels, "What do you think of your existing leadership?" Forty percent said they were tired, old cost whackers.

So you do have this finger pointing going on, and nobody's really addressing it. But I think the best career defense is not to become too attached to a specific skill, or a device-specific or tool-specific skill. The best defense is being able to imagine creative and beneficial uses of the amazing cornucopia of information assets that are now coming online. The interesting thing is SAS is perfectly positioned for that because you were there before it actually happened.

Based on that survey, do you think the average manager in an organization knows who the CIO is?

May: It's interesting that you ask. I am very fortunate that I am active in assisting in sculpting the IT curriculum at four major business schools: UCLA, UC Berkeley, Arizona State and Ohio State. It is an honor and a privilege to actually teach in the executive MBA programs there. Executive MBAs, of course, are people who typically have full-time jobs and are getting full-time degrees. So I view executive MBAs as the heroes of the knowledge age because one, they're time constrained so they really do understand the value of time. And two, they are in the real world so they know what is good and what is not good.

And so we asked these people, "What do you think about IT?" The result: 75 percent don't think much about IT at all. And 66 percent don't know who the CIO is. These are not rank and file; these are senior people. These are the next generation of business leaders. Their companies are paying for them to get these degrees.

From what you know about CIOs, can you tell us what keeps them up at night?

May: Unfortunately many vendors – not astute vendors – presume that what is keeping CIOs up at night are nightmares (i.e., things that are broken). But that's the case only in the old world, where the role of CIO is to fix things that are broken and to keep the machines running. This notion of IT is similar to an individual's perception of an elevator. You only notice an elevator when it's not working. I think CIOs should be sleepless – but what should be keeping them up are dreams, not nightmares.

I consider 50 percent of the Fortune 500 CIOs to be close personal friends. So I hang out with these guys. I am to CIOs what Jane Goodall is to large primates. I'm an accepted member of the tribe because I admire these people. They are courageous, they are hard-working and they have a thankless job because there's a real crisis of technology literacy.

Before we get too far off topic, tell me more about the IT Leadership Academy.

May: America used to be where computer science engineers went for degrees. Now, we graduate probably 65,000. Actually, I have heard that China graduates more engineers in a year than America has engineers. That should give you an idea of the situation. It's an issue of scale.

This precipitated the IT Leadership Academy because the four-year programs were not market-focused. On the other hand, community colleges have always been market-focused; they have always been very agile because they have to, by definition, touch the community and be relevant. These are the people for whom this education actually is how they feed themselves. And so we decided to go out there and find where the holes are from a leadership skill-set standpoint and fill them. We work with the CIOs to see what skills they need and then determine how to make that happen. In the very early days, it's had great support up and down the state. Florida is not a place to come to die; it's a place to actually build a career. And we're trying to do that with the IT Leadership Academy, that's what it's all about.

In the beginning, was the IT Leadership Academy widely accepted by CIOs or were there egos involved, saying, "You know what, we don't need any help"?

May: I think it's come to the point where it's almost become conventional wisdom that we have to do something about IT leadership. If you look at any of the writing about leadership, there is always demand for a sequel – there is always something more you can do. The Harvard Business School Press is always interested in books about leadership. But you don't see a lot of IT people cited in those books. Yet I think this is the magic moment when IT has to step up and lead.

Why do you think there's been a problem with getting IT leaders quoted? Is there a stigma involved?

May: The problem is not so much being quoted, but having their advice followed, because, unfortunately, many people view IT as a derivative science versus a creative science. But we are seeing a transition happening, slowly. Recent data shows that 16 percent of the CIOs that we're looking at are world-class and are active participants in the strategic conversations in their environments. Twenty-three percent are little "a" active versus big "A" active in those conversations, while 51 percent are just taking orders.

Let's talk about those world-class CIOs. What are some of the characteristics of a great IT leader?

May: Well, the interesting thing is you have to be ambidextrous. You have to have both the left and right brain working. A lot of great CIOs, or potentially great CIOs, are caught up in cost. And they're doing a lot of benchmarking in the space. But they're benchmarking apples and oranges, because we still lack a good measure for computational functionality. That's very difficult. So one characteristic of an IT leader is being credible with the business, which means that you are able to elicit belief in others – the belief that you are getting a good deal on your infrastructure spend.

These leaders are then able to say, "The real question is not whether I am spending my IT dollars correctly; the real question is, am I focusing my business on the highest value opportunity?" And that's where a business analytic tool set comes to bear. Because right now, businesses are sending engineers to huge colleges to learn to create information that is already there. All they really need is a good business analytics tool. What businesses need to do is automate the practice of strategy, which is the next evolution.

Looking at the information and intelligence that businesses have right now, what will they be doing in five years that they are not doing now?

May: Businesses will continue to automate their processes, particularly for the research and prep time that go into special projects. When I was a researcher, I spent a whole lot of time in the stacks because there weren't automated tools. I would bury people by the fact that I had about 300 pages of footnotes and bibliographies. Nobody could compete because I worked that hard at it. Now, you're competing on the basis of the quality of your thinking, not the brute power of your research.

Bio: Shelley Sessoms is a regular contributor to sascom. She is also the editor of Your SAS Technology Report and other communications from SAS.