Humour

When the glass is half-full

T A Balasubramanian on why it is important for a CIO to look at the world from a peak and not a pit.

So we are back with Bobo Jitter, the ever-challenged CIO at Bazooka Company, as he settles in for another session with the unflappable Dr Don Jong, resident diviner of great truths in technology’s lawless frontier domains. Anointed by his admirers as The Oddfather, Dr Jong has a unique ability to come up with quixotic solutions for virtually any problem.

“I have just got another long missive from my predecessor, Dodo Antigen, Doc. He has, of course, pointed out, once again, a matter of some gravity in my professional life that are … well, giving me a feeling of heaviness in the head.”

“Ah, these are, no doubt, his personal opinions, tinted as usual, with his weighty artistic concerns?”

“Well, yes, Doc. But Dodo, as you know, is persuasive when he speaks his mind.”

“But of course, all art is persuasion. So what has he been unburdening himself of this time?”

“He has written out a fictional appointment ad for a CIO at Bazooka. Not that I intend to leave my job as yet and create a vacancy. The idea, as he explains it, is to point out the utter despondency of the CIO’s role.”

“I can well imagine Dodo doing so, given his tendency to paint the world blue.”

“He begins with the title, ‘Senior IT Manager Wanted at Bazooka,’ and goes on with the following elaborate job description: ‘As a senior manager of our company, you will be in charge of a function that is complex and requires technical knowledge that needs to be completely refreshed every two to three years, which means you will need the equivalent of a brain transplant in the same time period in order to be up-to-date and supple in dealing with the legions of newly hatched IT vendors who are hovering around all the time’.”

“Your comrade Dodo does not mince words, eh?”

“Then he continues: ‘You will need to staff the function with professionals who are in high demand and short supply. A large portion of the team you manage will have severe issues with over-commitment, while others will have enormous egos, taking great pride in arguing that they are 100 percent correct on any technical issue whatsoever. Many of them will express a desire to work from their bedrooms, sending you reams of untested code by e-mail, while the few who show up at the office will cause much consternation because of their casual dress code, weird hairstyles, atrocious manners and devil-may-care attitude’.”

“I suppose that describes your wonderful department to a T?”

“Here, Dodo pauses for reflection: ‘One of the classic principles in management theory is that individuals can be accountable only for the outcomes that they can control. However, the challenge of being a CIO is that your accountability is astronomical, while your ability to control the outcome of your actions is microscopic. Here is a typical cheerful day in the life of a CIO. Imagine coming in at 7:15 am to hear that all communications lines are down and no one from the telecom service has returned your staff’s panicked phone calls.  Now imagine hearing at 11:00 am that your vendor is discontinuing support for a mission critical system because the product is being consolidated with another application the vendor recently acquired. Follow this by imagining that at 3:30 pm a security breach has occurred through a point-of-sale system, yet customers are calling Bazooka and characterizing the issue as a service provider’s deficiency. Managers on the front line are baying for your blood and chanting, ‘You, Mr CIO, need to do something about this!’ Then go on to imagine being suddenly informed by your CEO at 6:45 pm that a merger must be completed in five months when you already have 50 projects under way with deliverables promised to influential executives with nooses in their hands.”

“For the average CIO, not a single moment of boring peace and harmony, one notices.”

“And he concludes grandly with: ‘You will be reporting to a senior executive, most likely in finance, who has no technical knowledge of your area, very little appreciation for the complexity of your function and who will badger you mercilessly with one frequent and simple command—‘Just make it work!’—uttered with a growl.’ “

“I must say that your illustrious predecessor has a picturesque way with words. He has painted so vivid a portrait of your job, my boy, that only a merry masochist would take it up thereafter.  Welcome to the wonderful world of the CIO, according to Dodo, eh?”

“It all rings true, Doc. That’s what’s so disturbing.”

“Indeed, our friend Dodo does touch a few exposed nerves in passing. I am going to go out on a limb here, my boy, because I have learned much from my good friends in every different flavour of business roles. In my 30-year career, I have found that the CIO’s assignment is, certainly, one of the most cumbersome jobs around, like Dodo takes great pleasure in pointing out. The quip in the technology profession is that the acronym ‘CIO’ stands for ‘Career is Over.’ “

“What do I do, Doc? I cannot think of an alternate career because this is the only one I know.”

“You do nothing, Bobo. In fact, I find that Dodo is quite an inspiring character.”

“How can you say that, Doc? Here we have the most wretched portrait of my job, and you call it inspiring?”

“Indeed, my boy. I must say that by letting yourself be over-exposed to Dodo’s taunts you end up looking at the world from the pit instead of the peak, Bobo. Like they say, the glass is always half-empty to a pessimist. What if I were to show you a different picture?”

“How different can it get, Doc?”

“When Dodo was battling his way through the corporate maze, the average tenure of the CIO or CTO used to be only 18 months—nasty, short and brutal, perhaps. You may be startled to learn that historically embattled CIOs such as yourself are getting better at their tasks, and they are carrying on their crusades for five or more years, from what I have been hearing from the many IT wayfarers who come to my office. What I found astounded me. Most CIOs—even the battle-hardened veterans—are far from burned out or cynical, unlike Dodo, about their careers. In fact, almost every IT executive I speak with is charged up about his or her role in the steamy business jungle, and how it is changing.”

“That is quite a change of scene, Doc.”

“Of course it is. I see how CIOs have matured in their roles over the past many years. I no longer see the pompous, overbearing control freak huddled down behind the frosted glass of the data center. I no longer see the gangly geek professing his dislike for Microshop and the lack of adoration for Leanox and open source—at least not among grown-up CIOs. These early era, annoying CIOs are headed for the rose gardens of history, where Dodo has put up his tent. Instead, I see bushy-tailed and bright-eyed CIOs these days who work their backs off applying technology in discrete dosages, trying to get the right strategic projects funded and completed that will make a real business impact.”

“Maybe I should send Dodo a note, Doc. About the glass being half-full rather than half-empty?”

“Voila! You comprehend, my boy. No more wallowing in the pit, eh?”