Humour

CIO succession plans

T A Balasubramanian writes about the smartest succession planning strategies for CIOs

Bobo Jitter, the generally stressed-out CIO at Bazooka Corporation is back in a new session with Dr Don Jong. Called ‘The Oddfather’ because of the outlandish counseling he usually offers, Dr Jong is a familiar presence in the tangled world of IT and its quaint cultural practices.

“Well, Bobo, what seems to crease your brow this week? You do look like Atlas carrying the world on his bent shoulders, if I may observe,” says Dr Jong, with genial smile.

“Our beloved CEO, Bazooka Zinca, or Bazoo, as we call him in private, has always considered the IT department as a strategic function, but when it comes to the person who leads it—which is me, the chief information officer—would you say that he considers me as being very important to the organization’s future?”

“Oh, I see that we have an existential question today.”

“What happens if the CIO suddenly leaves?” says Bobo, holding his head unhappily.

“You mean, if you go on a vacation?”

“No, Doc. I mean if I were to quit?”

“I suppose he would have to find a replacement. You’re not planning to quit, are you?”

“No. Not really. But what riles me is a barb from Fin Fina, our CFO, who conveyed—though in not so many words—to all the assembled worthies at a meeting that he thought I was not irreplaceable. He said that as a CIO, I was obliged to come up with a succession plan. But why would I do that, Doc? No CIO in his right mind will want to dig his own grave by identifying and grooming a successor.”

“Quite so, Bobo. No CIO would do it unless there is pressure from the top—in this case, Fin Fina is doing the pressing, possibly, as you guessed, at the behest of your CEO. And it is but natural for a company to expect a CIO to do the planning to make way for his replacement. At least Bazooka cares enough to preserve the CIO’s role the way you might have wanted to keep it going. Unfortunately, research indicates that many companies have no CIO succession plans. According to recently published trend data from Duckbill & Goose, while 73% of CIOs intend to hire their replacements from an internal pool of talent, only 38% of organizations have a formal succession plan in place.”

“Come on, Doc, give me a break. So what do I do? How do I go about replacing myself?”

“Hmm, all is not lost, my friend. You can still plan to oust yourself and yet remain the most wanted CIO in Bazooka.”

“You have lost me there, Doc,” says Jitter, scratching his head.

“Well, it is quite simple, Bobo. The really savvy CIO has a variety of safe techniques at hand to pick a worthy successor—or at least appear to do so diligently. One is to get hold of a winning loser—otherwise called a ‘scarecrow.’ In my considered opinion, proven losers—good scarecrows—make the best potential successors. Nobody with an ounce of sanity would dare elevate the scarecrow that you bring in to great heights. So, you, the CIO, would end up looking very solid and safe in contrast. And they’ll be begging you to come back.”

“I feel better already, Doc.”

“Now remember, scarecrows come in all shades—there is the faithful follower, who excels with his dog-like devotion and inherent lack of initiative; then you have the oily opponent with the fake smile, who has been hanging around for years, waiting to stab you in the back … and there are more such eminently qualified characters.”

“I know. I have a list of those.”

“You see? That was painless succession planning, Bobo. Now the other option is to nominate a series of dummy replacements—nothing dissipates the energy of succession planning as effectively as a long line of rapidly changing designated successors, each programmed—I mean prepared or persuaded—to stay just long enough to kill the predecessor’s chances of returning, but too short to actually establish roots himself.”

“Wow, Doc. Have you done a thesis on this subject?”

“Not really. But I have seen the phenomenon close up. Then again, there is the permanent legacy anchor technique.”

“And what is that?”

“Like the average senior CIO, you are in your forties or fifties. Well, do you love your legacy systems? All those wonderful little programs you created in COBOL or Pascal that still seem to hang in there grimly and seem ready to face year 2100?”

“Maybe. But you know, Doc, in spite of being dubbed a ‘mainframe relic,’ I am quite at ease talking about Web 2.0 these days. Cloud computing, social networking, and so forth.”

“Yes, you are ... but the fact is that these things scare you too. What brought you into the CIO kennel is—what was once—your ability to dabble easily in mainframe and client/server technologies. The longer these legacy systems stay around, the longer you have a reason to stay around. If someone were to replace them all with Web 2.0 widgets and mashups and the new-fangled ‘everything-as-a-service,’ you would soon be competing for relic status yourself.”

“Hmm. What can I say, Doc? We linger on and try not to get too dusty.”

“That’s right. The permanent legacy anchor weighs in to save the day. But there’s even more of that reliable anchorage available if you have heavy-weight ERP ammunition in your backyard still under deployment.”

“Yes, we do have that, too.”

“Now ERP has long proved its immense value—and surely Fin Fina would not need to be reminded of this—it means your ERP bundle has impoverished Bazooka’s corporate coffers by hundreds of millions of shekels over many months—if not years—of toil and turmoil. Now tell me, whoever has heard of a CIO being allowed to go in the middle of a large multi-year ERP implementation?”

“You’re a life-saver, Doc!”

“So they tell me. However, with something as combustible as a prolonged ERP project, you would be wise to have a scapegoat ready at the end of the project.”

“I knew this was too good to be true.”

“Large ERP projects are proven CIO career-terminators. I would suggest keeping the scarecrow on standby mode as the most competent scapegoat. Though, of course, it seems excessively derogatory to the animal kingdom—especially crows and goats—I submit that such devious forethought would supplement your succession plan exceedingly well.”

“Indeed it will, I am sure.”

“Which brings me to the delicate matter of data integration, which, as an astute CIO, you would already be practicing, I hope?”

“Sure thing, Doc. Data integration is like a lubricant—helps keep everything running smoothly in Bazooka’s networks.”

“Ah, now for some sailor talk, Bobo. Do you observe that a ship’s captain is never as superfluous as when the sailing is calm? Fortunately, this scenario is easily averted. To avoid CIO turbulence, ensure that your data integration project gets some turbulence as soon as possible.”

“Awesome, Doc. All I have to do is nip that wave of enterprisewide metadata-driven data quality and integration initiative in the bud?”

“Or better still, play Nemo to the hilt and smother it with excessive love—get many such disconnected initiatives going, headed by gung-ho data integration daredevils with not a shred of common vision.”

“Wow, Doc. I never knew succession planning could be this exciting.”

“Voila, you comprehend! Now you can sit back and watch the sea as egos clash, ‘necessary’ investments fight hand-to-hand in Fin Fina’s cabin and independent technologies and standards run riot, clearing the way for you to indispensably lead your team into deeper waters, where, of course, you would be indispensable.”