CIOs ease transition by getting lay of land before tackling staffing structure and process improvements.
When an outside leader comes in to run an IT team, the adjustment can be rough – for the current staff and the new executive alike. Several CIOs who have recently made the jump say communication and preparation are critical for ensuring changes are well received.
“I concentrated my first 100 days on doing a lot of listening,” says Linda Jojo, who took on the CIO position at Irving, Texas, industrial fluid pumps maker Flowserve in July.
She arrived at a transitional time for the company, which rapidly expanded through mergers into an organization with more than $2 billion in annual revenue. That growth explosion left the company with a patchwork of systems and flawed internal financial controls. Targeted by a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, Flowserve restated its financial results last year and expects to do so again. It also recently overhauled its management team.
Jojo, who previously spent more than a decade at General Electric and served as CIO of GE Silicones, knew going in about the challenges Flowserve faces and the changes underway. One of her first decisions was to restructure Flowserve’s IT organization. She kept the staff size about the same – 250 people scattered throughout more than 50 countries – but aimed to improve internal communication by forming groups of staffers focused on similar tasks such as networking or data center operations. That meant hiring new people, letting some employees go and promoting others.
After spending several months mapping out the skills of Flowserve’s employees and determining the most effective way to group them, Jojo announced her new team at the beginning of January. Frequent discussions with staffers and other business unit leaders throughout the organization have been essential, she says.
“There’s no question that change management is my biggest time commitment right now,” she says. “You have to communicate your message over and over again. Don’t assume that if you’ve said it at one town hall, everyone knows.”
Process improvement
Restaurant chain operator Applebee’s International in Overland Park, Kan.,last year decided to expand the scope of its IT head position and appoint a CIO for the first time. Mike Czinege took the job in April. Before he did, he spent substantial time discussing with Applebee’s executives their history with and future plans for IT projects.
“To me, interviewing for this level position is a two-way street,” Czinege says. “My interest was, first of all, in understanding what their vision of the business is and what their view of the IT role in that is. We did a lot of soul-searching.”
Applebee’s top management saw effective IT management as critical to scaling their business, and Czinege says he appreciated that certain key IT decisions made before he joined were astute. Applebee’s had just finished a broad PeopleSoft ERP rollout, which was done without major customization.
Czinege says he was happy with the 90-person IT staff Applebee’s had in place, so he hasn’t had to face the tricky issue of replacing current staff, but he found organizational processes that needed changing. “Within the IT group there were probably more disconnects than I would have expected,” he says. “We had a lot of good people doing a lot of good things without a lot of good processes.”
He also sees communication skills as the best asset a new leader has in successfully guiding changes.
“You have to have a vision of where you want to go and what’s important, and you have to bring people along and get them to buy into that vision. Let them help you craft it,” Czinege says. “They had been here a lot longer than I had. They wanted to make changes and improvements as much or more than I did. Once you get everyone aligned on where you’re going, their energies and efforts will be the driving force.”
Applebee’s track record with custom application development work had been spotty, so one of Czinege’s first moves was to compile a list of major projects underway and organize “deep dive” meetings for each. Those meetings led to a few projects being put on hold and specific plans being laid for completing the rest.
Czinege says he hopes a more concrete development methodology, with mapped-out processes for steps such as change management and quality-assurance testing, will keep current projects, such as a large point-of-sale system rollout, from getting “lost in the weeds” as past projects had.
Leadership material
Companies are aware that leadership ability is critical, and they’ll prioritize “soft skills,” such as an aptitude for working well with colleagues, even when hiring for a technical position such as CTO or CIO, according to recruiter Beverly Lieberman. Lieberman is president of executive search firm Halbrecht Lieberman Associates, which specializes in the IT field.
“Usually the top priority is a really strong knowledge of business management, followed by an understanding of the company’s industry and competitors, and strong leadership skills,” Lieberman says. “Maybe third or fourth on the list is ‘it would be great if a candidate has broad technical skills.'”
Czinege, for one, doesn’t consider himself a hardcore techie: “I did not come to this job with a deep, deep technical background,” he says. “I’ve been in IS for a long time, but more from a consulting perspective – process reengineering and implementing applications.”
Soft skills are so critical that Lieberman estimates 20% of Fortune 500-size businesses have some form of psychological testing as part of their interview process for top IT executives. The goal is to make sure a new executive can guide their subordinates as successfully as they can steer a new ERP deployment.
Lieberman advises candidates to be frank – at least, once they’ve reached the finalist stage – with potential employers about their needs and concerns about taking on a leadership role over a current IT team.
“Once you know you’re kind of the person they want to hire, that discussion is important,” she says. “Especially if it’s a step up. If someone is used to managing a staff of 100 and now they’ll be managing a staff of 500, there’s some need for learning and validation. I’ll say to the client, ‘We are aware that this might be a stretch job for this person. What resources, what coaching, what training can you provide?'”
Czinege and Jojo say a key aspect of their recruiting process was their evaluation of their potential new employers and the top management’s commitment to IT.
“The first part is understanding what’s there,” Czinege says. “You want to make sure that’s who you want to get on the bus with.”
Cowley is a correspondent with the IDG News Service.
