From techie to business leader

Excerpt from article published at Economic Times CIO by Tapan, Executive Director,

Sunstone Business School

So you are on the team of the CIO in your organisation and help support the business

folks in getting the business going. Are your days filled with responding to business user

requests and going through vendor negotiations? You exist inside a business but not

really responsible for business performance? You seem to not matter to business users

till something goes wrong and then you are on the receiving end? Respect from others in

the organisation is lacking for the support you provide to keep the business running.

Have you ever aspired to be on the other side in the driver’s seat driving the business

like a business leader but not sure how to go about it.

Let’s talk about your core strengths as a technologist and what areas of improvement

you have before you can get there:

You have a good understanding of different technologies available in the market and

their capabilities

You have good connects with vendors, system integrators, thought leaders in the

technology industry and can connect with them to bring the best that technology has

to offer to your organisation

You have deep expertise in some technologies which you can implement in your

company

You have an average understanding of the business of your own company and are

familiar from a technology implementation perspective

You have access to most business executives and have the ability to influence their

decisions

Your confidence when it relates to a conversation around technology is very high but

not so confident when the issues relate to business

So here is a step-by-step guide to go about the career move:

1. Learn the Business:

You are possibly a technologist by education and training but you don’t have to remain a

technologist through out your career. Learn business basics; get deep into the business

of your company and even deeper into the specific business functions that you and your

teams support. There are several options to pick up business knowledge in the

connected world today starting from free self-service programs.

2. Think like them:

If you want to be them, first start by thinking like them. Your worries and concerns

should be similar to theirs – if they are worried about how sales will pick up with the new

promotion, you should be worried about that too and not if the latest code you wrote will

perform with the same efficiency as the earlier one. Celebrate the same success that is

success for business folks. Needless to say you should also evaluate yourself with the

same metrics they are evaluated on. Your bonus should depend on company sales and

not some IT metrics.

3. Educate business leaders about technology:

Like you are not upto speed on all developments in the world of business, your business

leaders may not be up to speed on the power of new technology either. A good IT

partner builds the patience, takes the time and makes learning technology simpler for

people with non-technology background. Like it is hard for them to make you

understand, it will be hard for you to make them understand technology. Just because it

is hard, you wont give up. Right? This investment will more often than not pay back

handsomely when you make an ally of the end user of your service.

4. Use technology as an enabler rather than a support tool:

The more progressive CIO teams help businesses leverage technology to enable

businesses to evolve to better practices, higher efficiency, alternate business models.

Never think of IT as a function that will just automate or help businesses execute

existing business processes more efficiently. Technology can change business and your

understanding of business well and ability to work with business leaders in

communicating how technology can be leveraged to change the business is the only

obstacle.

5. Listen first, Suggest alternates, Recommend:

Most support functions in organisations remain exactly that – ‘Support’, primarily

because they don’t want to stick their neck out to recommend and take accountability for

the final outcome. If you want to be a business leader one day, learn to listen the core

issue that business faces, go prepared with alternates that can help resolve the issue

and be sure to recommend the one that you thinks works the best for the business.

Never limit yourself to the ‘order taking’ and ‘executing’ machine that most support

organisations end up being. You think why take the risk? I can survive under the radar

and exist in the system. But then if you don’t take the risk of sticking your neck out for

what you think is good for your organisation and building the skills of everyone around

you including yourself, your returns are likely to be moderate and not let you realise

your true potential

I can almost see nodding of heads saying ‘yeah! tried these before and nothing seems to

work’. Well try harder and it still may not work in which case you need to try even

harder who said getting to be a business leader is easy!