Business survival requires an IT org that stands apart

Book reviewers agree that the best biographies focus on telling a complete story of how the life being discussed deviates from those around it. I believe an essential and all too frequently missing part of the CIO narrative and organizational strategy is how our IT differs from the IT of others in our sector, with granular elaboration of the benefits associated with said variance.

My longtime friend Geoffrey Moore — author, consultant, and trend explainer extraordinaire — made the world a better and more productive place popularizing the Core and Context framework.

“Core” activities are those things that differentiate an organization from its competitors. “Context” activities are tasks that have to be done “just good enough” — activities that if done wrong can put the customer relationship at risk but things the customer isn’t willing to pay extra for (e.g., accounts payable at Disney). The trick is optimizing the amount spent on Context activities — that is, spend as little as possible — such that you can maximize investments in Core capabilities.

It is important to realize that your IT organization doesn’t need to be and most definitely should not be different from that of your competitors in all areas — just the ones that really matter.

Managing IT mental models

One of the points of difference that matters most is how does your entire ecosystem — end users, suppliers, senior management, board of directors, IT staff, and customers — think about IT. Managing IT mental models is core.

The attitude workers have toward IT is essential to technology value creation. The opinion investors have regarding the efficacy and competence of your IT organization drives share-price multiples.

Do the people who work with the IT capabilities you provide believe you are authentically committed to their success and well-being? Does the IT organization view complaints as gifts? Is the IT mindset: Complain once, “Let me fix it”; complain twice, “Shame on me”; complain three times, “I should be replaced”?

History is full of stories of bad things happening when the people in charge lose sight of the interests of the communities being served. French King Louis XVI being a classic case in point, having lost his head to the guillotine because he didn’t understand the plight of the common man. CIOs need to dismantle the components of stakeholder workplace and marketplace experiences and understand how everyday phenomena are impacted by IT.

Envisioning the future

One of the hardest things about the CIO job is that you must be five-nines perfect in the present and be borderline prescient about the future. In a perfect world, your “today” IT would be better and different than your competitors and your vision of the future is differentially more compelling and achievable.

Is the IT future your organization is heading for different than your peer group’s? Are you better at tearing a hole in the fog of uncertainty associated with what comes next than other CIOs?

Regarding the rich range of IT investment choices available to modern CIOs one all too frequently observes a “shoot anything that flies, claim everything that falls” undisciplined approach to tech planning.

Are you aware how key stakeholders think about the future of technology? In 2015 the World Bank surveyed 800 executives regarding what they considered would be technology tipping points 10 years hence — i.e., today.

In 2015 45% believed AI machines would be members of corporate boards of directors. Today, 94% of CEOs surveyed by Dataiku said an AI agent could provide similar or better advice on business decisions than a human board member, CIO.com’s Grant Gross reports.

Jens Beckert in Imagined Futures argues that collectively held visions of how the future will unfold free economic actors from paralyzing doubt and action delimiting uncertainty. In Worst-Case Scenarios,Cass R. Sunstein documents how, in the face of tech uncertainty, organizations are susceptible to two opposite and dysfunctional reactions: panic or utter neglect.

Across the globe organizations are trying to find the Goldilocksbalance point regarding artificial intelligence. Companies are wary of being on the “bleeding edge” as they assure stakeholders that they are not “behind the curve” regarding this purportedly era-defining technology.

In Governance in the Age of Gen AI: A Director’s Handbook on Gen AI, Ashwin Rangan, award-winning CIO at ICANN, Edwards Lifesciences, Walmart.com, and Rockwell International, lays out a path whereby organizations can differentiate how they approach artificial intelligence. His suggestions include: developing training, guardrails, and cybersecurity practices to pursue safe and responsible AI deployments; ensuring that each AI investment aligns with specific organizational objectives; and investing in a portfolio of integrated experimentation pilots versus the siloed learning journeys that characterize much of AI activity today.