How NTT DATA CIO Barry Shurkey takes a people-first approach to IT success

As CIO at NTT DATA North America, Barry Shurkey is responsible for digital transformation and optimizing the IT roadmap to support the company and its clients. The award-winning tech exec also led the acquisition of Dell Services into NTT DATA, worked in Australia on the largest outsourcing deal of its time, and has held leadership roles with EDS, Travelport, and HP. With more than 35 years in the IT services industry, Shurkey has built a reputation as a leader who invests in his people and is actively focused on setting them up to succeed.

Shurkey joined me for a recent episode of the Tech Whisperers podcast to discuss his career journey and his approach to developing future-ready leaders. That conversation was recorded onsite at NTT DATA’s Innovation Center in Plano, Texas, where the company was hosting the ExecLX, a nine-month leadership experience for vice presidents and senior directors. After the episode wrapped, we spent more time digging into his people-first approach to leading, how that shapes his workforce strategy, and what he learned from working and managing teams abroad. What follows is that conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Dan Roberts: We both share a passion for developing ‘the human side of technology.’ Why is this people-first approach important to you, and what does that look like?

Barry Shurkey: As a leader, being strategic about your workforce is critical to your overall success. Specifically in terms of my role as CIO, I believe IT is made up of three things: people, technology, and processes. And if you invest in the people, then the technology and processes will come easily. Because when you’ve got people at the forefront of your strategy, they’ll take care of the technology for you, and they’ll make the business processes work for you.

Any time I’ve started anything associated with IT, I’ve invested in the people first. That encompasses a number of things: making sure we have the right skills and competencies for the roles we need to fill; tailoring learning and development for individual team members; creating opportunities for cross-training and cross-functional rotations, promotions, and career growth. Anything associated with how I’m going to get things done, whether it’s retooling, retraining, upskilling, or communications, I invest in people first.

Building on that point, most CIOs have ‘people’ on their list of top priorities, but there’s a big difference between first priority and fifth priority. Can you talk about why it’s No. 1 on the list for you?

If you spend a lot of time thinking about where your organization has to go, you’ll also need to think about what the organization needs to look like from a people strategy. You can’t have a vision or strategy without the people organization to get there. It has to go hand in hand. Do I have the right skills, abilities, and talent to get me to that vision and direction? With a people-first strategy, you’re thinking about what that organization looks like as you’re developing it.

I’m investing in a lot of diversity in thought, diversity in culture, and diversity in the talent that’s around me and within the organization. Surrounding myself with the best and most diverse talent allows for a work environment where people can do meaningful work while providing the most impact to our clients.

Speaking of that, Bob Dority, one of the mystery questioners on the podcast, was curious about what leadership traits or qualities you look for when building a team.

I look for people that aren’t Barry. If you look around at the people I have today around me, every one of them has a diversity of thought. If someone has talent in a particular type of technology, the technology piece is not necessarily what I’m going to look for first, because I’m counting on people around them to have that skill and ability. Instead, I’m going to look for the diversity of thought and someone that has the drive and initiative to get things done.

I’m also going to look for someone who’s not a yes person. I like my team because when I’m wrong, they tell me. Part of surrounding yourself with great people is, for example, they may know SAP, they may know cloud technologies, they may know the collaboration space better than me. So, I expect them to tell me what direction those specific things need to go or when I’m off track. I may have a view, but nine times out of ten, they’re going to be right.

Can you talk about what internal mobility does for the organization and share some of the things you do to foster career mobility?

Encouraging career mobility helps the organization grow new fresh ideas and ensure diversity of thought. As a leader, if you’re doing the right career management and encouraging people to move on to new assignments, making opportunities for people to move on to new client work or other internal work, you’re also backfilling with people that want those exciting opportunities.

When we do town halls, I tell people, I love each and every one of you. I don’t want you to leave. But I want you to get an exciting opportunity somewhere else in the company. If you’re happy doing your job, that’s fine. Still, take advantage of the diversity of training and thought available to you. Because I really need you to get excited about your career and what you’re doing to grow and develop yourself.

In addition to that, every two months we have a training day where I’ll sit down with the entire organization. All 500 people are invited, and we’ll have a couple of training topics, and I’m on camera for three hours. They can ask me anything they want around career development or even just a question about the company. It gives them the opportunity to block three hours of time for development, whether it’s learning something personal or technology training, and then I’ll do my training with them. If they want to ask me questions about anything that’s going on, I’m blocking time for them, because it’s important. It’s a commitment, but they love it.

Lori Shisler, another podcast mystery questioner, wanted to get your perspective on the value of international experience. How did your time working in Australia impact you, and what are some of the most important learnings you brought back?

Most of my career has been spent in outsourcing, and there were a bunch of us who did the Commonwealth Bank of Australia deal. When I came back, the Sabre transition deal was happening, which was Sabre, US Airways, American, Swiss Air — it was a huge deal. I got picked to run the Apps part of that deal, and Lori was the HR business partner.

Given Lori’s depth of expertise in the Sabre workforce, she had different ideas from those of us who had worked on the Commonwealth deal. We would always say, ‘Well, in Australia, this is how we did it.’ We laugh about it now, but it was contentious between us at that time, which created an interesting starting point. It didn’t take us long to learn that, by listening to each of our diverse perspectives, we had more thoughts in common than differences, which is the basis of all great teamwork — appreciating others’ perspectives and building a strong, working relationship built on trust and respect.

Before that, I had spent my whole time in the US, and breaking the bubble of international was a great experience for me. I think the biggest thing I learned over there was how important relationships are. I remember I was probably three or four months in, and I was running the PMO, and decisions were getting made and I wasn’t part of them. I didn’t really have a problem with them because they were right, but I was wondering when they were happening.

I pulled an Australian colleague aside, and I said, ‘When are these decisions getting made?’ And he goes, ‘Well, that one was made during morning tea. And that other one was made during afternoon tea.’ It was about being more social. So, I started to go to morning tea, I started to go to afternoon tea, and I started to become more involved in building the relationships versus having a formalized US meeting, where it’s, ‘You shall do this, you shall do that.’

It was learning how to do business in a foreign company. That was the biggest thing. Being part of the airline industry, I got to see probably every country in the world, and that experience in Australia made me more conscious of, you better go listen, and you better go read on the local customs before you start doing business.

You are an inspiration and a mentor to many current and up-and-coming leaders across our industry. What’s one piece of advice you’d want to leave them with about being a successful leader?

Remember that leadership is an opportunity, and you are choosing to perform the role. With that in mind, I always think of what Captain Miller said to Private Ryan in one of the final scenes of Saving Private Ryan: ‘Earn this. Earn it.’ If you approach leadership that way every day, you will be successful for your team and clients. Just as important, it will bring you so much joy and fulfillment as a leader, you’ll think, I can’t wait to start the next day.

Also, truly being a successful leader comes down to having emotional intelligence, giving all of yourself to every interaction you have with your team members, and having a successful partnership with your business. The last thing I would say to them is this: Have fun while doing it. People love to be around leaders who create positive energy. 

For more from Shurkey’s CIO playbook, tune in to the Tech Whisperers podcast.