The realities of the Transition CIO job

Podcast with Michel Devos

Michel Devos shares with us his experience of innovation, transformation and emergency management in some fifty companies. Michel is a Transition CIO and a member of the Infortive Community, France's leading community of Transition CIOs.

It addresses the following questions:

• ‍Whatare the reasons for a CIO's sudden departure?
• How do you position yourself in relation to a Comex?
• What are the stages in a successful human transition?

Enjoy!

Contexts and reasons for sudden departures of CIOs

Michel Devos notes several reasons why a CIO might leave his company abruptly:

• Managers don't always fully understand the role of the IT department, which is often seen as a support function rather than the heart of the business, which can lead to frustration.
• "When you're an executive, you know that part of your job is potentially to act as a fuse".
• CIOs often have strong convictions and may decide to leave if they feel the situation is unsustainable, knowing that they can easily reposition themselves in the tight IT market.
  

How do you make a successful transition?

"A Transition CIO often arrives in a social body that is a little traumatized. In particular, a Comex that's a bit lost because it doesn't know how to replace the CIO who's just left. And teams are often in tribal mode. They've lost their tribal leader, whom they disparage or appreciate, but whom they've lost... IT people, like most people, don't like change."

When you arrive as an interim manager, you're there for a limited time.

To manage this situation, we need to respect the key stages of change processes: managing crises, then emergencies, and only then rebuilding a roadmap for the IT department, making sure it is aligned with general management.

This is often different from that of his or her predecessor: the Transition CIO is expected to make a diagnosis on the substance, and it appears that this generally generates a revision of the CIO's roadmap.

Michel emphasizes that managing the IT department is not just about delivering new functionalities for the business, but also about governing, managing the team, helping the company to transform through more modern IT tools, and protecting the business from Cyber crises.

To restore confidence and desire within teams, he recommends working on the human side: demonstrating empathy and sympathetic listening, and getting people back to work once they've been re-motivated and have perspectives that they themselves consider relevant.

Be quick to diagnose and implement the first actions.
The challenge is to identify what is really critical. Then you'll already have a clear idea of what you're going to do.

"Through our experience of crises, we're able to detect weak signals more quickly, and therefore be able to get to the heart of the matter and get the first results sooner."

Be aligned
Michel Devos, explains that it is crucial to manage any misalignments within the Comex/Codir as CIO. He observes that Comexes can range from a "dream team" to a "basket of crabs". To succeed in his mission, the CIO must quickly gauge the balance of power and the level of cohesion, then adapt accordingly.

"A CIO is at the service of the entire company, and all its businesses. He must avoid being instrumentalized or used. But he sometimes has to position himself in relation to the issues at stake for the Board of Directors, the Managing Director and the CEO, and sometimes has to clash with certain members of the Executive Committee who are out of step with the company's policy, all the while thinking they're right...".

Be understandable to all
Finally, arrogance is a disqualifying factor for the CIO in his transition to the Codir Comex. While technical jargon is useful with his teams, to be precise and move forward quickly between peers, it is to be avoided in a Comex, where you need to speak French and use terms that everyone can understand.

Listening more than talking
Make an effort to really listen to Comex members, who sometimes find it hard to express their issues. Rephrase as much as possible to make sure we're on the same page.

Understand the new dimension of the CIO position with a "D" for Management!
A CIO must realize that he or she is a manager at the service of the Board of Directors' governance!

In conclusion, the human dimension is an essential factor in interim management assignments.