Are We Ready For Prime Time?

I wrote the headline and then sat back to look at what I had written, my mind was blank which is something that those who know me well will tell you is rare. After my “empty box” moment, my first thought was whether this was what writer’s block feels like or maybe it could be something worse and off went my hypochondriac self. It was nothing as bad as my fertile imagination had already conjured up but just a mental glitch fortunately, I have ECC memory.

So, when I looked back at the headline what struck me was the word “we” and I asked myself quite audibly who exactly I am referring to when I say we? Are “we” the CIO, the other CIO, or yet the other new CIO and that took me down yet another rabbit hole, is IT at par with finance and human relations or is it beneath or above?

So many questions with so few answers bringing back that algebraic torture called simultaneous equations, hopefully, we shall find enough of them to answer the myriad of questions.

Allow me to take a short detour, some years back I penned many articles that explored why fewer legacy techies were percolating to the role of CIO but instead more and more the position was being filled by those transitioning from other sectors, a situation that prevails even as I type this article, let us not forget that nature still abhors a vacuum.

Even in the organisations where that has happened we are seeing the position being watered down by the introduction of new entrants into the C-Suite who are crowding out the technical CIO who is traditionally timid and tends to avoid playing the politics yet that is all that happens within the C-Suite as all, except the CIO, are gunning for the CEO role.

In the last edition of the magazine it was mentioned that the CISO was an equal to the CIO, let me leave that as a fight for those who are invested I am just the man giving the tree reason to make a sound when it falls.

At the rate we are seeing a proliferation of new titles and entities into the C-Suite, the playing field is getting murky and cloudy which then brings me back to the issue of who are “we”?

If IT permeates the entire organisation, then creating silos within it is likely to weaken its ability to spearhead an organisation’s competitive position which could lead to its stagnation or inevitably being taken behind the proverbial barn.

So, what is the relationship between “we” and prime time?

Prime time is a marketing term referring to the time of TV or radio programming when the most number of people are tuned in, in our case that is the time when everyone within the C-Suite is looking at one person to give direction in implementing the organisation’s strategic mission, remember, the CEO is mainly the referee with the CIO (Chief Information Officer) is the VR.

To the less initiated, what I mean is that the CIO, as defined above, provides the 360-degree view that the CEO needs to decide on the direction; and with compound eyes that become more complex. But maybe that is why we have a vacuum.