Everyone knows about cutting budgets and finding loose change in couch cushions. But the really smart CIOs and CTOs adopt the mindset of leadership thinking -- taking advantage of tough times to rethink what they do and become even more valuable to their companies.
Dan is looking for war stories from IT execs about how you thrived and became more relevant and strategic during down times. What did you focus on? What did you discover? What were the results?
Alternatively, what do you wish you'd done differently?
Focus:
- Making as clear as possible as often as possible what the focus areas are
- Focusing people on what we want more of, not what we want less of
- Being transparent about progress and focusing on things we control
- Providing a source of calm rather than additional angst
Discover:
- People are quite susceptible to the overall mood of the macro economy
- A lot of wartime 'Do more X / do less X' 1. Doesn't work and 2. Isn't necessary to signal
- People will get the signal from their friends, family and the market
- Therefore, being calm and clear is way more effective than "wartime" leadership
Results:
- Our culture has arguably performed better and been more stable than peers
- I think this is as a result of intentional effort to remain calm and not jitter or panic with our strategy despite difficulty
- I saw a lot of companies destroy the trust they had built making knee jerk resourcing decisions
Done differently: - Pretending to be 'wartime' anything in knowledge work is an anxiety-driven mistake
- Focus people on what you want, not signaling what you don't want (e.g. complacence)
- Trust people to rise to the occasion when treated like adults
- Don't try to predict external factors, just return the focus to things we control that affect and benefit customers