Life Lessons as a CIO

I have spent the past two years as a Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer and Direc­tor in the hope of mak­ing the deputy gen­er­al man­ag­er role. This result­ed in spend­ing long hours at work, often six­ty-five to hun­dred-hour work weeks, doing unde­sir­able work, and a lot of time with­out the fam­i­ly. What did it get me? An excuse from the new gen­er­al man­ag­er was that the cus­tomer decid­ed to go in anoth­er direc­tion, but I could stay in a less­er role and do all the work I cur­rent­ly do. I respect­ful­ly declined, left qui­et­ly, and planned my next role in life. Even though the out­come was dis­ap­point­ing at the time, in the long run, the lessons learned allowed for a growth position.

Here are a few hard-fought life lessons, and I ful­ly under­stand that hind sights are all 20/20.

Life Lessons

1. Was the long hours worth it? Yes, because it allowed me to gain valu­able insights and be mar­ketable in my next and future roles. The unpaid hours were an edu­ca­tion to allow me to be a bet­ter leader in the future. The rever­sal of this les­son is that I should have been more account­able to myself for my progress ver­sus rely­ing on a cor­po­rate eval­u­a­tion system.

2. Was the extra work of tak­ing the hard roles or the unde­sir­able projects? Yes, because that is where the growth occurs. It is nec­es­sary to do the work. The rever­sal of the les­son is Pareto’s Prin­ci­ple. 80% of the work will be done by only 20% of the work­force. Man­age­ment will trust the work to be done by this 20% because it is eas­i­er than man­ag­ing the remain­ing 80%. The increased involve­ment of HR in day-to-day man­age­ment will also make it dif­fi­cult to push out the non-per­form­ers. This quandary results in the 20% that is doing the work will become over­worked. If you think you are in the 20%, under­stand your worth.

3. It is nec­es­sary to know the dif­fer­ence between man­age­ment ver­sus lead­er­ship. I have met very few Lead­ers in my life. I have met a lot of Man­agers. Both man­agers and lead­ers have dif­fer­ent con­no­ta­tions. Both are human and fal­li­ble. Be care­ful who you decide to fol­low. The rule’s rever­sal is that man can not be an island to him­self. To be suc­cess­ful in life, vet the right men­tors and who you allow in your tribe. This means doing the hard thing of trust­ing indi­vid­u­als to call you out when you are off the path. I also rec­om­mend get­ting men­tors out­side the com­pa­ny that does not have bais.

4. Job Is a job as long as you work for some­one else. If you are work­ing for your­self or towards your own goals, it is a lifestyle.

5. A com­pa­ny’s polit­i­cal lean­ing does not match your own; it will be hard to work for that com­pa­ny. I have seen a com­pa­ny dra­mat­i­cal­ly change its cul­ture to the point that it lost very tal­ent­ed peo­ple and had to fold a divi­sion because it no longer had the tal­ent to win or do the work. The rever­sal of the rule is all a game. Learn­ing how to play the game or when to step out deter­mines how well you do.

6. Get paid for what you are worth. Pay­ment can mean mon­ey, edu­ca­tion, and ben­e­fits. If you can not find your worth with­in the com­pa­ny, move on. In the age of stock­hold­er val­ue, a com­pa­ny will do its best for the com­pa­ny. It would help if you did the same for yourself.

This is not the cul­mi­na­tion of the life lessons learned. But it is also impor­tant to doc­u­ment my lessons for oth­ers to learn.