A consulting project required the evaluation of an executive whose division was marked by high turnover and complaints to HR. A 360 evaluation indicated the CIO was the source of the problem but didn’t include enough detail to indicate exactly what was going on and whether or not the CIO could be “fixed.” He was new to his position and had been brought in to take charge of a department that was in disarray. He had replaced several senior managers and had laid off about a third of the personnel in the department. Finally, he was a brilliant IS professional and was driving a complete reorganization of the IS Division and the methods by which IS scheduled and tracked progress on projects.
His Profile does indicate strengths. He has a high Emotional Energy score, a requirement for reorganizing the IS Division in a short time span. His Work score is low but his Change and Courage scores are high. He does not work for work’s sake. He is driven by his high Challenge score, working much harder under pressure. His Change score also indicated a high creativity and change orientation, traits much needed for the job. His Courage score, however, is too high, putting him at risk for overestimating his own or his team’s ability to deliver on challenges he so eagerly accepted.
I had some concerns about his low Detail score. Faced with a challenging, creative scenario, he was the visionary, big picture leader the Division required. The rest of the scores indicated where his character was creating problems rebuilding teamwork and trust in a Division that had experienced layoffs, reorganization, and was fast-tracking the recreation the IS Division. Even the best of leaders would have found this challenging, not matter how technically gifted they might be.
With his low detail score, he needed to build a strong team of Directors and trust them to handle the details of implementing his vision for the Division. However, he had a difficult time delegating meaningful authority. Note the high Direction score. He is not only comfortable making decisions, he wanted to make all of them. My interviews revealed his Directors were frustrated by his unwillingness to let them manage their own Departments without the CIO getting overly involved in the details.
In addition, he had a cluster of score that indicate he would be a very intimidating leader in an already insecure group in fear of another round of layoffs or being the next person to be fired. At the time he most needed Division-wide communication and collaboration, his management style was slightly to the right of Attila the Hun. Besides being very controlling, he had a combination of very high Assertive, low Tolerance, low Considerate, and low Optimism. He was very aggressive and intimidating. His low Tolerance score indicated that, when angry, his emotions would distort his perceptions, leading him to exaggerate the situation. Paired with low Optimism, when upset he could be fault-finding and blaming.
His Social score indicated that he is very private by nature and did not reveal much about himself. While he had a brilliant vision to recreate the Division, he had not done a good job of sharing that vision to create buy-in. Given his Profile, he was attempting to drive the recreation of the IS Division by sheer force of self-will. He was paying a price for it. Note the high Stress score. His General Performance score is only 5.1, due to imbalances in his character. Note that he only scores a 6.0 on the Company Executive norm, when he should be at least at 7.5.
Helping turn this situation around was quite a consulting challenge, made even more pressing because the company was going to outsource the IS function if the new CIO wasn’t successful. Over three hundred jobs were at stake with no time to find another CIO.
What gave me hope? That people like this are often blind to themselves and the unfortunate impact they have on others. As I got to know him, I realized that there was a decent man underneath the harsh exterior. But like all of us, he had a series of life circumstances that had shaped a driven, aggressive personality. A series of private, confidential interviews with his Directors and the rest of the management team provided ample information enabling me to give the CIO specific and detailed feedback about his leadership style and how he was unwittingly shutting down the Division-wide collaboration he desperately needed if he was going to succeed in turning the Division around. He was genuinely open to coaching and doing what it took to turn his relationships around.
After working with the CIO and his Directors to build more open communication, we carved out areas of accountability and the metrics by which the Directors would be managed. After more work with the CIO clarifying his vision and values, the entire management team was assembled for a meeting. As part of the presentation, two tall chairs were brought to the front of the room allowing the CIO and I to have a “conversation” in front of the group. Rather than giving a structured presentation, this informal format allowed me to ask the CIO questions about his vision, values, and what it would require of him and every member of his management team to save the jobs of people in the IS Division. I also asked about what people needed to know about the formative experiences in his life that had led to such an intimidating leadership style and what he was actively doing to make changes in that style. Then, using the World Cafe strategy for facilitating a productive large group discussion, we spent the afternoon looking at “interpersonal, cultural, and structural barriers to collaboration.”
There was other work to be done, too detailed for this case study. I am happy to report that the IS Division succeeded in making the organizational changes and improvements in efficiency to end the conversation about outsourcing that service.
THE DICTATOR
