with technology touching so many different parts of businesses these days companies have created so many different Tech leadership roles at at the top level that it has caused confusion around who is responsible for what part of the technology stack would a Consolidated Super Chief of Technology be the answer we're going to discuss this on this episode of today in [Music] Tech hi everybody Welcome to today and Tech I'm Keith Shaw joining me on the show today is John Spence he is the North American managing director of data and AI at thought works and Thomas Davenport he is the president's distinguished professor of Information Technology at Babson College welcome to the show gentlemen thank you happy to be here and the reason we've got two of you on the show is the because uh both of you recently published an article and study around the idea that more than 80% of technology and data leaders have reported confusion in their organizations about the roles of different technology oriented groups so I want you to for for those of us who haven't lived this um cuz we we've seen the the you know the the chief blank officer it started off with CIO and then and then all of a sudden we started adding uh Chief data officer Chief technology officer Chief you know you know and now we're we're in the world of AI and I'm starting to hear of Chief AI officers um can you give us a quick history lesson about the rise of these different sea level technology titles within that corporate workspace sure I'll start because I I think I'm older than John so I was around for all of this so um early in my career actually as an IT consultant in Cambridge Mass um across the river in Boston this guy who worked at the at the First National Bank Hub Boston um which is now Bank of America um named bill Senate um he and um his favorite consultant Bill Gruber came up with this idea of um maybe we should call this um head of IDE he rooll Chief Information officer right and um I can't actually remember if it worked for bill Senate that he was given that job officially um although he clearly aspired to it and um uh you know that became fairly common it's pervasive now Chief technology officers were first in Tech firms but a lot of non-tech firms decided well that sounds cool and we want to be like a tech firm so they created that role um I'd like to think that there was more systematic thinking behind it but I'm not sure there was and then the first Chief Information Security Officer appeared in 1995 Chief data officers Chief analytics officers started to pop up um primarily in companies with a lot of data like financial services but then they also became pervasive Chief digital officers appeared I think primarily with with um digital transformation and e-commerce and so and they were kind of um outwardly facing toward customers in many cases and um um you know you knew we had a problem when we started to have um intersecting um um initials Chief data officers and chief digital officers and um as you say Chief AI officers have appeared Chief um data analytics and AI officers in some cases and combinations which means a I think an unhealthy set of letters to remember or many um those many of those who try to try to do it it's almost like you know yeah you almost you know you have a problem when the acronyms um are starting to get confusing and you can't figure out what the d stands for is it data digit digital or something else and then you know and then you add another letter so that's why you get uh for cesos you get Chief Information Security Officer which is different from the chief security officer for some reason um so when did you when did you first start noticing this confusion um and that it was becoming a problem again why did you then you know reach out and do this survey um tracking this confusion John why don't you why don't you jump in on this one since you you did the survey yeah so the problem our clients were facing uh was the the responsibilities I think the the growth that Tom described represents that growth of responsibilities the expansion of responsibilities am I responsible for you know in the 80s just getting payroll out whereas in the 2000s and and now you're responsible for assets and capabilities that are critical to the business and so with the expansion of that responsibility you start crossing boundaries and is this a business responsibility is this a technology responsibility and and of course if you have all of these different officers well I'm the AI officer I'm the data officer I'm the technology officer you start to get a little bit of a Turf War confusion as to who is actually responsible for driving the outcome so this is where these uh these super tech leaders have started to emerge yeah yeah I'm G to youum you're jumping ahead just a little bit we don't we don't want to spoil we don't to spoil it too much but but like it you know is this really a big deal for companies like to be confused about like what what are the consequences of this um cuz if it was just a matter of like well I don't know who to talk to I could eventually figure it out but you but this is really causing actual problems within these organizations right you followed up on a lot of these questions in the survey like you know how is this really affecting your business um you know so it's not just about oh I don't know who to talk to but it's a lot more than that right absolutely it really has to do with driving the business outcomes that the organization is looking for these technology leaders and so it becomes that a little bit of a game of beach ball is well I thought you were taking care of it I well you're the technology officer I thought you were taking care of it so the the CEOs and the executives of the firm the directors uh on the board are looking for these technology capabilities in their organization to deliver and they're they're feeling they're falling behind or they're not achieving the outcomes they're looking for they're seeing a lot of money become being invested but not actually delivering results and so that that's where that that separation of responsibilities who is actually responsible for driving this outcome who's responsible for exploring these new technologies and new capabilities in the organization this is where the challenge really hits the business yeah and and you also found yeah go ahead Thomas go ahead I was just going to say that I got interested in the topic when I um was talking to a um person at a large Investments firm in the Boston area and he really um aspired to be Chief data officer for the company and uh apparently that um idea had surfaced and gone up to the top of the organization and the CEO said forget about it we've already got too many um sea level tech people and so I wondered how common I mean those of us in this field kind of knew that they were um there were a lot of these roles and they were starting to collide a bit and so on but um I was just C curious um uh how pervasive was the issue and what problems did it cause and frankly you know I don't know about John I was somewhat shocked to find out that the incumbents of these roles felt like it was a problem um uh they felt like it was confusing to the organization they'd had cases where um they'd been held back by um you know um responsibility debates with other other people in roles so um it turned out to be a much bigger problem than than I realized and you even discovered that um some of these other these new roles not didn't necessarily report to a CIO but rather reported directly to a CEO right like the reporting structure was also a mess because you know for whatever reason if if if a company wanted you know like I don't want to report to the CIO I don't want to or the CIO I want to report directly to the CEO to makes makes maybe it makes them feel more important but that's creating issues too right because then you get personality clashes and well I don't have to do anything for you cuz I don't work for you type of a thing right I've seen some really serious clashes where the chief data and information officer wouldn't even talk to each other for example wow and you know this is crazy when data and information I think probably have a lot in common in abstract well yeah well it it also i' I've seen some cases where I've talked to people where you get a a split of of Divisions within that it group and you have one group that's like well I'm responsible for keeping the lights on and and I'm the the one who puts out the fires in terms of internal employee uses and devices and then there's this like thought leadership guy who then decides um and I just say guy could be a woman as well just want to make clear of that but like there's the person who then thinks about strategy and vision and most people are aspiring to that that that vision and strategy position rather than the person that just has to keep the lights on right right and and you think about it from a perspective of somebody who is running the parts of the business you know somebody who is you know in charge of marketing or in charge of operations and they want to get something done they need to get a new system put in place or they're looking to explore how can we start using AI to support our business and they have to go through this list of individuals and connect with each one of them and well can you help me with the security uh aspects to this can you help me get the data I need can you help me implement the systems how's it what cloud is this going to go on and how's this going to work suddenly you have this responsibility of courting you're you're a contract the the prime contractor on an initiative rather than just saying Tech folks can you get this done for me yeah yeah yeah so all right so now I'm going to jump ahead to the to a a potential solution um and in the research in your article you suggest that a possible solution to this is the creation of a what you call Super Chief or super tech leader right I think we're mixing the terms a little bit but it's basically one person who would report to the CEO Andor board but then work with people on the tech side and the data side um not necessarily creating a new position we're not suggesting that all of a sudden we create a new person that does all of this but but is it more is it more that the CIO should be the the person that should be this Tech leader or can would it be someone from the data side for example like how how would if you were running a company how would you you know kind of consolidate this if you saw this uh you know at a company well I would say there are two answers to that question and one is you know which role is the most wellestablished and has the already has the most people and budget um reporting up to them and and in most cases that is the CIO I think it's fair to say um but the other issue that you'd want to use in making that decision is um who's more likely to lead you know Tech enabled business change within the organization and if your CIO is a keep the lights on type person I did a survey a few years ago suggesting that there were about um a third of cios who really you know are less interested in business changed than they are keeping the infrastructure running then I think it would be a huge mistake to put the CEO the the CIO in charge of all these other functions but in general um when we started to look around for these super tech Chiefs I again I was surprised that there are as many as there are already they have a variety of different titles but um most of them have CIO as I think their original title or their their primary tit yeah yeah okay so we're not seeing a lot of titles that are calling themselves super Chiefs that's a little bit we only wrote the article you know a few months ago so who knows um yeah you know and so yeah so you know you're not seeing you're you're not suggesting that anybody then create a new role that that has those responsibilities right it's almost like pick pick the best person for that job and then what would they do what they would just B basically be the liaison between the the the board and the CEO and then the rest of the of the tech of you know Tech organization get rid of these these direct lines to the CEO so to speak well first thing I want to go back to something Tom said and point out that these individuals have emerged so this is less about saying well let's let's create something new there are people who've been successful regardless of their title they've just sort of surfaced because of the the right they have the right capabilities and then to your your question it's then how do you enable those individuals to be most effective for the organization so you're giving reducing the reporting lines simplifying the process for them to execute and drive towards outcomes so so is it giving them direct access to the CEO or direct access to the board is it is it giving them a a a bit of vagueness in their responsibility and uh and the definition of their role and driving towards outcomes so it's enabling them to to be most success uccessful yeah yeah and and so there's another there was another dissent that you had in in the survey that there were a lot of people that said that they didn't think that this idea might be a great idea because you would need some kind of checks and balances between the world of of technology in the world of data um you know do you have thoughts on that that part of the survey where people were like we're not so sure this might be a good idea that you do need a little back and forth between people within the the the tech part of the company yeah I I personally don't agree with that but that comment came from one I think he was um a CDO who was also acting um CIO and um he had come from a bank where he had a strong risk orientation and you know maybe under those circumstances I could see why you might want to split up some of the roles but in general I don't think think it's necessary and none of the um super tech Chiefs that we spoke with um raised it as an issue you know maybe it's not in their best interest to do so but um some of them actually insisted I think um we talked to Sean McCormack at first student who I think is a client of yours John he said I won't take a job that doesn't have all of those kinds of different responsibilities you just can't make things happen without them yeah John anything else to add on that I do do you agree with that descent or or you agree with Thomas well I I agree with Tom on the the point that in regulated heavily regulated environment or special situation special circumstances you might need particular controls yeah and that that makes a lot of sense but controls are always in place to make you move a little slower to ensure that you are safe or you're well governed or you meet certain compliance needs but it does mean that things have to slow down a little bit and so if if you need that level of control that risk mitigation in the process makes perfect sense most of the time most of the clients that we're working with are struggling with the fact that they're not going fast enough that that things are falling in the cracks and they're not getting the outcomes so I I would say that control where you need it where it's it's prudent but but really try and focus on the speed and enabling people to move quickly all right so let's let's say a company then gets to that point where they're like okay we we definitely need this we we we we've looked at our organization uh we're seeing that that there's these bottlenecks and that there's clashes and it's slowing everything down we need to get faster so this is one of the ways that we're going to do it um what are the skills that you think would you know what skills do do someone what does a person need to have to become one of these super tech Chief things sorry I've got to come up with a better title for this um like you know is it definitely you know the softer skills the leadership the business strategy and and less about the technology knowledge it feels like that if you if you're one of those Tech Geeks you might not be suited for this role versus one you know one of these people that that have this strategy leadership and gets along with everybody type of people or does it not matter I me it might not matter right yeah go ahead Tom yeah there is that issue of certainly you know needing to manage up well um and in our survey we found that um many of the people we interviewed thought that managing up skills were probably more important than you know managing downward managing the tech people who report to you um but um we found a surprising amount of technological orientation among some of the super tech people we um um interviewed um one had uh programmed an Arduino device um to do something with one of their products and um some other um super tech leader I think it was SRI D russula at TIAA who has a you know every Tech function plus some customer service functions said you know I I I um code for fun on the weekend so um I think that can help you get the respect of the people below you if you have some notion of of you know what's going on in terms of the details of the technology yeah yeah because otherwise otherwise they might not they might not give you the respect that you need if if you don't know anything about technology right but there's also that I I I agree with this point I I found this really uh a little Charming actually is that these individuals were doing it not they weren't doing it to necessarily impress or stay say current though they were all passionate about that but it was really their passion for technology that drove this they were excited to play with Arduino or or Sean en coding with uh with his daughter and helping her through school and learning together on co-pilot the there were these examples of people who really enjoyed it and I think that passion is one of the things that makes has made those super tech leaders successful in their careers they this is a this is fun this is stuff I love to do do you think that most of these roles will come up through the the IT department or the technology Department because they are uh so enthusiastic about technology you know if if I had to do this as an analogy would it be like all right uh is it more of a business entree with a tech side dish in terms of your Knowledge and Skills or is it a you know a tech entree with the business side dish where you you know you you know 80% of your uh of your knowledge is around technology but you also know how the business runs and or is it the other way around like where do you see most of those people in the super tech world falling I think it's changing in that in the old days I think in order to really understand technology well you probably would have had to come up through the it function but now um somebody said to me recently A A Chief Information officer at Liberty Mutual he said you know when I look in at at meetings that we have with between it people and business people it's harder and harder to tell the difference between them and so I think um it's generally a good idea for somebody to have experience in both you know technology roles and the business side and I think you'll be taken much more seriously by the CEO and the board and other um sea level Executives if you have some business experience even if you've had a p&l um actually at some point in your in your career yeah John anything anything else to add on that yeah I I think that's I I think that's spoton I think that if you look at the education uh process and the change and development in technology over the past few decades it's definitely the the the the people who are coming out of school now or in the past couple of decades have had a focus on technology in their education they might have had to learn tooda in that introductory program but it was definitely it has been recognized that you must understand this you must look at the as an asset as a strategic tool within your within your toolkit um whereas in the past there definitely was a mindset from business stakeholders listen I I engag the tech people to do the tech stuff for me you take care of that and tell me what matters that you can't operate that you can't you can't be competitive especially you mentioned digital organizations you can't be competitive in that environment if you're if you're separating technology business right right now yeah in again in the older days you could you know if you were a business leader you didn't have to worry about the tech part of it but now since technology is touching every part of the business it would feel like all of Your Business Leaders would at least have some knowledge of of technology and the tools and and you know what works and what doesn't so that you get a little bit more respect if you became one of these super tech leaders from like the business side um but I but you know is is that an outlier or not it could you know maybe not in the future but maybe now I think it's I less and less of an outlier I put in a minor plug for my latest book called all hands on Tech um which is about the sort of Citizen movement um relative to technology and I think AI is just going to exacerbate that you know um anybody can code if they know enough to say what they want um and outcomes a a perfectly fun in some cases anyway Python program so I I think it's just going to become quite pervasive that people have had some experience in um developing systems or at least participating in a you know system development um initiative Tom what a what a great segue because we're moving into the generative AI portion of the show uh we can't get we can't do one of these episodes obligatory on every podcast without talking about generative AI you know has has the rise of this um exacerbated this issue with with the organizational structure uh because it because generative AI does touch so many different parts of the technology of of of the business we're not talking about just one gen tool to maybe help the IT department you know it's affecting marketing it's affecting sales it's affecting accounting it's you know Finance all those all those parts of the company um you know so does doeses you know does is this what what is causing this or was it always there and this is like okay in order for us to get a handle on what we're going to do with geni uh moving forward we definitely need to have this organizational structure in place does that does that make sense yeah it does I I would definitely say this has been a movement over time that we've seen you know with the move towards uh digital organizations it's we've been going in this direction but um 2023 you know after the release of uh 3.0 it it cranked it up a notch yeah um the businesses you know the experience that personally I had going into into 20123 was this massive awareness by by business Executives by Boards turning around and saying to their technology organization hey what are you doing about this this generative AI stuff and many of the clients or organizations we talk to were hey we've got a scramble we've got to get something in place so the pressure on the organization the expectations have come out of the release of you know starting with chat GP uh GPT 3.0 in November of 2022 it's just driven these organizations to say this is the future and where many companies you know you think in Pharmaceuticals or you think in financial services sure they've been using data science for decades but now it it's really hit the mainstream in such a uh a pervasive way and so now that really does put the pressure on the organizations how do I bring this into the Arsenal as well how do I make this part of of the tools and things we bring to Market yeah yeah the feeling that I got with with a lot of this the generative AI stuff and the reason I'm asking this question is because it feels like that everybody wants a piece of that AI pie for example or this is the golden ticket for the Willy Wonka Factory and everyone's grabbing this and so the chief data officer is like no no no I need it's because it's data and then the chief technology officer goes no no no no this is technology CIO goes no guys this is all this is all CIO this is all our stuff and so that's why you know the the rest of the company sees this or the CEO and the board sees this and goes we have to we have to like consolidate now before we get into this strategy otherwise all they're doing is then going to create like well we'll we'll create a chief AI officer or my other new favorite least favorite term is this whole um Center of Excellence um like and and that becomes well we'll just have a committee of people doing it right and that that could lead lead lead you down some really bad paths too right Tom are you are you seeing this this kind of battle for AI oh absolutely and we we asked a question on this survey who's responsible for generative Ai and it was all over the map and I've talked to organizations where um a very prominent um Health Care Organization I everybody I talked to there who's responsible for generative AI I am next person no I am I'm in charge so yeah it's a really good career enhancer if you can get people to believe you that you're responsible for it so so yeah I mean I guess then what are the consequences if if if a company does not look at at this organizational structure at this point can they survive I obviously you've seen people that have have created these these Center of excellences or the chief a officer while they while I think they figure out the rest of the the the issues right like it it feels like they're going to have to go towards this consolidation or can can you survive in and is just something that like you know um mbas at Harvard just like talking about with the internal organizational dynamics of a company that just seems like it's a lot of inside baseball here I don't know if it's going to be a a stark survive or die line for organizations but what you know you see those companies that just keep making the right decisions and keep moving forward and being seem to be ahead of of the curve or ahead of their competitors I think if if you're not prepared for absorbing the the new technology how it will change your organization how it change you work with your customers I operate um you're going to be one of the people looking over at those other companies and saying wow I wish we got into that first I wish we'd done that so I think it is an important differentiator and is important too it's new it's it's something that that people are figuring out and this is where I think going back to that that um that excitement these the successful super tech leaders have around technology exploring the new tech figuring out how is this going to change the game for us those people that capability and those people will help your organization be at the head of the curve yeah yeah Tom anything else to add on that yeah I agree with John and in a way I think it will be a natural process and I think it was natural and many of the organizations had already created these roles you find somebody who's very capable and business oriented and who gets along well with the CEO and who advises him or her um then you kind of slowly give that person more responsibility and you're not going to say well you know generative AI comes along I'm going to create a whole new Chief AI officer that doesn't report in through this person I've learned to trust you wouldn't you wouldn't um dream of that and what one of the things we found was that Chief AI officers at least now are the Le least well connected to the rest of the organization of any other type of leader and you know that would be really bad to have this really important resource be led by somebody who wasn't connected to anybody else so um I I think we'll slowly see that the well-managed organizations will do this more and the organizations that do it will become you know better better managed do do you definitely see this this happening in the future with the super CH Chief leader um where it becomes comes a different title than what you've currently got or do you think that the like let's just say that we give this to the CIO does this does this Elevate the importance of a CIO or does it um or do you need that new title and you know and we're going to start seeing like Super Chief Information offic like SCI or or super officer so I think but again that's gonna be you're gonna have to come up with a better acronym I think that would be a good way to make your fellow um SE level Executives quite resentful right um what you tend to find I was reading this morning about Dogo Ral who we didn't um profile in the report but he's the Chief Information and digital officer at Lily and you um you you tend to see combinations Chief Information digital and data officer or chief information and data officer or um you know something along those lines they don't list all the things typically for which yeah these super tech Chiefs are responsible but um they they um list two or three and I I do not think that the super tech leader or chief is is going to take off as a title nor did we intend it to to be oh no I I I think again the the the point of these individuals emerging they were the right individuals who showed up and and it was less about giving them a title and actually more about giving them just the autonomy the space to be as successful as possible yeah so so they don't have great titles they don't they don't need great titles do do you think that the the person that becomes this this Super Chief do they have to advocate for this role themselves or is it going to be a board level decision um where the board and the CEO is going to say all right you're now in charge of this and you are this or is it going to be is it going to Bubble Up from those types of leaders I think the most successful individuals are the ones who are going to earn the right through success in the organization and so they're they're going to step in the the ones and and again going to the the the individuals Tom interviewed they are leaders who just stepped into the void stepped into the Gap and made it happen now what the what the executives in the organization need to do to be most successful is recognize that and give those people that autonomy so focus on how do I enable my star players to step up and drive that sort of change I think I I really do very much agree with with Tom's point if if you go into a bunch if you've got all these cxos in the technology space and go all right you you you and you you now all report to that person and they're the super tech leader that's just a recipe for disaster yeah yeah what you often find is that you know these people move around from one company um to another a lot and people like Sean McCormack and and sastri der Russell at Tia have said uh sorry I don't want that job you're offering me unless you can make it a little bit more comprehensive yeah right add some some tech functions I don't want to be competing with a chief data officer so um I'm more than happy to have that person reporting to me and I respect them and and they'll do well under my leadership but I'm not going to have a separate role for it all right do you think in a couple of years that it'll be one of those things where this is just common common for every company and we you know are we doing a little bit of Naval gazing right now um or is is is this something that that a company's going to be constantly looking at especially as new other Technologies come out and you know there's the the tendency to create a new position based on whatever technology comes out I think did I stump you guys I couldn't have stumped you guys that's was my last question try trying to be uh diplomatic about this there you go um I think there will be some organizations that hear this and and say all right let's put a super tech leader let's create the super tech leader role without really thinking about what do you have to do to change to a to make that role successful yeah so we we'll slap us super tech leader in there and that'll fix everything well no if you had organizational challenges before that prevented those type of people surfacing or even being successful in the organization then slapping that roll in is not going to make that person successful you really need to think about how do I enable talented connectors these orchestrators to be the most effective in the organization and just putting the roll in is not going to do that yeah yeah and and and Tom this is more a thing for large companies too right like if if you're at a smaller midsize company you're probably watching this going I do 20 of these things anyway I'm already the Super Chief and it doesn't really matter what my title is right yeah particularly I think most of those things would fall under the CIO in a small company um but I think unfortunately you know in small companies you tend to find that the cios are a little less sort of you know business innovators and a little more you know keep the keep the lights on yeah so um that wouldn't be as likely that You' combine all these capabilities under under one person anyway right I mean the key is that whoever is in the this um Consolidated role that they recognize the importance of data and information security and analytics and digital um you know interfaces to the customer and and so on and you know that that takes a special type of person I think yeah all right guys again some fascinating topics here uh especially in that in that CIO world in the sea level um space so uh again thanks for for joining us on the show today and um uh you know have a great day I guess you too thanks for having thank you all right that's all the time we have for today's episode be sure to like the video subscribe to the channel and add any thoughts you have below join us every week for new episodes of today in Tech I'm Keith Shaw thanks for watching [Music]
2025-01-25 21:15