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Strategy is not words. Strategy is action. We don’t do a periodic planning system. The reason for that is because the world is a living, breathing thing. We just plan continuously. There’s no five-year plan.
Battered Budget Syndrome
As the old saying goes, “the people that get you here, won’t get you there”, a big reason for this is something I like to call battered budget syndrome. BBS is the disease that many IT departments and IT leaders have. Those with tenure in a growth company are used to “making things work”. Appropriately, this is when the company is in a season of small budgets, market growth, and constant re-investment into the revenue generation side of the business. With no clear ROI, many IT departments are defeated. They are viewed as a cost center and are systematically reduced to the bare bones expense that will allow the company to continue to operate. After years of this level of thinking, IT decision makers with BBS, literally can’t get past those invisible barriers and strategically place technology in alignment with the company.
You’ll notice BBS in a variety of ways, but most obvious is when the cage door is open and proper budget has been allocated. What IT recommends is typically, fancier equipment, more features, and additional technology.
This is a big problem. This is precisely the stage where companies need strategic thinking. They need to align the technology with the mission, not just make the current technology a little better.
3 Business Triggers that Require CIO Thinking
If you are running into these 3 constraints, your company is in need of a strategic technology leader.
1. Technology decisions became irreversible.
The moment a choice locks you in for five years — ERP, PM platform, cloud architecture, an acquisition’s stack — you’ve left IT management and entered capital allocation. An IT manager optimizes what exists. Someone has to own the solution you can’t unwind easily. Most mid-market disasters aren’t outages, they’re a platform decision made in 2019 by whoever had the most confident opinion at the time.
2. IT started gating revenue.
When security questionnaires stall deals, when insurance renewals hinge on controls you don’t have, when a client’s requirements decide whether you can bid — IT moves from support to a sales prerequisite. And a support function reporting to the CFO will never be resourced to win deals, because that’s not what cost centers are for.
3. Nobody owns the space between systems.
Every system has an owner. The integrations don’t. Data lives in six places with six versions of the truth, and the person who understands how it connects is one person, or nobody. This is the trigger most companies miss because nothing is technically broken — it just gets slower and more expensive every quarter, and no one can say why.
Buy vs Hire The Thinking
A common mistake is promoting an IT Manager or Director into the strategic thinking seat. This is a mistake for two reasons.
The manager is great at knowing the systems, your business, and the team. The manager is biased and rarely able to self-critique. Ego is a real barrier and the outside perspective can expose limitations you didn’t know you had.
A manager is more likely to go along to get along. A promotion to the CIO level is then an act of self-preservation. You want a CIO that gives you the hard truth.
My recommendation is to date before getting married. There are many firms that can provide strategic thinking at this level on a fractional basis. Strategy shouldn’t be something that’s a quick event. You need the right people and the right perspective. It takes time and it takes knowledge from the CEO or board to make an informed decision. Buy strategy hours, buy assessments and first learn how to properly assess your next C-suite hire. Many firms will even help you through the hiring process.
If you’re asking yourself the questions above, you are already in that zone. Start planning for the future success and if you need help, let me be your first call.
Until next week,
—Jared
Text Me: 314.806.3912
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