The common age of a CIO is 55, so most have already had some ideas about retirement and what they need their legacy to be.
What do CIOs worth for his or her lasting profession contributions? I’ve had this dialog with many CIOs, and I’ve thought of the matter myself. Predictably, the solutions should not of a one-size-fits-all selection.
Here’s what I’ve discovered from different CIOs about what they wished to really feel they achieved:
1. Not a lot! Many CIOs who’re beginning to consider the tip of their careers by no means discuss it, that’s, until you coax them. Then, once you do, they don’t at all times appear to know.
They’ll say that they need to really feel that they did a superb job working IT after they stroll out the door, and that they helped develop new folks. They need to really feel that they delivered worth to their corporations, and that they have been in a position to earn a superb dwelling and assist their households. Most agree that they actually loved their jobs and the challenges, however they’ll additionally let you know that they’re trying ahead to taking that lengthy coast-to-coast automotive journey they’d at all times deliberate, and that it’s time for another person to take the helm.
3. Company pleasure. There are CIOs who not solely need to really feel pleasure of their work, however in whom they labored for. They’ll beam with pleasure and say, “I labored for X firm for 25 years as CIO.” That is very true for CIOs who labored for giant enterprises, tech corporations, and organizations which have broad and favorable family recognition.
4. Stress. The CIO job is worrying. A CFO colleague of mine as soon as informed me, “I’m glad it’s you working IT and never me. Finance is extra secure and predictable. I’m going to work every day and know what’s going to occur. You don’t.”
That is all so true. For CIOs who now not relish the challenges of steady and unpredictable change, it could possibly get robust to handle the stress. Steady stress can inspire some CIOs to retire early, or to modify careers altogether. In these circumstances, their legacies as CIOs aren’t so essential, however peace of thoughts is.
5. Feeling that they made a distinction. Twenty-five years in the past, IT professionals across the globe centered on making a 6-digit numeric date discipline into an 8-digit discipline in order that methods wouldn’t crash when the brand new millennium arrived. This was a harrowing but in addition a purposeful time for IT usually and for CIOs specifically.
The work on Y2K went on across the clock. I bear in mind working to a McDonalds one night to get a jug of espresso for the workers. There have been about half a dozen state IT employees within the restaurant, additionally getting espresso. They’re carrying “Y2K Bites” shirts, and we raised our fists in solidarity earlier than heading again out into the evening.
Many CIOs who’re retiring or excited about retirement need to depart with the sensation that their work as CIOs was impactful, purposeful, and that they made a distinction.
That distinction might need been in navigating the IT ship by way of a colossal undertaking just like the Y2K information fixes. Maybe it was the innovation and deployment of a brand new system, the primary of its form anyplace, that their workers created beneath their management. Or, it might need been the individual staffers whom they helped alongside the best way so these people might develop their IT expertise and assist their households.
This want for goal — to really feel that you just contributed and made a distinction, is what issues to the vast majority of retired or soon-to-retire CIOs I go to with. And it mattered to me.
So right here is the age-old query that I at all times get requested in these conversations: Would you do it (be a CIO) once more?
The reply, after all, is a convincing “YES”.