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Thu, Apr 5, 2007 12:52 EDT
Mind the Gap
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Posted by: Martha Heller in Best Practices Topic: Personal ManagementBlog: Career Strategist
Current Rating: |
Making the leap to COO from CIO can be tricky. Three former CIOs share advice for making the transition successfully.
Roughly 40 percent of the CIOs I know long to replace the “I” in their title with a new letter. They like the “E” an awful lot, but they recognize the considerable challenges in obtaining it. They typically want nothing to do with the “F,” and they do not consider the “S” to be a step forward. But that “O,” that beautiful “O.” With its promise of better compensation, higher status and an unquestioned place at the table, now there is a letter worth fighting for.
CIOs who have made the leap to COO are still rare, but the trend is definitely happening. And no wonder. CIOs touch every part of the business, from order to delivery to HR to finance. They are responsible for standards, QA, cost reduction and process improvement. They know their company’s operations intimately—at the process, data and user levels. As technology and the business become more integrated and CIOs evolve into business leaders, CEOs are starting to see the wisdom of promoting their IT guy for the head operations role.
But making the transition is not easy. To grasp the challenge, I spoke with COOs who were once CIOs. I asked them two simple questions: How did you make the transition? And what advice do you have for CIOs with similar aspirations?
Joe Eckroth, COO, New Century Mortgage
After serving in various operations roles for Northrop Grumman, as divisional CIO for GE, and then as CIO for Mattel, Joe Eckroth became CIO for New Century Mortgage in July 2005. Six months later, his boss, Brad Morris, was promoted from COO to CEO. He chose Eckroth to succeed him. “I was brought in as CIO to work across the company and drive transformation, process and technology,” says Eckroth. “When Brad became CEO, he looked at his direct reports and saw in me someone who could play the umbrella role across the company.” His advice for would-be COOs?
Provide leadership beyond IT. “When you get the CIO title, you are given the birthright to be more than the IT guy,” says Eckroth. When New Century was in the throes of an acquisition, Eckroth stepped up and brought his GE acquisitions experience to the deal. This helped him
career path for cio, coo
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Joe Eckroth has received far too much favorable press and credit for, among other things, in his own words "turning Mattel around, driving transformation," etc.
Joe is a self-serving, arrogant individual who takes credit for other peoples' accomplishments as his own. He is neither collaborative nor empathetic. Recent comment from Joe overheard in a social setting just as New Century declared bankruptcy: "screw the employees, at least we (the execs) got our bonuses."
Let's stop rewarding bad character and putting self-serving executives on a pedestal. This guy in particular doesn't come close to deserving it.
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Having worked under the Joe Eckroth regime at New Century, I can support the statements above. I served in the IT organization and observed first hand from an IT standpoint and an operations standpoint. Put bluntly, he is not worth his salt...
He will continue to do well coming into already successful and complex organizations where his lack of talent, ownership or leadership can be easily hidden and where he can thrive off of the successes of others in his organization. Some may wonder how this is possible in such a highly visible role. This is accomplished very easily when as CIO or COO, you are given the opportunity to "fill your cabinet" with other like-minded and fearful individuals who will do your laundry and cover up your short-comings.
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Totally agree with the postings - and the overheard comments certainly ring true.
Eckroth's legacy in Mattel after a 5 year tenure was a massively expensive Oracle financials implementation and a failed IT culture of fear, alienation and CYA.
The toy industry is fast, fast, fashion and not an industry requiring huge multi-year, monolithic investments in back-office systems. His IT appointments were all of like-minded clones with no affinity for the culture or product - just career-focused "professionals" sharing his in-and-out in 5 years mentality. An ability and enthusiasm to allow and encourage change and to understand "creative-chaos" is vital - not attributes commonly found in defence or big-medical execs and certainly not to be found in Eckroth. Eckroth's Oracle solution was the same thing he did in his previous jobs - come in, hire new people to implement a big system and then move-on... too bad that in Mattel it failed to help. Likewise, his GE-playbook management style made little positive impact.
Eckroth joined Mattel when the stock was at an artificial low and over the next 5 years, the company simply recovered ground - however with no investment, interest, ability or risk-willingness in managing creative "smaller, cheaper, faster" solutions, the company's new product development "core-competency" suffered - and the stock is back in the toilet. Eckroth left Mattel shortly before his contract was due for renewal.
So much for a "turn-around".
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