Best CIOs in Indonesia 2008

Early morning Friday this week, I got a called from my former boss. He was talking about the Best 10 CIOs in Indonesia as he saw on the coverpage of a national magazine here. One of them was before working for us. Knowing some top guys, the industry, the business, and the community at large, my ex-boss was quite curious and wondering where are those guys hiding.

I shared with him that we knew of many people that might (or certainly) be on the top list. Just bear in mind, this is a result of processes for those willing to participate for this particular magazine. A total of 12 people was short-listed from 21 candidates that were identified and participated. Also, one of the general requirements is that the companies CIOs belong to shall be headquartered in Indonesia.

Nevertheless, I congratulated our former guy to make to the top 10 list. We notices few familair faces on the list as well. While few mentioned about implementing business transformation, the majority is still struglling about applications and integration. The criteria is developed arounf current challenges (complexity, roles of IT) and Individual achievement. This is in light of the evolution of CIO roles as laid out by the Panel from operational transforming to strategic.

Some can be learned about this result and those challenges the CIOs are facing. The remaining big chunks are still on general, typical, and average IT shops trying to help the business. It would be interesting enough if Warta Ekonomi, the magaizine, can look at the angle as to try to portary that IT is (part) of the business and run IT as a business. IT Doesn't Matter -- a debate quite a while ago from an article on the Harvard Business Review. The author then further published again in response to many feedbacks - Does IT Matter ?. I would like to keep on saying to my collegues that the 'ultimate' measure of IT 'success' could be simply sensed: senior level managment (CEO or the executive team) is to have IT come into their mind when about to make strategic business decisons.

The gap between theory and practice seems very wide when it comes to the CIO role, wrote Edaward Cone in The Accidental Strategist, CIO Insight April 2008. New research from CIO Insight indicated that a sizebale percentage of CIOs identify themselves as more tactical than strategic in their day-to-day affairs. Fewer than half of responding CIOs say they "create or co-create business strategy". Sixty pecent say they "contribute" to their company's strategy. Cone put it that tactical and operational jobs still matter.

One of the finding on this annual survey the magazine conducted is on the role CIOs perceiving about their jobs. On the top lists are 1) Adviser on improving business processes across the company, 2) Technology visionary. On the bottom lists (rank 15 and 16) are 1) product or business process innovator, 2) discover of new business opportunities.

On talking about the new height of challenges, seems that CIOs are loaded with a heavy-weight busines expectation when CIO Insight describing that CIOs confuse operating a business with running a business. It's a tough job to be expected from the technoogy chief to really contribute to the bottom line, devising new ways to put more money in shareholders' pockets.

Would it be Career is Over if it's not delivering that way? Again, It would be quite a hot discussion if Warta Ekonomi could package it all with the above matters in spotting and selecting the next best CIOs of Indonesia corporations.

Beyond Computing, Above the Earth

On May 9, 2008, I was one of a 1,000 crowd waiting at Jakarta Convention Center for Bill Gates to give a Presidential Lecture. It was the very first visit that Bill paid to the country and had been a strong magnet attracting enthusiasm of people to watch.

I don't know why it's called a 'Presidential Lecture'. Probably, it was opened by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and moderated by Minister of Trade Mari Elka Pangestu that both stayed present, along with some other members of Indonesia cabinet and top brass, until the very end of the session. As the moderator introduced, it was part of Government Leaders Forum that regularly invites world dignitaries to deliver presentation to and have discussions with top brass in the goverment. It was the first time that GLF was made public to selectedly invited attendees with Bill Gates addressing the forum. And wherever countries he goes, he seems to make it sure that we would be with the country's numero uno.

Bill was talking about some IT progress and trend, how that technology can help some world issues, and addressing global health and program that his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working on. He then introduced the audience with the latest Microsoft products, or I would say contribution to IT and community. Microsoft Surface is about a new wave of human interface with computers, a natural way of doing computing, a very human being nature. And Microsoft WorldWideTelescope that is (currently) made free for everyone to explore outer space - stars, galaxy, nebulae and the like. Both are quite impressive and promising (future) Microsoft undertaking. Bill also managed to applause creativity of Indonesia students, called on stage a team of students from ITB winning national software development contest.

Looking at the back, a crowd of students was at the upper balcony, seat allocation given to University of Indonesia, Swis German University, and Univesitas Pelita Harapan. The way the session was delivered. It's like a deja vu of sort of Student Studium General. While it's interesting, nothing is quite special and spectacular. Only Bill Gates in person that make it different and special. The Q & A session was very much controlled with 5 (five) questions were already pre-arranged. A Studium General would be more lively.

Expectations for interesting discussions were popping up when a schduled TV interview with Bill Gates would be aired few days afterwards. But then, the interview with RCTI channel was plain and dry. Creative Capitalism ? Microsoft bid for Yahoo - would it be a hostile take-over ? Competition playing field with Google - earth and outer space ? None was addressed, to name a few of interesting hot topics.

Nonetheless, a salute shall be for Bill Gates that dedicate his time now with his foundation for serious efforts to improving global health and education. The visit is good for Indonesia, in light of, among other things, Visit Indonesia Year campaigns, attracting more foreign investments to come in. A credit to Tony Chen, President Director of Microsoft Indonesia, of being able to help convincing Bill Gates to come visit, after a successful arrangment previously of meeting Presidnet SBY and Bill Gates in USA (Redmond ?). And the keynote speech from the President was quite good, rich, within the context, and with a good sense of humor. I just was wondering who was the speech writer.

For sure, Bill is now now beyond computing, leaving a legacy behind for Microsoft to go above the Earth.

High Tech and High Touch

Last week, a friend of mine dropped me an email tagged with a subject of “why to move”. He attached a long quote and a (seemed-to-be) book review on why that people leave a company. The guy, was before working with me, seems to be a little bit at the cross road of his career – or his current job to be precise.

One of the books mentioned caught my attention. First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, working for the Gallup Organization, published first in 1999 (?). The book is the culmination of over 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years. It definitely provides quite a solid reference. “What do the most talented employees need from their workplace?” Gallup surveyed over a million employees from a broad range of companies, industries, and countries. The most powerful discovery was this: Talented employees need great managers. The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.

I replied to my friend that it seems to be true. He responded back that it’s very true, not just seems to be true. OK, well noted. As it goes on saying, people resigns to leave the manager, not the company. Ironically, good guys most frequently end up with having bad bosses. A quoted survey from Fortune revealed that 75% of employees are suffering from difficult bosses.

In a war for talent, companies compete to find and keep the best employees. It goes beyond just monetary benefits. I realized that even having a good coach is not enough, although it’s quite a foundation before anything else. Years ago, I had a technically bright talented guy working for us. He resigned because of the job was mostly doing “technical housekeeping” dealing with old technologies. He wanted to pursue something more exciting in touch with “tomorrow technologies” as not to make his skill obsolete. Nowadays, with a new generation of bright young people coming from the market and schools, having been “living through daily routines with fancy technologies around”, it would becoming more apparent that technology-friendly workplace is a necessity to keep them stay and productive. A CEO once I was working for required me to ensure that all engineers, and virtually all employees, in the company get access to the Internet and just keep on monitoring its proper use. In contrast, in some other different environments of equal financially strong companies, the Internet is open only to those with very strong justifications.

Turning employees’ talent into lasting performance is still a big challenge for leaders. Numbers, targets, and bottom lines do communicate, but not enough to capture the heart as to get people moved to passionately work for excellence. A very long ago, as a manager I was drafting a memo for my Vice President to address some important issues to all VPs in the company. Once finished and OKed, I asked my boss as to who should broadcast the email distribution from, as I supposed that it would be issued from him to all VPs. He simply said that let it be issued from and by you, adding with a smile that “you are already at the same level with them”. It might be just a little from his part, yet had a psychologically profound positive impact to me considering his sincerity. In contrast, there was a case whereby a big boss drafted a memo ready for his manager to sign and issue. He might intend to help. But to a talented, senior people, it was discouraging.

The driving force behind great corporate performance is talented people working with passion for excellence with an engaged heart. Quoting Dr. Jim Harris in Getting Employees to Fall in Love with Your Company, today’s great managers capture the hearts of their employees thru focusing on three strategies: Live a compelling vision, Balance work and family, Celebrate and have fun.

High tech and high touch. A I-have-a-dream motivation meets with a platinum technology exposure.

The 3am Decision Case

It's 3am. The children are safe and asleep. The phone is ringing in the White House. Something is happening in the world. Who do you want answering the phone ? Sound familiar? Yeah, it's the famous '3am Hillary phone call' ad campaign for the Democrat's presidential nomination. The answer is supposed to be clear: it's Hillary Clinton who already knows the world leaders, knows the military, someone tested to lead in the dangerous world.

Barack Obama was quick to response in a speech countering the experience Hillary is portraying. The question is not about who's picking up the phone. The question is what kind of judgement that you excercise when picking up the phone. By now, there are a few hundreds parodies written with regard to this 3am phone call. Some jokingly questioned why Hillary was dressed up with make-up at 3am?. And oddly enough, one of the kids sleeping in the bed is grown up now, a young lady named Casey Knowles that support Obama! What a joke.

Anyhow, making a critical decision at 3am must be very tough, let alone dealing with world affairs of urgent matters that might have long lasting impacts. It takes both proven experience
and good judgement to deal with it. In smaller scale, the same token shall apply to the business and corporate matters. We see many great leaders sucessfully grow the business and prosper the people within the business and the community. Yet, many good leader failed.

Coming up with sound decisions, timely and well considered, are sometime quite a challenge in day-to-day business operations. In one extreme, there are managers that often go making impulsive decisions, anything as long as it's good for him/her or his/her divsion, caring less that it might have impacts to others. In other extreme, we have managers that are not comfortable making important decision, let alone tough ones. Years back, I was curious as not being able to invite some managers in our important meetings. It turned out that it was not because they were so busy with other more important stuffs, but it's more that they did not want to end up in a situation at the meeting that they had to make (key) decisions!. It's ironic that they were expensive because they were supposed to make (tough) decisions in the first place.

Personal background and cultural-social environment have for sure some contributing factors in decision making process. More importantly, we could observe that we most of the time do not prepare our people in systematic ways to assume business leadership. We shall start with the new recruits. We have spent extra efforts to bring in the best fresh graduates. We then need an established program to grow them in their early career years. Yes, there are some good management trainee programs in some companies. Yet, it only for few selected people. The majority comes in thru regular pipe. Some have programs to widen their horizon within the first 3-4 career years. They would need to be rotated to gain technical experience, oriented to have business exposures, and got in touch with management awareness as to how the whole things get integrated and moving.

Key element missing in such porgram as I observe is the exposure to making business decisions. It's worth the efforts for them undergoing a systematic program in a way that would be confronted to make a real decision as we prepare them to become future leaders. Let them go thru case by case and learn first to have the courage to decide and then make well-considered decisions. Good ones and bad ones, and later on try to deal with a '3am situation'.

In recent recruitment interview with a number of candiates graduated from best schools with excellent GPA, I posed a question of 'what is the biggest and toughest decisions you've ever made in your life' ?. I virtually ended up staring at blank faces, with some managed to refer to few daily routines. It's imperative that we have to train our guys to get used to making tough choices - with well-thought consideration, understanding the impact to overall business, putting aside any super-ego and emotional attachment. Although, good decisions do not automatically yield good or best results as there are some unknown factors usually involved. But, statistically, decisions made with good processes and apropriate tools would in general make a good outcome that can responsibly be accounted for. With it, we could hope to have good leaders in the future that intelectually mature enough to make decisions that might impact the lives of many people. Proven experience and good judgement. When you become powerful leader, you'd better need it.

Advice from Spiderman passed on from Uncle Ben to all of us, especially to Obama, Clinton, and McCain, with great power comes great responsibilty. Use it very, very wisely.