Category: CTO Academy

“Perfect is the enemy of good” – Voltaire

I am not and never have been a perfectionist, something of a mixed blessing in the past.

Some start-up projects went out too soon, were half-baked from the start and met with the underwhelming results they deserved. 

Whilst other projects went out too soon, but hit the ground running as a result of early market validation and iterations.

What was consistent across all was that the MVPs were never pretty and all were far from perfect.

But perfectionism is an issue for many and a crippling one for some.

It also stimulated the launch of CTO Academy because I’d seen more than one start-up where a tech co-founder couldn’t let the product go until it was “market ready”.

Meanwhile, the market had moved so quickly that a once-innovative product was already off the pace as a combination of overthinking and over-engineering killed an opportunity at birth.

Those from a technical background are often most vulnerable to this failing as a default, perfectionist instinct can sometimes suffocate their ability to make an impact.

Effective technology leaders understand the balance required between making a product that you can be proud of and needing to get it out of the door asap and let the market tell you what’s good, bad and superfluous about those features you’re currently poring over.

In other words, it might be a product that is far from perfect and potentially even embarrassing, but let the market be the judge.

How do you manage out this instinct?

You probably never will so a few simple suggestions from our collective experience:

Voltaire knew a thing or two about life including the fact that ultimately, perfectionism is very inefficient.

‘As long as you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything’

A mantra that’s easy to say,
but when you’re in deep as a senior leader,
not always easy to follow.

We become so hyper focused on managing the demands incumbent with leadership,
alongside our own expectations and ambitions,
that sometimes we fail to focus on the fundamentals of looking after ourselves.

Before you know it ….

Bad habits become ingrained and your wellbeing, physical and mental, starts to suffer with an impact on your ability to be fully effective at work and present at home. 

And it’s those around you who will often spot the signs first.

But you probably know all this, right?
You’re aware of feeling overworked and overstressed. 
Caught in the hamster wheel that’s become your normality.

So what to do about it?

How to manage others you see falling into the same cycle because we don’t need studies to tell us that people who feel mentally and physically healthy, are going to be more productive at work and supportive of each other.

Those leaders who prioritise and accommodate team wellbeing are not only showing the basic humanity needed in those roles but are likely creating a competitive advantage at the same time.

The Power of Marginal Gains

The power of marginal gains was popularised in a sporting context by Dave Brailsford, former performance director of British Cycling.

Brailsford believed that if you make a 1% improvement in a range of tiny areas then the long term benefits can be extraordinary.

He looked at improving often overlooked aspects to build a cumulative edge against competitors;

• He had the training room floor painted pristine white so they could spot any dust that might impair performance
• Seats were redesigned for extra comfort and stability
• Massage gels were tested for better muscle recovery 
• They found better pillows for improved sleep
  And the list goes on

So the question to ask yourself and your team,
particularly if you see no obvious way to ease up the pressure of your day job ….

What small steps and marginal gains can you implement today,
That will create a significant cumulative impact around improved health tomorrow?

• Walk the stairs rather than catch the lift
• Use a fitness tracker (targeting a certain number of steps per day)
• Listen to a meditation app at the end of each day (get some perspective)
• Schedule more regular calls with the friends who make you laugh
• Commit to building better sleep patterns into your lifestyle
  And the list goes on

Remember also, that you are not alone if feeling overwhelmed at work.

Many of us are or have been.

So make sure that you’re maintaining a sense of perspective around you.
I keep good friends close and regularly tune in and tune out with my favourite comedians.

Help yourself by cultivating a team culture where vulnerabilities can be discussed
and where laughter and humour pervade.

Nothing is that serious, or at least nothing should be that serious.

Tons of advice out there how to improve in these areas – a few of the ones we like …

1. The philosophy of sans ecran …”without a screen”. Go tech-free for 24 hours during the weekend.
2. Create one day per week that is free of meetings for people to catch up, reflect and learn
3. Enable flexible working that works for the individual, as well as the organisation
4. Get to properly know each other and bring a different social topic to regular meetings
5. If working within a remote team, encourage separation of private vs working time, not being available outside that persons standard hours i.e. add an email signature that explicitly states your timezone/working schedule

And the list goes on but the bottom line is this …

Keep an eye on your health and start making those marginal gains today.

‘The first wealth is health’ — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Want to find out more about CTO Academy and our Technology Leadership Courses, including lectures that look at time management and mental health at work?

Visit the CTO Academy Website and in particular our executive leadership course, The Digital MBA for Technology Leaders that is winning rave reviews from global technology leaders

“Life is a long lesson in humility”

J M Barrie

Having reached a senior tech leadership role, you have the right to feel a sense of pride in your achievements.

But leadership requires many things from you, not least a quality that’s the opposite of pride – humility.

Humility requires you to leave your ego at the door, something your team will appreciate enormously because we’ve all experienced the top-down, transactional boss who leads by a mixture of job title and ego, normally of the inflated variety.

So here’s a leading question for those of you on this leadership journey from a technical background…

Is it more challenging to leave that ego in check when you’ve always been a star of the show?

Does that perfectionist in you manifest itself into a struggle to delegate, trust and ditch that aforementioned ego?

You may be coming from a background where acknowledging there are things you don’t know is a sign of weakness, not strength.

But always needing to win an argument and being right does not make for great leadership. They will almost always become pyrrhic victories where your short-term sense of importance equals an attritional long-term impact on those around you. 

Humility is critical to effective leadership

It means not trying to bluff your way out of difficult situations you’re facing for the first time, but honestly admitting a deficit in your knowledge, and that despite your seniority you remain eager to learn and grow.

It’s OK to ask for help, from peers, mentors or coaches. To lean on the expertise of others when you need it. 

A smart leader will be failure-tolerant and will shape a team culture with a similar approach. The team will discuss vulnerabilities without fear.

Where psychological safety is a prominent element of the organization and not just something that’s nice to have.

You should be comfortable putting your hand up as a leader and admitting any stumbles rather than covering them up or shifting the blame, thus potentially encouraging the same approach from your team. 

Recognising your own fallibility allows you to accept colleagues’ mistakes with empathy and create an environment where failure is not fatal but another part of the journey to ultimate success. 

What’s often worse is when the egotistical and insecure leader needs to claim credit for the achievements of others.

Those others will quickly jump ship.

Humbly acknowledging colleagues’ triumphs, and praising generously and sincerely will strengthen team relationships. It will also inspire members to take initiative and responsibility.

By practising humility, you will have even more to be proud of.

Want to learn more about CTO Academy and our Technology Leadership Courses, including lectures and discussions on Humility in Leadership?

1. Explore the resources on our website.

2. Take a look at our executive leadership course, The Digital MBA for Technology Leaders. It is continuously winning rave reviews from technology leaders around the world. And with a good reason too.

When you’re a leader, motivation is a two-sided coin.

One side is Personal Motivation and what’s driving you.
The other is Team Motivation and what’s driving them.
The two being inextricably linked means we need to start with self. 

What is your reason for doing what you’re doing?

Are you being driven by an intrinsic motivation where your actions are spurred by internal rather than superficial rewards?

Or are you drifting on an autopilot that is impacting (and not in a positive way) your performance and your leadership?

Being honest with yourself about these questions will inform much of what’s going on around you …

Your personal impact and achievements
Your ability to lead and bring people with you
Your overall contentment with the world

Here is my truth.

I was once employed and handsomely rewarded in a senior leadership role.
Great colleagues, easy lifestyle, relatively few worries.
Bored as hell.

I hadn’t aligned any of my core values with my day job.
I had zero intrinsic motivation and it was beginning to show.
One day I woke up and had that honest discussion with myself.
I quit.

The most effective leaders are those whose career motivation is aligned with their core values.

Leadership comes more naturally when the individual finds a flow between their role and their values.

But how do you know what those core values are?
Few people ever drill down deep enough to discover the principles that matter most to them. 

It requires careful reflection, objective analysis via coach or close friend, and some of that aforementioned honest questioning.

And of course it’s not just about the job or the company.
It’s about whether your career is on the right trajectory.

We work with global tech leaders to build their leadership skills but sometimes, it’s just not the right fit. Leadership is not something they fit. Tough decisions need to be made.

If you’re at the start of the journey then one essential question you need to ask … why do you want to become a leader?

Ideally the answer should be that you have no choice.
You simply cannot not be a leader.

Your instinct to lead is so strong that it’s part of who you are.
To lead, inspire, change, motivate and impact on others and the surroundings around you.
If you don’t feel you have that instinct, your other motivations may not matter. 

But of course being a leader also means that you now have to take into account and understand the motivation and ambition of others particularly those working closest to you, your team.

You will be highly fortunate and unusual if these always align with your own.

So a critical element of leadership is to understand and have the capacity to learn about what drives your colleagues and from there, to provide them with the opportunities to progress in their own careers — giving individuals the autonomy and training to thrive.

No room for fixed mindset and/or defensive leadership in 2023.

Support of this kind will increase employees’ motivation to work towards that common goal and have a significant impact on your ability to inspire and retain.

Your ability to listen, willingness to encourage discussion and capacity to display sincere interest and enthusiasm, will create an environment and culture that allows your team, with all its different motivations, to operate at its full potential.

And remember — however strong your desire to succeed in your career, it is important not to be overwhelmed by it. The same goes for individuals in your team.

Ambition should always be balanced with a wider and holistic approach to a quality of life. 

The core value of life and relationships outside work should never be forgotten.

Want to find out more about CTO Academy and our Technology Leadership Courses, including lectures and discussions that look at Motivation and …. How To Discover Those Core Values

Visit the CTO Academy Website and in particular our executive leadership course, The Digital MBA for Technology Leaders winning rave reviews from technology leaders around the world.

If there’s one constant in our lives, it’s change.

That much is stating the obvious.

So let’s move on and take a helicopter view of three key areas of change you will have to negotiate in your journey as a technology leader

Personal

There is no c-suite career path that requires a sharper handbrake turn of skills than that of the CTO.

Whereas the CEO, CMO, CFO will be on a compounding skills trajectory throughout their career to the top, the CTO must make the fundamental transition from a technical background into the more hybrid, business-fluent skill set needed in modern organizations.

It’s why those who achieve this transition are in such high demand.

But it involves some fundamental and often challenging changes in mindset as you switch your focus away from the technical and across to the people.

People

So here’s a dichotomy…

The world of technology tends to attract people comfortable with innovation. But we remain creatures of habit who like our comfort zones and are not always prepared to follow significant change in other areas, particularly if the benefits are not clear to us.

As a technology leader you’ll be making decisions and changes that directly affect the people around you.

So you need to be the owner and agent of that change, capable of bringing people with you and inspiring them to move outside their own comfort zones, whether related to working procedures, roles or targets.

But resistance to change is a common response so you need to build an understanding of how to encourage team buy-in;

1. Communicate clearly about the changes being made and why they’re needed 

2. Establish a clear timeline for how change is going to be implemented

3. Put training and support in place for the employees affected

4. Continue the support, and seek feedback to keep everyone on board once change has been made

Technology

The most obvious element of change affecting us all is the ever-increasing pace of technological advance … anyone heard about this game-changer they call ChatGPT?

To keep on top of this dynamic world, you must create a breathing space by stepping back from the day-to-day tasks.

You need to learn to delegate.
You have to learn to trust.

If not, you won’t have time to understand how the changes taking place might affect your organization, nor will you gain the insight and knowledge to judge what is hype vs likely reality.

And it’s this “value add” your organization is relying on you to provide.

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often” — Winston Churchill

Want to find out more about CTO Academy and our Technology Leadership Courses, including lectures and discussions that look at the role of Change in your Professional Growth?

Visit the CTO Academy Website and in particular our accredited executive leadership course, The Digital MBA for Technology Leaders that is winning rave reviews from technology leaders around the world.

Julian Costley is a highly experienced CEO, entrepreneur, investor and publisher based in the UK, but with a CV that includes working in and with corporates around the world.

He’s also one of the most popular lecturers on our executive leadership course, The Digital MBA for Technology Leaders.

However …. there is one section in his CTO Academy lecture on “How to be effective at executive level” which provokes as much debate as any other within the entirety of this extensive course.

In this lecture he warns that once you reach the senior level in any organisation of size ….

“Politics and the managerial time and energy it soaks up, becomes a fact of life”

and that and depending on the size and culture of a particular organisation,

“it can take up to 20% of your time to manage”.

So as you climb into senior leadership roles a key task will be negotiating the political waters within your organisation and just as importantly, protecting your team and allowing them to do their jobs.

It’s therefore important to understand the ecosystems operating around you and how they interact (or don’t) with each other. Your task as a manager and a leader is to become adept at both recognising and interpreting the nuances of those dynamics. 

Ask yourself, what department feeds off what, where are the major players, who are the hawks and doves within an organisation?

And once you’ve acquired sufficient insight to identify the politics happening around you, how should you respond?

No less a figure than Albert Einstein recommended that if you are playing a game, you must learn the rules, “and then you have to play better than anyone else”.

This is rarely easy, particularly for those of us not always interested in and/or good at politics.

I remember when completing my own MBA that I found myself for the first time in my life alongside future captains of industry, for whom the politics was part of the fun and some of them were clearly naturals.

But to be pre-warned is to be pre-armed and it certainly makes your senior role more challenging if you try and play at politics badly — that’s a sure fire way to lose friends and alienate people.

If you can, the key is to be aware but avoid playing the game altogether and focus instead on building strong relationships that can withstand political manoeuvrings.

Prioritise creating a culture based on honesty and trust in your interactions with c-suite colleagues, your team and with other departments within the company.

This will lead the way to the kind of frank and open communication that is, as much as anything can be, politics-proof.

“In weak companies, politics win. In strong companies, the best ideas do” — Steve Jobs

Want to find out more about CTO Academy and our Technology Leadership Courses, including lectures and discussions that look at Corporate Politics?

Visit the CTO Academy Website and in particular our executive leadership course, The Digital MBA for Technology Leaders that is winning rave reviews from global technology leaders

There are many reasons tech leaders want to join CTO Academy …

Career
Community
Networking
Discovering those unknown unknowns …

But there is one request we receive as often as any and that is to help them negotiate the often challenging transition from being CTO firefighter to becoming CTO strategist.

Ultimately it’s those high level contributions an organization needs from their CTO, not an ongoing obsession with the weeds so therefore strategizing becomes a key task for any leader, particularly for those in tech leadership roles.

But this can’t be achieved effectively if you are still fire fighting.

Like a chess grandmaster, the CTO needs to anticipate future moves and how best to capitalise on them.

They need to create the time and the conditions required to review and understand the macro as well as the micro environment in other words, they need sufficient room to gain a perspective of the wider game rather than just the immediate moves.

So how do you start to maneuver yourself into that strategic mindset because analytical thinking — and knowing how to apply it — is challenging and some key elements need to be in place first?

Delegation, for example.
You won’t be able to think long-term if you’re still caught up in coding and other hands-on tasks.

Learning to trust your team with the day-to-day stuff is crucial in taking that step away from the keyboard and creating the time and headspace needed to focus on the strategic vision.

And that vision must be aligned with the long-term goals of the organization.

Not only do you have to recognise tech trends (and as all know, the pace of change seems to be accelerating all the time) you must also understand how they impact on the wider business goals. 

If ever there was a reason to step out of that silo you’re in and get a grasp of the aims and priorities of other departments, this is it.

And finally we return to that fundamental pillar of any successful leader, communication.

However much space you create for yourself or how brilliant your strategic thinking is, no one is going to be inspired if you can’t communicate it effectively and to different stakeholders, with different agendas and capacity to listen.

Conveying your ideas in clear, straightforward terms that resonate particularly with non-technical stakeholders is crucial.

KISS … and get everyone on board.

“Without strategy, execution is aimless. Without execution, strategy is useless”
– Morris Chang

Master this transition from firefighter to strategist, and the impact on your organisation and your career will be significant.

CTO Academy work with technology leaders from around the world with courses, coaching and community support around issues like strategy.

Visit our Website and in particular The Digital MBA for Technology Leaders which is generating fantastic reviews from our early graduates.

Delegation.

We know we need to do it
We recognise the benefits of successfully achieving it
But many of us (author included) still find it challenging to manage it.
Particularly when new into a leadership and managerial role.

The reasons why?

Trust.
Accountability.
Time.
Fear.
Control.
Narcissism.

Take your pick but don’t take your time because the longer you fail to delegate the more likely you will burn out yourself and, burn off your team.

Studies suggest the most common excuses (aka roadblocks) to delegation are …

1. I will do a better job than anyone else
2. It’s easier if I just do it myself
3. I need to prove that I can do it
4. I like doing these tasks

What are the tell tale signs?

You may not spot them but the rest of us do …

• You’re hoarding work
• Resisting delegation
• Working long hours
• Feeling indispensable
• Subordinates aren’t energized or taking ownership
• They’ve moved to watching the clock (or looking for jobs)
• And of course … no-one cares about the company as much as you do 

It’s time to trust.
It’s time to release.
It’s time to delegate.

Because the value add that your organisation is paying you for
Does not exist in the weeds.

Want to find out more about CTO Academy and our Technology Leadership Courses, including lectures and discussions that look at Delegation?

Visit the CTO Academy Website and our executive leadership course, The Digital MBA for Technology Leaders winning rave reviews from technology leaders around the world.

That journey into the CTO role will often require a fundamental transition from the core technical capabilities you’ve worked on throughout your career to date, to the leadership skills necessary to have an impact at the c-suite level.

And leadership should be viewed differently to management.

Peter Drucker was quoted as saying that “management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

One of the fundamental changes required is a shift in mindset as you move from being one of the team to leading the team.

Delegation is one example of a shift in mindset that can be challenging especially during the early days of your leadership career.

You might feel that you can do the job as well if not better than those around you but you also know that letting go is the only way to build and scale a team.

You have to let go or the team will become demotivated and you will become exhausted.

You need to put your team ahead of you and learn to trust them.
You need to focus on the value add your CEO wants you to deliver.
And the value add won’t come from you hanging onto the code.

A change of mindset is challenging for many of us but it’s one of the pivotal changes necessary when moving up into senior technology roles.

Want to find out more about CTO Academy and our Technology Leadership Courses, including lectures and discussions that look at Leadership Mindset?

Visit the CTO Academy Website and in particular our executive leadership course, The Digital MBA for Technology Leaders that is winning rave reviews from global technology leaders