Increasingly around the world CIOs are losing their jobs, it’s happening so often that the average tenure of a CIO is 4 1/5 years, with half of those being less than 2 years, less than the time it takes to earn an associate’s degree! I’ve been writing and speaking for years to CIOs about this and how to keep their jobs, but it seems more and more of these professionals are bent on doing the opposite. So for those hard headed, self-determined to fail CIOs, as a public servant, I’m here to help you. I would like to give you 12 ways to get canned quicker. Hey, why do in 4 ½ years what you can accomplish in 6 months!  Go for the gold, let’s get started.

Number 12

Do it all yourself!

That’s right, you don’t need a team.  What do you need AVPs for? They are nothing more than high priced paper pushers! Those managers are just getting in the way and what do those analysts know?  I mean they work on the front line directly with the technology and customers, they aren’t strategic, what could they possibly add to the conversation?  They’ve been here for 10 years, their knowledge is old and outdated, you been on the job for 6 weeks, you bring the new perspective, so rip them of the responsibilities and do it all yourself.  After all, you can run the servers better, you can negotiate the deals and contracts more efficiently, and you’ve known about email since it came out, so tackling that exchange server will be a synch.

Number 11

Design for what?

There is no need to take time to design the infrastructure for growth, that’s not necessary. Why would you want to plan an infrastructure and you’re just going to change it in a few months anyway?  See, you are a visionary and agile, that’s why you are at the top. You can see past these pesky details to the real prize! You know that if that infrastructure was good enough for your great grand father, by golly it’s good enough for this multi billion dollar corporation. Leave well enough alone, designing is for dummies.

Number 10

Upgrading is overrated!

You are a savvy business man, you know that you are probably going to change software solutions 16 times in the next three years, so why buy that maintenance contract?  For upgrades? (sigh) who needs upgrades? By the time we upgrade we could have put an entirely different system in place.  You know those customers are going to want something you haven’t seen yet, so why should you lock yourself into this software contract when they may have a request that causes you to change the entire platform tomorrow! Plus, what if that conference next week has a solution to a problem you didn’t know you had, you may need to rip all of this out next month anyway.  I’m so glad they made you top dog!

Number 9

Security is for sissies!

Safety is for suckers.  Why would you spend all this time and effort (not to mention money) on something that’s very unlikely to happen? You are smarter than that!  You are smarter than the 12 million hackers and their billions of bots trolling the internet for breaches. After all, you have a certificate from that weekend school you went to in 1995 and read three books on information systems, you got this!

Number 8

Be out of touch

Look, let’s face it, you are the top paid technology executive and your time is valuable and worth more than anyone else’s in the department. I mean, you make like a buck and a half a minute, just pouring coffee could cost the company more than just buying it from Starbucks.  So it’s for this reason you just can’t be accessible to people.  You should not be caught having conversations with your department, remember, they don’t know as much as you anyway, why would you waste your time listening to what you can already come up with in your mind, that’s doubling the cost of the conversation, and you are no waster, you are a frugal savvy businessman that the company is lucky to have.  You also know more than the customers you serve, so once again, why waste time and money listening to the babble that they come up with.  After all, they don’t know what they want, YOU know what they want, so just build it and give it to ‘em, no need for conversation or visitation, and surely they don’t need to be able to get in contact with you, that would just be irresponsible.

Number 7

Training Shmaining

When you create a system that is as brilliant and bullet proof as you have, it literally trains itself. There is no need for extra documents, classes and videos, heck man, just use it, it’s so easy an untrained orangutan could figure it out blindfolded. Oh, and the team, half the team is too stupid to train so why waste the cash, a quarter will leave to something better if you train them so why waste the money, and a quarter are smart enough to figure it out themselves so why waste the money. With all those free YouTube videos out there, why would you even consider paid training? Who are we kidding, you don’t have a quarter that are that smart, but you are a leader and think positive, one day they will get there.

Number 6

Trends? Don’t follow the crowd!

So you hear about social media and Hadoop and cloud and blah blah blah. You are a trendsetter, a leader not some follower that needs to read about the latest technology wave. No sir, no ma’am,  you set the trend, they follow you, they read about you! You can prove it just by that slick trio you are carrying, you set that trend 20 years ago, and people are still on this iPhone kick, suckers. You are soooo far ahead of your time it’s scary. There is no need for you to subscribe to Wired or PC Magazine, it’s just full of followers, not leaders, visionaries, and geniuses like you! And once again, you’re saving that all mighty dollar, you are so…so… there are no words to describe. 

 Number 5

Let those systems rest

Hey, all of the geniuses know that at some point a system is going to go down, it’s just a part of life. It’s like death, it’s coming, so just let it come. Why would you make a plan for such a natural occurrence? Just deal with that system outage as it comes, and who knows, it may not even come in your tenure. I mean, you’ll only be here for 18 months anyway, roll the dice, live on the wild side.  If systems want to fail, who are you to get in their way, let them get some rest and leave them alone.

Number 4

A cloud is for the birds

You have a very good memory and know how to follow directions.  You remember your teacher saying don’t walk around all day with your head in the clouds. So why would you want to change that thinking now?  While everyone else is coming up with these “cloud strategies”, you my friend are a cut above, working on that dumb terminal solution and how you are going to use all that money you saved on training to by that new dell blade server. Once again, your knowledge reigns supreme.

Number 3

Make ‘em wait and pay while they do it!

You must get your users to face the facts; ALL IT projects take a very long time and costs a lot of money.  I know your sales people THINK they can download a CRM solution on their phone in seconds and use that. I know they SAY they’ve been using it for a year before you came, and it costs 6  bucks a month but you need to inform them that this is simply not the case. The CRM they are using isn’t really there, it’s vaporware and it just takes a lot of time to bake a system really worth having and of course, with that time comes dollars, a ton of them.  After all, you’ve saved money and time everywhere else, it’s time to reap the benefits of that labor.

Number 2

Just talk and keep talking 

Yea, the IOT of the big data can be seen clearly by watching the BI solution of a CRM that obviously is related to that AWS implementation. You KNOW the things that are going on in the world.  Just because you don’t follow those trends doesn’t mean you aren’t aware, I mean, what do they think you are? A moron?  You know the jargon and you can use it as you like, and you SHOULD use it, a lot.  If your users aren’t smart enough to follow, then will they really understand the solution you put in place? Someone else’s inability to grasp these advanced concepts shouldn’t reflect on you.

NUMBER 1

Drumroll please…

Ignore the customer. Sure they have the money, but they owe you, they wouldn’t have it if you hadn’t saved all of that revenue on frivolous things such as training and infrastructure. There is no need to listen to their wants and needs, after all they have no idea what they want, they ask for too much too quick, they’re cheap and on top of that, whenever you DO give them something all they do is complain. You can do without all of these customers, good riddance to bad company!

For those CIOs that are tired of their jobs, use these 12 simple steps to relieve you of that awful pain. I am willing to put a guarantee that if you implement these steps fully, you will be able to beat that two-year time frame those average CIOs leave in, you are an over achiever, you can probably get out of there in less than half the time.