How does being human help as a technologist?

What am I doing?

How many times have you attended a status meeting, and instead of discussing your groundbreaking idea about a machine-learning algorithm that could revolutionize customer purchase patterns, you spent it reviewing breached service level agreements? This happens everyday companies, both large and small organizations, for and non-profit alike. For many years I just accepted this "wash and rinse cycle" as merely the standard way of doing business. However, following a few enlightening experiences during my first few years as a CTO, I realized the skill set that got me to the position in the first place was not enough to help me cut through the chaff and become a more successful, CTO.

Where am I?

My first hurdle was understanding where I was as an organizational leader. As many of us do, we start by doing research on the web and that prompted something I remember learning in school, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Introduced in 1943 to help identify people's basic needs in order of importance, they give a clear understanding of their importance relationally. Still, the question remains how do I use this to better help people concentrate on a business's priorities. The five listed from lowest to highest are:

1-Physiological needs - e.g., air, food, drink

2- Safety needs - e.g., security, order, stability, freedom from fear

3- Love and belongingness needs - e.g., social, belongingness, part of a group.

4- Esteem needs - e.g., dignity, achievement, mastery, independence, status, prestige.

5- Self-actualization needs - e.g., realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth, and peak experiences. A desire "to become everything one is capable of becoming" (Maslow, 1987, p. 64).

Levels?

Now that they are listed, how do they apply? When stuck in these endless circular meetings with no apparent endpoint or need to achieve a deliverable, you have obviously not gone past the first “need”. As CTO/CIO, you are required to provide a base-level of service, which we’ll equate to air, food, and drink. For example, if your organization is fearful of email being available during business hours, there is no way you can, as a CTO/CIO, discuss the second level need, such as stability and fear of outages.

My point is simply that if you are working on fixing the email issue, it will no longer provide the safety needed to achieve level two leadership.

As technical leaders, we need to create an environment for our teams to achieve and move to the next level. You need to get our organization to the point where you do not spend time making excuses for critical system outages. As a level two organization and leader, you and the team must provide security and order. An organization must ensure positive consistency. Team members cannot question whether their email has been sent or received. The organization must know that easily achieved tasks can be completed effectively. Achieving level two would start to provide the ability for an organization to go beyond "wash and spin". Level three for humans is the ability to feel part of a group. For organizations level three leaders and teams look outside of their department or function. When a team has delivered on stability and provided security, the team can start looking at how their function ties with other services. For example, when a team adds a new user to the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application, that user typically needs access to the order entry system. When the group reaches that third level, they ask if they could merge all of the account provisionings into one process. Instead of creating n number of requests to each of the functional applications, a single request should be submitted with the right audit and authorization process in a single operation. The CRM team has evolved away from daily fires and evolved into an organization characterized by cooperation and thoughtfulness. Level four leaders and organizations start to look outside of their walls and determine how they can affect an entire ecosystem.

An excellent example of this is when an organization realizes customers and competitors could be the same. Imagine when Microsoft offered to have the Microsoft productivity suite available for Mac OS. Mac OS is a Windows operating system competitor. MS Windows is the original operating system for MS Office. However, the Microsoft team realized that not providing the MS suite on Mac OS would significantly reduce the size of the market. They decided to create a version that would be available and cross-platform functional. Word files could now be written and read on both Windows and Macs. If the Microsoft team were not at level four and only looking to preserve their category dominance, a large part of the market would have been lost, and they would have left room for the entry of a rival. Level five leaders and organizations are those who can see beyond the current landscape. Level five leaders are unique and provide a vision of an organization before it's even conceived. One example I like to use is Henry Ford. Henry Ford was able to envision a mobile society for everyone before anyone could easily convey what mobile meant. Famously, Henry Ford was asked why he did not ask customers for their input regarding the Model T, and he replied, "Because they would have asked for a faster horse.". That perfectly illustrates what these visionary leaders have in common, they see what others don't and sometimes, if not always, know of a better, sometimes radical way to deliver it. Henry Ford was able to see that the combustion engine and assembly line construction would be able to create a new age of manufacturing and industrialization.

It is not linear!

The journey from level one to level five begins with acknowledging that as a leader, one must continue to move past the everyday firefighting to the leader, which can see opportunity not yet clearly defined. The journey starts with understanding. You must identify where you are on the scale. As Dr. Art Langer illustrates with his Maturity Arcs, the evolution is not linear. You will climb a level and then cycle in the level until you become more aware of your skills and talents. As you grow, you will jump to the next level. The key is never to stop learning and listening.

You are never done!

In conclusion, Maslow's scale provides a very concrete framework to identify the leadership level and skills required to grow as a leader. Understanding your current level and ability offers a roadmap to what is needed to improve yourself, leading to the improvement of the team. Identifying a team as unable to deliver innovative services because daily service interruptions force level one behavior is a better acknowledgment and provides a clearer picture of what the remedy is. Once you have created the path to move from level one, a team or organization can move forward with new innovations and service offerings. Using the scale and framework provides the guidance needed to help you and those around you excel and thrive.