Dear CIO – which team is your “first team”? A Question of Alignment, Perspective and Performance

The concept of a first team was developed by Patrick Lencioni and discussed in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  The idea is fairly simple, all executives (except perhaps the CEO) belong to two teams, the executive team that they are a member of and the functional team that they lead.  The first team concept suggests that your primary allegiance, your first team, should be the executive team rather than the functional team.  The underlying rationale for this is that when all executives see the executive team as the first team, debate and decision making  tend to focus on how to achieve joint organisational outcomes.  Conversely, if functional teams are seen as the first team, then debate and decision making is characterised by lobbying and departmental interests first, the seat you sit in, the team you represent drives your perspective.  

It's an idea that I have found very useful for my personal career, but more than that, I have noticed that CIOs who are very executive team oriented typically have much more influence with their colleagues and are perceived to deliver significantly more value than CIOs and IT leaders who associate more closely with the IT perspective.  Based on  these observations I suggest that the ability to hold a business first orientation is a key factor in the success or otherwise of a CIO.  When you begin to compare the differences in perspectives you begin to understand why. 

As important as it is for a CIO to be business oriented, we shouldn't limit business orientation to the CIO.  It should permeate through all IT.   All IT leaders should be business first, IT second and all IT team members should be service first and technology second (for a simple example of how team member perspectives can differ see this blog).

So, who is your first team?  Are you predominantly business oriented or IT oriented?  Turn the table above into a diagnostic and you will begin to get a view.  One way to do this is illustrated below.  

Be honest.  There is no value or growth in lying to yourself.  Ask your peers and team to answer these questions to get a "360 degree" view.  Take the feedback that this generates and if appropriate begin to craft a plan to reorient yourself and your team.  Use what's useful (after some honest self reflection) and let go of the rest.

One final thought.  All ideas like this have the potential for a dark underbelly and the idea of a first team is no exception.  If you take the idea to the extreme you can create a situation where the executive team makes unreasonable demands because they (including you) never consider the ability of team to execute on their plans and desires, but used to orient your primary perspective, set priorities for your team and then sense check the capability to execute it is a very powerful tool.