Incubate Talent, Not Mediocrity
“As a leader, you should establish the top priorities that elevate all business units in your organization. Innovation is essential, the time to launch your technology incubator is now.”
When our sales team is asked by our clients what separates CDI from the rest of the pack and commands our assurance of success, they will undoubtedly all say “our technical talent”. The follow up to that question is often also dressed up with a challenge to put their best guys against ours in an interview process and when that challenge is accepted – we generally win. Without sounding too much like Erlich Bachman from Silicon Valley, I’d like to talk a little bit about what we do at CDI that truly does separate us from our competition in some of the most competitive markets in the world, most notably New York City.
Almost three years ago, I was graciously promoted to the title of Chief Architect at a time when no such title or role had previously existed. Growing rapidly, CDI needed someone to define a role that would help bolster the office of the CTO. To be honest, there are only so many days in a week that our CTO could attend conferences, go to partner meetings, do market research, create presentations, set technical direction, and remain close to sales – which we all know is what pays the bills. I saw this as an opportunity to start defining not only a role for myself but also one that could expand into what Silicon Valley would call a technology incubator. Pretty cool stuff.
This wasn’t a novel concept and I am certainly not taking credit for the idea itself, as many larger companies had and still have similar groups, often called fellows, distinguished engineers, tech rangers, or tech evangelists. These key players are often voted in by the group and are tasked with getting the best and brightest in the firm talking, collaborating, and sharing. In the modern world of instant communication, these goals can still be challenging with crazy schedules and ever-changing technology markets—but that doesn’t make them any less critical.
Why Technology Incubators are Critical
So why are technology incubators critical? Maybe it’s obvious and maybe it isn’t. I often thought we were very well connected here at CDI. With a workforce of about 300, I felt like “Hey, we’re small enough to be nimble, and dense enough technically to be really valuable to our clients and the tech market.” I also thought we all communicated well, but something was missing. I would often hear about little side projects my peers were doing on their teams and I’d think, “Wow, I wonder what else I’m missing!” No one ever wants to be last to know about the next great idea, right?
However, this is often the case regardless of the size of the company. No matter how big or small it may be, you can’t possibly know what all of your peers are doing, especially if they are as hungry as I am to lead, grow, and succeed. This may not be the case in every firm; however, the ones that are going to be great will certainly take notice. Those that don’t will never be the best they can be. So the incubator concept comes naturally to me.
Another catalyst was seeing other companies starting their own incubators. I saw companies like Sun, Microsoft, Google, HP, EMC, and IBM all doing it, so why not CDI? I started asking around in the industry and spoke to my own leadership coach, also an amazing author, Jim Riviello (check out his books and website) about it and Jim said, “That’s GOLD Rob, that’s leadership”. We both understood the greater good at stake. So, in that vein, I floated the concept upstream with a pretty loose agenda to our VP of Engineering and the CTO. The idea was simple at first. We would get on a call; I would explain the concept; and then each member of the group would get about 15 minutes to explain what their top priorities were to elevate their respective areas. What were we all doing as leaders? Needless to say, the first call was a big eye-opener. Each tech leader had an idea that spread like wildfire across the other groups.
We now meet every four weeks with ad hoc “in-betweeners” and all of us look forward to and benefit from the experience. We are able to collaborate on intellectual property, a shared exercise in innovation that just would not have occurred in the past. It’s one more way I can contribute to truly defining what it means to be a Chief Architect and leader at CDI.
The Call to Action
I often find myself debating for a week in advance about what I can bring to the table at our next session that will help my peers and get us collaborating more, which inevitably leads to more creativity. Similarly, I always walk away from the meetings with new ideas from peers that I can apply to my own team. This benefits not only CDI at large, but also the people striving to elevate themselves to the Chief Architect role, including those who aren’t quite there yet. For many gifted leaders, technology incubation and innovation programs provide an alternate path to career development.
I like to end these musings with a bit of a call to action, another concept my leadership coach taught me (did you buy one of Jim’s books yet?). This time, I would challenge you to step up and create your own tech leadership incubator at your company. Get the best and brightest you have talking regularly and destroy your competition through superior firepower.
As always, if you have any questions, suggestions, concerns, or funny jokes, shoot me a note at [email protected].