Staying the Course as a CIO: How to Overcome the Trials and Challenges of IT Leadership

CHAPTER 1 Dislocated Stakeholders

“Where is the ‘any’ key?”

(Homer Simpson, in response to the message, “Press any key”)

Stakeholders, as one of my colleagues once said to me, “should be tied to one”. He was definitely in the “Joan of Arc” school of stakeholder management. “It's all very good when they are feisty and swashbuckling,” he continued, “but when they start to get irritating, you should tie ’em to a pole and light a bonfire.” This approach has obvious attractions, but there are few people who can avoid the scourge of the irritating stakeholder whose mission in life is to make your life a misery. King Henry VIII, the sixteenth-century King of England, was one of the few heroes of history who was able to buck the trend. As most British schoolchildren will know, Old Henry had a penchant for doing his own thing. It was never a good idea to be his wife when he got bored (which happened at least five times it seems). Kings in olden days generally didn't have that many stakeholders to worry about especially if they had bags of charisma and a large, loyal army at their disposal. Henry therefore pushed the boundaries of his not inconsiderable power to the limits. During his reign he worked his way through six wives, as well as starting a war with France (which is something every good British monarch feels they have to do). He also created the Royal Navy (Loades, 2009) and is even thought by some to have written the quintessential English song Greensleeves (Trow, 2010). ...