The Politics of the State
The politics of the state as it affected technology were interesting. By the state constitution, the Board of Regents were separate and distinct from the rest of state government and answered to the governor and the board. When I first moved into the system CIO role, Patrick Moore, the state CIO, tried to integrate compliance from the university system with state technology policy. While not a bad idea, it did not work for a couple of reasons:
- The university system is very different than the other state agencies, and
- The Georgia constitution specifically excludes the university system.
Patrick and I would collaborate and share information for the mutual benefit of both organizations but I would not agree to forced compliance. This is similar to a repeating conversation I had when I was the academic CIO at West Point with the Pentagon. The Army wanted West Point to be like every other military installation from a technology perspective. We could not accomplish our mission if we did so. Collaborating, sharing information, understanding the commander’s intent, and mission accomplishment was the path to success and not forced compliance without understanding.
The subsequent Georgia state CIO, Calvin Rhodes, had actually read the state constitution and we worked together splendidly well. He had a lot of things to fix in state IT and I had a lot of things to fix at the University System of Georgia. We shared approaches and results and both were able to make real differences for the state.
Calvin started a State Technology Innovation Award when he arrived in 2012. The University System of Georgia would win the technology award in 2012, 2013, and 2014. Since the late 1980s, Georgia had competed 50 times for a National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) technology award without winning. In 2014, the University System of Georgia broke the string of 50 straight losses and won the NASCIO Enterprise IT Management award – the state of Georgia’s first technology award. Governor Nathan Deal send a personal congratulatory note.
You might wonder, gentle reader, as to why I mention those awards. The answer is politics of the state. The awards have cultural and symbolic value. We had built a reputation of technology excellence. As a result, in 2014 Governor Nathan Deal asked us to move the 183 K-12 school districts onto PeachNet – the University of Georgia System‘s private cloud. The initiative is detailed below and saved the state a great deal of money while dramatically increasing bandwidth to all K-12 schools.
The move also facilitated a secondary effect as the 183 K-12 school districts started to actively use our technology contracts instead of each school independently negotiating. Adobe software is a good example. It is widely used. Each of the 183 school districts formed well-meaning committees who negotiated with Adobe for six weeks and got their contract cost lowered by 20%. They felt great about their work until they learned we had negotiated an 80% cost savings and they could piggyback off our contract for free.
Economy of scale matters in contract negotiation. Academic pricing matters even more. Combined with a skilled, escalating approach to contract negotiations can result in sizable statewide savings.
Politics of the System
System Office
The politics of the system office were different from anything I had encountered in previous experiences. I had five different bosses in six years. In those six years, I went from being the newest Vice Chancellor to the 2nd oldest serving Vice Chancellor, Executive Vice Chancellor, or Chancellor. It was a organizational woodchipper at the senior levels. Thankfully, I had allies and supporters who supported me on the journey through the woodchipper.
Some of my political opponents were simply opposed to change. A good example of this occurred in 2011 when I was ambushed in an early morning meeting. My boss had received a proposal to stop all innovation in data reporting until we stopped and went back through 26 years of reports (to 1985) from 36 universities and fixed any data integrity issues found. This is an impossible and mostly meaningless task that would take forever. The end result would be me getting fired for not addressing all of the audit findings demanding innovation in data reporting. Although the conversation got heated, I won the fight and those political opponents left the organization shortly thereafter for opportunities more aligned with their skills. Eventually, we fixed data reporting although in retrospect it too way too long.
Some of my political opponents were woefully under equipped for a political fight and I need only create the opportunity for them to speak to get them fired. This occurred with an associate vice chancellor who was trying to get me fired so he could take my job. I facilitated an opportunity for him to speak with the two Executive Vice Chancellors and others in the room. Both of the Executive Vice Chancellors were sharp and quickly exposed how shallow the thinking of my political opponent was. He was basically regurgitating what he had read on the web without understanding. It was a painful melting of senior leader. My boss pulled me aside after the meeting and told me the political opponent would be fired immediately.
Some political fights required ruthlessness. I was working on a project in 2014 that required the active approval of the Vice Chancellors of Finance, IT, and HR. Oracle was trying to play the field for a new talent management system. Vice Chancellor John Brown and I were in agreement this was unaffordable given other priorities for the university system and the vice chancellor for HR wanted the new system. John couldn’t attend the meeting but asked me to represent the joint position of no. In a typical Oracle sales move, the two account representatives detailed how they had worked tirelessly within Oracle hierarchy for months on end to achieve VERY special pricing (without our input). This pricing was so very ULTRA special that it was only good for 48 hours (meaning we were not strategic partners). We needed to make a quick (multi-year, multimillion dollar) decision to secure this very special pricing (because we were are quarterly target).
I stood up and I walked out of the meeting, I let the account representatives know I would ensure they were fired within the week. I would only deal with account representatives who treated us like strategic partners and if they wanted to see someone work the Oracle hierarchy, watch me. The Vice Chancellor for HR was horrified. Within a week, the account representatives were fired. The discussion of a new talent management system became much more collaborative.
My political support came from alignment with Chancellor Davis and Huckaby and the support of the university presidents. In the case of the Chancellors, I was competent, improving the university system without additional resources, and I generated political capital for them. In the case of the university presidents, I was one of the only vice chancellors to actually visit their campuses every year, listen, and then do something to help the universities. I also had some credibility with the presidents because I was the only member of the system office teaching.
Let me conclude this section with how I tried to maintain balance in a political environment. Part of my approach was to tape a picture of Wesley A Brown to my monitor so that I saw him before replying to some nonsensical or inflammatory email.
Wesley was the first African-American graduate of the United States Naval Academy in 1949. He was treated horribly during his time at the United States Naval Academy but graduated with a little help from his friend Jimmy Carter. As time passed, some of his classmates regretted their actions and apologized to Wesley. Wesley always responded, “I think you have me mistaken for someone else. I have always regarded you as a friend.”
The response always struck me as one of extraordinary dignity and grace. While I don’t always live up to Wesley’s example, but I try to treat everyone with kindness and respect both inside and outside the office. His example guided me well during this deeply political job.
Politics of the Board
The Board was very professional and dedicated to advancing higher education in Georgia. The meetings and topics discussed demonstrated a mature and sophisticated approach to governance. They always complied with state and federal law. They also always did everything they could within those constraints to advance higher education in Georgia. This included difficult conversations on consolidation, immigration, low-enrollment courses and programs, and faculty ethics to name a few. Board members were not compensated for their work directly.
Politics played a role as expected and mirrored, regrettably, what some other states implemented. The board started and accelerated hiring chancellors, vice chancellors, and university presidents who had never worked in a senior position at a university. Not surprisingly, this led to protests by faculty and students and mistakes by leaders who did not understand higher education. The board also adopted the practice of removing all choices and only having one finalist for all positions. This obscured the entire selection process as you went from we are having a search to one finalist with limited input from the community. Other than to reward political allies, this approach did not advance higher education.
Politics occasionally influenced non-personnel decisions. The placement of the Shared Services Center in Sandersville, GA was a political decision and not structural. Having visited Sandersville many times, it is a great little town with great people that is not attractive to the young technologists needed to run a shared services center. This ensured the center never had the necessary leaders and talent to be successful as starkly evidenced over the last fifteen years. The board did order an audit of the Shared Services Center that in turn became politicized and minimized the significant financial losses the initiative was inducing on the system, the gross inefficiencies induced as well as the cybersecurity breaches that would repeatedly occur. All indications suggest it remains broken today. How not to do Shared Services is discussed below.
Final Thoughts on Politics
Politics naturally occurs when there are limited resources and many competing needs. It is part of the job. It becomes unhealthy when it overshadows fact-based decision-making and investing in employees. When you have an organization with such turbulence and turnover at the senior levels, you have a problem.
I don’t like that part of the job but as a technology leader, you will encounter politics if you are good at your job. Let me explain why.
You are not really innovating unless you fail occasionally.
If you fail, you open yourself up for political attacks.
If you are a good technology leader, you have to innovate. I don’t regret the political fights that were necessary to advance higher education in the state of Georgia. As I was leaving the Georgia position, my wife and I met with my replacement and his wife at Rafferty’s Restaurant & Bar in Athens, GA to answer any questions they had and wish them well in the position. The first question asked was is this position as political as it seems. I answered yes and wished them well in the fight.