Why Some CIOs Have More Staying Power Than Others

CIO — Next year, Peter Weis, CIO of Matson, an ocean transportation and logistics company, will see the completion of a long-term IT transformation project that he conceived and nurtured for most of a decade. "We're heading into our eighth and final year," he says. "When we're done, we'll have retired every single legacy IT platform. Our mainframe will be shut down."

Finishing this transformation project is a source of enormous pride for him and his team. "The day-to-day pain of working on a project like this fades, but the deep satisfaction stays," he says.

Related: Careers Tips From CIOs

CIO — Next year, Peter Weis, CIO of Matson, an ocean transportation and logistics company, will see the completion of a long-term IT transformation project that he conceived and nurtured for most of a decade. "We're heading into our eighth and final year," he says. "When we're done, we'll have retired every single legacy IT platform. Our mainframe will be shut down."

Finishing this transformation project is a source of enormous pride for him and his team. "The day-to-day pain of working on a project like this fades, but the deep satisfaction stays," he says.

Related: Careers Tips From CIOs

It's an experience many CIOs will never have.

Weis has been CIO at Matson for nine years, but the average CIO tenure is just five years and four months, according to a recent CIO magazine survey. This may be good news for the CIOs who spend their careers climbing the ladder by moving from company to company. But most CIOs find themselves leaving positions where they would have preferred to stay.

"When we do get called in to do a CIO search, more often than not we're being asked to replace someone who is not succeeding," notes Phil Schneidermeyer, partner at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles and a CIO columnist.

Why do so many CIOs fail? It's not always their fault. "It could be that the business goes sideways, or events overwhelm perfectly well-intended strategies," Weis says. "There could be a change of management or a change of direction. There are always a lot of headwinds for CIOs to try to get through."

In many cases, a long tenure is a matter of luck. "Some CIOs last because the company hasn't demanded any great feats of strength from IT," notes Martha Heller, president of Heller Search Associates and a CIO columnist. When the company aims for major accomplishments and things go wrong, the CIO can quickly become a scapegoat, she adds. "Top management says, 'IT put in that new system and we're still having problems!'"

The problem could be that users haven't changed their processes, or many other elements outside IT's control, she says. Nevertheless, "Sometimes companies throw so much mud at the door of the IT department that there's no choice but for the CIO to go," Heller says.

When things don't go as planned, it's easy for IT to lose the CEO's confidence, Weis adds. "That lack of confidence can show up as capital drying up and investments in IT slowing. The momentum slows on your strategy, projects slow down, and you begin to lose talent." With the best talent leaving, it becomes harder to meet goals and fulfill expectations, and so confidence in IT sinks even lower.