Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

The CIO magazine has a great article on "How to Identify A Bad CIO."  The article goes on to describe nearly spot on every characteristic of the current CIO.  Of course, I've known from the beginning after observing him for a trial period of three months, right to when he made his first announcement.  Also, I had been in a similar position several years back at Nikko Citigroup, where another barbaric IT director had pushed out all the good technology managers and installed his yes-men.  Even at USSearch.com, I heard a story about how all the senior management were installed as a result of a coup.  All were of South African background (think colonial types).  While they weren't that bad, people did find the situation unsettling at times.
The main problem I saw was that in these situations, the key executives hired their yes-men.  The sad part is that this is a common practice in IT.  Probably in more industries than you can count.  But I'm going to limit the discussion strictly to IT, since it's where I've observed and felt it most.

I think that there should be a standard or legal practice in IT hiring (or perhaps all of hiring) where people in key positions cannot hire any previous people for at least 2-3 years.  A key position would be any senior executive type of position.  In a typical IT company, this would be a CTO, CIO or director.  In securities, it would be senior vice president, director, managing director and whatever is above that.  I know some companies employ a non-poaching agreement for about one year.  However, I'm beginning to believe that this agreement should be longer.  Also, the other thing is that this rule would apply to recent executive hires.

I don't think this rule should apply to anything lower because usually in those cases, people are just trying to help one or two friends out.  But in the case of executives, the whole thing is about how they can use/demonstrate their strategy for turning a company around.   If an executive isn't groomed into a position (i.e. meaning they're recruited for that position), they need to prove themselves.  I feel that they should be given a term of at most 3 years.  If we apply my rule, they should have some clause in their contract where they must achieve a certain level of success within the first year.  As part of that, they must demonstrate the leadership to do so without depending on their "buddies" for advice or tricking other senior management members into getting buy-ins for their views of what a success is.

I don't make apologies for writing this type of article up and directing my fury against a particular individual.  He should realize (which I'm certain he does) what he's done and the company in question should also realize that they've made a critical mistake in hiring this person.  A friend of mine who likewise was affected by a similar situation in the past had once stated that he questions whether or not the people who employ such underhanded tactics realize that they're affecting lives in a very negative way.  In some cases, the people do so maliciously.  Of course, later on they'll get their justice.  However, if people like this are unwitting enough to not realize how they've hurt people, they should remedy their actions immediately.