As I was advancing in my career, one of my mantras was “you don’t have to know it all, you just need the number of those who do.” It was my humorous way of saying that I always had people I could rely on to ask for advice, opinions or help, but as I climbed on the corporate ladder, that group of people started being every time smaller, until eventually I realized it had vanished.
Not because of me becoming isolated and anti-social, but because by the time I had a CIO position, I was not close to anyone else with that scope of responsibility.
The first few months as a CIO were harsh. For the first and only time in my life I could not sleep thinking about all the things I had to do at work.
The feeling of being alone was terrible.
Who could I ask about the budgeting decisions, the strategic challenges ahead of me, the problems with vendors that needed immediate resolution? As we all know, time is unforgiving. The clock keeps ticking despite you being frozen with doubts and second-guessing.
One Call Changed It All
One random day I received an invitation to a CIO Summit in Panama. Honestly, I was not sure I belonged there since I had been in the position for a little under a year.
During the whole Summit I was quiet, listening to what others were sharing, realizing with every session that everyone was going more or less through the same things, and that none of the other attendees had everything figured out, but they were talking about it and learning from different opinions and approaches.
By the end of the second day, I had a wonderful feeling: belonging.
Nobody was questioning if I was qualified for the job, or if I was too young to be a CIO. We were just a group of peers, in the sessions and outside as well, having breakfast or lunch together and building relationships some of which turned into friendships.
These groups of peers provide all of their members with decades, or maybe centuries of experience in a way that no master class, master’s degree, lecture, book or podcast can provide. And the knowledge of one person added to someone else’s experience does not result in a simple arithmetic addition, it becomes exponential when the recipient embraces it and applies it on top of their own knowledge and experience.
Consider that in some roundtables there are ten, maybe more participants, and some groups I belong to have over 500 members. The value that each one of the members can obtain from these groups simply cannot be found anywhere else.
Your People Are Out There
Looking back to those early days when I was starting to feel that the people that could have my back were fewer every time, I wish someone would have introduced me to any of these communities.
Remember, this was basically the first decade of the 21st century, before social media was what it is today.
Word of mouth was mainly the way to be invited, but today we have all the information available on many different platforms. Some groups are invite-only, some groups are subscription based, but all of them are always looking to grow the community, and all of them are always willing to welcome new members.
A quick search on the Internet or reaching out to people who share about the sessions they attend could get you into your next great social/professional association. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know that person, usually every member of these communities is approachable.
Whether you are just stepping into leadership or have been carrying the weight alone for years, your people are out there. Remember you don’t have to know it all, you just need the number of those who do.
