Generac’s Tim Dickson on the evolving CIO role

I call that the difference between PowerPoint and product. What you’re looking for from that partner is, are they willing to listen to what you have to say? Are they willing to trust that you know enough about the business, that if they’re going to invest their time, their money, their technology, that they will get something out of it? Because it’s a bet on their side as well.

In this day and age, that’s an awesome recipe. They win, you win, and that relationship and that trust is where you want it, not only in that company, but if you go on to a different company, you’re going to trust those partners and you’re going to bring those folks in. So they have to see that there’s a different way of selling than just a transaction. If they’re willing to put in the time and listen and give just a little bit upfront for that longer-term return, then there’s a spot for them in my portfolio.

How do you stay ahead of trends, anticipate patterns, and lean in with your partners to give your business an edge?

I will say this, and this is a part of your personality profile, risk aversion right now is not a great thing. If you’re not willing to take a chance and see what that new tech can do, you’re leaving something on the table that is going to take years to try to get back if, in fact, you can even get it back.

Take ChatGPT. Everyone comes back from Christmas holiday and all of a sudden ChatGPT is in our face. If you asked the audience at a typical tech conference, I bet 50% would say they turned off or blocked ChatGPT at that time. We saw it as an opportunity. We saw it as an opportunity not only for IT to step up and learn about this thing and how to leverage it, but as an opportunity to potentially drive business value, in customer experience, user experience, whatever that may be.

So we issued a policy right off the bat and educated people about what this thing was. We had a ChatGPT hackathon early on where we had a strategic vendor partner come in and show us what other folks are doing with this thing. They taught us about internal use cases and external use cases. And now we have three launches happening here over the next month or two of our own private instance of ChatGPT we generated. They’re huge initiatives for the company and they’re definitely going to move the needle.

If we were not willing to take some risks, we couldn’t have done it. I’ve got cybersecurity but I also have digital, data, and AI. That’s a healthy tension. I had to get my cyber guy along the ride with where my head of digital wanted to go, and that’s a unique paradigm that I think a lot of people don’t have. But if you were risk averse when ChatGPT came out, you probably didn’t see the possibilities that are now evident. I think over the course of the next few months or so, you’re going to start seeing some pretty cool things that some organizations are doing — hopefully ours as well — with OpenAI and generative AI.

Getting first mover advantage is a big deal, but you can’t just hit a switch with AI and be in this game. What does the business need to be aware in terms of what is involved?

Anyone who’s built an AI model before knows it might not be the most accurate in the beginning, and that’s the one thing the business might not be ready for. You have to have that operations aspect of IT where you are constantly feeding new data that might lend to different types of insights. You have to have that model trained. It absolutely is going to get better over time, but you need to have patience with some of your business partners and help them understand that that is going to have to take place for it to be really fine-tuned and deliver on the insights. I think that’s potentially where some of the frustration could be with some of this. It might not yield that result initially, but if you stick with it and feed the engine, so to speak, it will over time.

What we’re finding, which is probably consistent with anyone who’s leveraging this, is that it becomes a factor, a model or couple of models, or an option to look at. I don’t think it’s going to replace a lot of things early on, but it will augment a person, it will augment a process, it might augment another piece of tech, and that’s a healthy thing. It’s showing its value compared to some of the things that are currently in the toolbox. Right now, it is being used as an additional option, if you will, that will provide additional insights. I think over time, it will take on a bigger role in our decision-making.

With the speed, the pace, the complexity, and the expectation to do more, what makes it such a great time to be in this profession?

There is so much new tech out there, and you have a sort of complete purview of it all. Just look at the cybersecurity space. The investments going on there and what potentially can be done now as a result of cyber is mind boggling. So if you can understand the tech, and as a CIO, that’s job description number one, there are so many awesome possibilities of leveraging that knowledge and power to either move the company forward, to transform your organization, or create new business models, which is what digital transformation is all about — creating new business models or acquiring new companies maybe that take you into a new space.

It starts with that foundation of understanding the tech. Because you’re at an advantage. The business folks are expected to know the business. But if you know the tech really well and know how that can impact the business with these ideas, these potential solutions, these innovations, these new go-to-market products, you’re that much more valuable to the company and you’ll be seen as not just the CIO, you’ll be seen as much more.

For more from Tim Dickson’s leadership playbook, tune into the Tech Whisperers podcast.