Janet Sherlock, former chief digital and technology officer, Ralph Lauren, speaks at NRF Nexus 2024.
Chief technology officer. Chief transformation officer. Chief digital officer. Chief information officer. Chief analytics officer.
The C-suite has undergone a massive expansion in recent years, with more than triple the number of C-suite titles than just a decade ago, says Janet Sherlock, who was until recently chief digital and technology officer, Ralph Lauren. Further, CEOs now have more than double the direct reports they had in decades past. It’s no longer lonely at the top.
Sherlock, who recently obtained a doctorate in organizational change and leadership at the University of Southern California, studied the proliferation of C-suite roles — particularly in the technology space — while there.
She shared her process and findings at NRF Nexus. In essence, this “overlap trap” is setting organizations up to fail.
“I focused specifically around the structure, not around the titles themselves,” Sherlock said. “Not around who they necessarily reported to, although I did get some very interesting findings about titles, and about reporting, and about general thoughts around the way departments are perceived.”
Information technology, for example, has a negative connotation. “So, if you run the IT department, you might think about renaming it.”
The title of chief information officer started in the 1970s but proliferated in the 2000s with the advent of the iPhone, the internet and other technology. But CIOs didn’t necessarily have the right skills for the rapidly changing field. The Silicon Valley disruption brought cultural change; chaos was considered a positive, and not just in tech.
Today, there’s also an ecosystem that encourages the creation of “all of these titles,” she said, including education institutions and trade organizations; consulting and sales firms; and executive recruiters.
Sherlock grounded her research in Conway’s Law: “Any organization that designs a system will inevitably produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s structure.”
Based on that — even in retail — the proliferation of so many potential overlapping positions can translate to not only challenges in role and organizational clarity and workplace climate issues, but also quality, user experience, data issues, efficiency and time to market.
Consider what can happen, she said, if there are different teams for “digital” on the front end as well as in-store systems.
Sherlock’s study was a quantitative survey of 145 respondents across a variety of industries who were active CIOs, CTOs, CDOs and others with combination titles. Just over half (51%) represented single-led tech organizations; the remaining 49% had two or more peer tech leaders.
She found that organizations in which technology was led by a single leader had 35% greater clarity in roles and responsibilities. When asked the specific question about overlap of responsibilities for technology leadership with another executive in the same organization, 59% of those organizations led by multiple leaders agreed, compared with 23% in single-leader organizations.
Even with the single leaders, she said, “there’s already issues with the overlap,” whether shadow IT, matrix organizations, different divisions or different geographies.
Adding another layer on top can have a profound impact. There is, she discovered, 90% greater frustration regarding overlap or duplication of responsibilities with other teams expressed by those with multiple leaders.
In addition, single leader-led organizations have 22% greater performance output, impacting areas such as product quality, unnecessary solution complexity and speed to market.
There’s a misconception that new structures are required to support innovation, Sherlock said. Rather, “Innovation needs to come from within, and you need to have the folks that already run functions support innovation.”
There’s also a flawed conception that executives are mature enough and equipped to work through the conflict. In short, she said, “they’re not. People are people, especially in the workplace.”
So, what are organizations to do?
First, she suggested, CEOs, CHROs and boards must understand the gravity of the research. Second, incumbents who don’t possess necessary or emerging skills should be replaced, trained or enhanced. Third, remember that titles do matter; develop pre-defined C-level role titles. Fourth, create position descriptions with care. Fifth, use AI to scan for duplication and overlap.
And finally, she said, “Avoid ambiguous lexicon in titles and functions.” At the top of her hit list — though it’s admittedly in her own title — is “digital.” That’s followed by “transformation,” “growth” and “product.”
