I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. I don’t judge those who make them, but there is a reason only 8% or so of people achieve their resolutions, and that January 12 is the typical drop-off date by which resolutions are laid to rest.

Resolutions represent “living things.” In and of themselves, they are good and worth giving life to. The problem is that most people birth living things before creating the essential environment for living things to grow. For example, since the majority of resolutions are typically health related, such as diet and exercise, people seek to do the right thing (hello vegetables), but fail to take into account the number of factors required for success: right information, good plan, supportive community, understanding of physical needs and changes along the way, brain chemistry and so forth. One living thing, just like a carrot growing in the ground, relies on a number of factors.

I don’t do resolutions. But I do re-solutions. And to keep the clever wording coming, I do re-solves. So do you.

In my last article, I wrote about the CIO as a hero. I am grateful for the incredible response I received as I simply spoke from my heart. I am for you. I must also be quick to point out that much of our high regard as technology leaders is that we responded to a call, an emergency, and did it right. Frankly, we birthed living things and held on for our life to make sure they worked. Crisis might be the only thing that sustains living things that lack a proper environment. As humans, we gruel pretty well. Our ability to endure and survive is amazing. And not a long-term solution. Crisis eventually fades. Then what?

The CIO as hero must continue to grow into the CIO as key, executive leader. Our prowess from the battlefield must translate into wisdom in the halls of strategy and the congress of decision. A recent survey indicates that CEOs now expect the CIO to become the driver of business strategy having also been an adviser to business strategy. Since strategy is more tech-enabled and data-driven, it makes sense. As technology leaders, we got what we asked for. But what does that mean for us as CIOs?

It is time to re-solution with an eye on creating the right environments. As a CIO, you will be tasked with accomplishing more than ever in more areas than ever. Specifically, you will need to concentrate on six constructs:

1. Collaborator: As a designer within business strategy, you will be more involved in the strategic pathways and decisions of your peers, and they, too, will need to be more involved in technology strategy decisions. You must construct an environment in which technology and data flows through two-way channels of communication: what they need to know from you, and what your teams need to know from them.
2. Customer Experience Champion: Ultimately, data informs about users, and technology enables users. To be the most effective strategist, you will need to create an environment in which you are gaining first-hand insight into user-centric business decisions. Though you are a technology company, the CIO is a customer champion. If you can continually relate how technology serves the user, your value grows as a mind and voice to the mission.
3. Architect. WFH is here to stay. What it looks like is to be seen. 70% of employers expect to downsize office space. Surveys indicate that far more workers hope to work from home, and the majority are looking to a hybrid model of home and office. As a CIO, you are certainly tasked with the technology and security that facilitates remote work. But more than that, you are a “technology psychologist.” You can’t allow reports of virtual meeting fatigue or inattention to be saddled on you; you must be proactive in designing the solutions that promote efficient hybrid work. Good tools need a good process. When is asynchronous work, screen share or real-time best practices? What technologies not only facilitate work, but cultivate culture?
4. Change Catalyst. Heroes answer the call in a crisis. It is what they train for. Leaders shape over time with sensitivity to wisdom in the moment. The CIO as leader is using 2020 as a knowledge base: What did we learn that informs our moving forward; what insights become the fertile ground for innovation to come? No leader ever stands long on a win. Heroes sometimes don’t know how to move on. They become the sad, former high-school quarterback whose only stories are of games long gone. That is not you; Crisis simply showed who you are and what you can do; now you get to build what has always been within you.
5. Guardian. Simply put, though you may not be the security expert, you are never content or unaware. There is no such thing as an effective CIO who is at rest when it comes to protecting the business. Your seat at the table only intensifies the focus. You may not be on the frontlines, but you are not a general removed from reality.
6. Executive. I saved this for last. If you do not grow in your executive skills, your position will have become of more value, but your suitability will come under more scrutiny. You must create the environment in which you are regarded as mature, wise, organized, discrete, professional and people-savvy. You will always be you in personality, that is great of course. But who are you in exchanges with others? How reliable is your organizational skills to others? You might be able to get something done, but does your management affect how others are also getting their work done for you? Do you read a room and a situation? Have you mastered questions to draw out thinking, to diffuse tension, to foster humility and empathy?

2021 is your year. It is our year. We will spend the first half untangling ourselves still, but the knots are less and less. Once freed, we stand on a new landscape. If you shape the environment, it will be a landscape green with possibility. If not, all the things you attended to last year will wilt on the hard terrain of apathy and entropy.

Let’s re-solve the business we are in for the internal and external customers whose problems drive us to our best in the first place.