Why CTOs must move beyond operational efficiency to supporting their organization's growth initiatives
Even amid heightened unemployment and cost pressures, technology leaders have the strategic advantage and skill sets to drive meaningful change.
Introduction: The Shifting Technology Landscape
The technology sector is navigating unprecedented changes, from a record-high unemployment rate to the rapid emergence of generative AI. “The unemployment rate in the information technology sector rose from 3.9% in December to 5.7% in January, well above last month’s overall jobless rate of 4%, in the latest sign of how automation and the increasing use of artificial intelligence are having a negative impact on the tech labor market.”1
From macroeconomic forces—such as tariff increases and more manufacturing work shifting to the US—companies must further integrate technology into their strategic initiatives. In its recent survey, the McKinsey Institute shares2: “For CEOs and top executives, growing profitably is the ultimate fitness goal.”
How can organizations grow profitably as cost optimization pressures are mounting? I believe that this same environment offers unique openings for CTOs to guide their organizations toward sustainable, tech-enabled growth.
Growth Mindset for CTOs
Only one in ten companies maintained above-GDP growth and remained in the S&P 500 over 30 years.
McKinsey research underscores that companies capable of thriving in volatile times maintain a long-term outlook on growth, rather than focusing solely on short-term gains. As CTOs, we have a distinctive agile approach—central to our software engineering background and DevOps best practices—to help our organizations stay resilient and position ourselves ahead of the market.
To build scalable software applications, we work diligently with the product management team to scope product features. We then collaborate with our team to design and architect the product, following agile project management to introduce releases, epics, and user stories. We adhere to DevOps best practices to continuously improve our production releases.
Our expertise in software engineering and DevOps can help our organizations to structure and document their short-term and long-term sustainable growth. The underlying reason is that we can translate revenue growth as a major software release, epic can be treated as growth through strategic revenue channel, and user stories can be leveraged as key customer accounts. In summary, there is a correlation between software release and delivering revenue target.
Being Bold: Moving Beyond the Comfort Zone
Leaders of outperforming companies unlock sustained growth by aligning their behaviors with five critical mindsets: prioritizing growth, acting boldly, maintaining a customer-centric approach, attracting and nurturing talent, and executing with rigor.
Historically, many CTOs have concentrated on operational effectiveness. However, bold, data-driven experiments, orchestrated with speed and flexibility, often present the largest opportunities for spurring growth. Embracing these risks and adapting quickly enable technology teams to capture first-mover advantages in volatile markets.
As CTOs, we are very familiar with telemetry data—whether we manage sprint releases, CI/CD pipelines, bugs, or system performance. Our tools, such as New Relic and Jira, collect numerous data points from different parts of our organization. We often own and lead consequential projects, such as ERP systems that touch the organization's heartbeat, as well as BI initiatives supporting our finance and commercial teams. Leveraging DevOps techniques, we sign off on potentially risky software releases but install guardrails to monitor them. In summary, we are accustomed to acting boldly and maintaining a customer-centric mindset. It is time to move beyond operational effectiveness, share our skills with other senior executives, and participate in supporting our organization’s strategic initiatives and competitive differentiation.
Infusing Customer-Centricity Through Technology
Companies that put customer experience at the center achieve twice the revenue growth of those that fall behind.
Putting customers at the core remains the linchpin for profitable growth, as McKinsey’s study illustrates. Through advanced analytics and AI-driven insights, we can proactively identify evolving customer needs, refining products and services in near real time. Doing so empowers organizations to drive deeper engagement and sustainable top-line expansion.
For instance, depending on our organization’s size, we have directly or indirectly managed Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) to support our internal customers (employees) and pursued education in ITSM frameworks such as TOGAF, ITIL, and COBIT. As a result, we continuously push ourselves and our teams to deliver a customer-centric approach to colleagues across the organization. To address McKinsey’s note on delivering a sustainable customer experience, our ITSM background is a strong foundation that can support our organization in delivering exceptional customer experiences to fuel its growth initiatives.
Talent Strategy: Empowering the Technology Team
Despite the important role talent plays in an organization’s ability to grow, 69 percent of respondents believe there is a significant human capital or capability gap within their organizations.
Shoring up talent is not just about finding skilled individuals; it’s also about creating an environment where new ideas flourish. Rewarding calculated risk-taking and continuous learning equips teams to innovate more readily. By aligning incentives— not necessarily monetary—and nurturing our team’s best talent, we foster a culture of growth that transcends departmental boundaries.
Just a few years ago, we experienced the Great Resignation period when our team members would approach us to match unsustainable job offers or threaten to leave. We had to double down on documentation, cross-training, systematizing processes, and establishing business continuity. Our leadership background and recent events, such as the Great Resignation, further position us as a strategic partner to share our best practices with other senior executives in talent strategy development and support our organization’s strategic growth initiatives.
Execution and Accountability
Growth dreams alone don’t get you in shape. Doing real work, day in and day out, does.
A robust operational rhythm—with regular check-ins, transparent metrics, and rapid course corrections—helps de-risk growth. CTOs, by virtue of their technical expertise, are well-suited to implement agile methods that drive accountability across teams. This discipline ensures that bold ideas become tangible results. To support our organization with execution and accountability, we can certainly leverage tools such as Daily Standup Meetings, Scrum Retrospectives, Scrum Review sessions, and Sprint Planning. To maximize these sessions, we come prepared, we rely on metrics, and collaborate with a cross-functional team to monitor progress, remove any potential impediments, and build our backlogs in case new items/ideas emerge. These expertises are pivotal to our organization’s growth initiatives when executing strategy, empowering our teams, and holding each other accountable.
Conclusion: Embracing Growth Leadership
It’s time to shift from ‘wanting’ to ‘achieving.’ Growth happens when leaders roll up their sleeves and get to work, mixing pragmatism with optimism to propel forward in sometimes-uncharted waters.
Even amid heightened unemployment and cost pressures, technology leaders have the strategic advantage and skill sets to drive meaningful change. By embodying the mindsets and behaviors highlighted in McKinsey’s report, CTOs can deliver rapid innovation and sustained growth to their organizations. Now is the time for technology leaders to move beyond the confines of their departments and lead with a bold vision for lasting success. Instead of waiting to receive invitation to participate, let’s extend our reach to showcase our expertise and talent. At a very least, leverage an MVP approach, start from sprint 0.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-unemployment-rises-to-5-7-as-ai-hits-tech-jobs-7726bb1b
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/achieving-growth-putting-leadership-mindsets-and-behaviors-into-action/