The US Division CIO of Wacker Chemie says tech chiefs should think beyond run, grow, and transform, and consider how they are uniquely positioned to promote social values across the business and beyond.
This article was originally published on CIO.com by Michael Bertha, Partner at Metis Strategy and Duke Dyksterhouse, Senior Associate at Metis Strategy
CIOs hear constantly that their position has evolved, that it’s now a business position. But whenever this is pointed out, the emphasis tends to fall on the tactical responsibilities of such a position—the “plan, build, and run” of it all. But just as important now are holistic matters of people—diversity, inclusivity, employee welfare, and so on, and perhaps few technical leaders have concerned themselves with these as enthusiastically as Raj Polanki, the US Division CIO of Wacker, the seven-billion-dollar German chemical manufacturer, and the co-lead of its DEI council.
“The way I see it,” he says, “the CIO role obviously needs to make sure the business can run while contributing to growth and transformation. All those are well and good, but the current, evolving CIO role, it’s not just about going from technology to business, but from business to people. As a technology executive, I have a unique position to contribute to the human aspects of it all…DEI aspects.” And accordingly, since coming to Wacker in 2018, Polanki has worked both to embody Wacker’s DEI principles and, alongside his fellow council members, to inject such principles into the organization’s ethos.
Now, he hopes to amplify his impact by sharing some of what he’s learned with other technical officers who might themselves hope to make a bigger and longer-lasting impact. “What leaders get wrong about DEI is that it concerns much more than what can be observed by the naked eye. We are all shaped by our experiences, and the better we understand each others’, the more we can achieve.” Indeed, Polanki suggests that any leader can reap better outcomes across all their responsibilities by embracing this philosophy. Here he offers five steps for doing so.
Be the change you wish to see. It’s a well-known adage and clearly present in Polanki’s first bit of advice: “Start with self-awareness. Look inward.”
Embedded in this philosophy are two propositions. The first is that you do in fact want to change something. Therefore, a good place to start might be to understand why you do. While it’s fine to cite common talking points about the benefits of DEI, you’ll find yourself more motivated (and therefore more able) to employ such principles if they mean something to you personally. Polanki, for example, found inspiration in his background, in which technology and business overlapped significantly. “I’ve always thought in terms of how I could bring these things together to create real value for people, and value can mean many things. I recognized that Wacker’s DEI council would present a great opportunity to provide an important value pulling on both business and technology.”
The second proposition is that you must embody the change, and as Polanki suggests, you can do this in few ways more effective than to consider your own unconscious biases. He implores leaders to constantly ask themselves: “Am I jumping too soon to a conclusion? Am I assuming certain things?” And if you think you don’t have any biases, congratulations: You just discovered your first. It’s called objectivity illusion—the belief that we are more objective and less biased than others—and it underscores the gravity of Polanki’s advice. Everyone has biases, and they shape our societies. They lead us to elect taller CEOs, hire certain candidates, and sink money into failing projects. According to one survey, unconscious biases may cost the workplace $64 billion annually. Having biases doesn’t make you a bad person, but making yourself aware of them, as Polanki suggests, can free you to make better decisions and thereby become a better leader.
Next, start embodying your principles among the circles that you immediately influence—like the teams you oversee. When Polanki came to Wacker, he inherited a team whose previous manager had served the company for thirty years. Although that leader had left behind a solid team, Polanki wanted to suffuse it with his own ideals, two in particular.
“One was self-respect and respect within the team,” he recalls. “Yes, I had a list of things they could do better, but I started by respecting [the team]. I used not just my words, but showed it in my actions. I recognized them for the things they didn’t even know they were doing well, and with time, they would even come to me and say, ‘You don’t seem to get upset easily. You really maintain your composure.’” Soon, Polanki’s reports began imposing the same warmth, patience, and appreciation on their own teams, and the respect collectively expressed across the department grew steadily. It also nurtured Polanki’s second ideal, “customer oriented.”
“Because I came from an outside consulting and value-driven mindset,” explains Polanki, I put the customer in the front. I would tell my team, “If the business comes to us with a problem, we’re not trying to fix the problem alone; we’re trying to save their day to be more productive and efficient. That means we directly affect the business. We are not just a back office. We are sitting with the business. We are partnering with them to support them, and we should take pride in what we do.” He recalls evoking a sentiment he had once heard from Starbucks: “I asked them, if ninety-nine out a hundred coffees are right but the hundredth is wrong, is that acceptable? I explained that this was part of taking pride in yourself.”
And pride they took. Together, these two ideals—respect and customer oriented—energized the team and propelled what became a virtuous feedback loop. It improved morale as the teams began to celebrate small wins and to believe in themselves as more than order-takers. And the changes showed. Polanki recalls that the business partners would remark, “Your team is really solving issues, and they’re very approachable.” And in one of the team’s internal customer-satisfaction surveys, they scored 97% positive feedback—one of their highest scores ever.
After you’ve proven that you can instill DEI principles among your own teams, you can become a catalyst for wider adoption through mechanisms like your company’s DEI council. Or, if your company has no such council, you can start it.“The first thing you’ll want to do, if it hasn’t been done already, is specify the council’s DEI principles. And don’t squander this opportunity”, warns Polanki. Too many councils adopt principles that are either generic or otherwise similar to another company’s. Contemplate what DEI really means to your organization and connect it to the goals and mission of the enterprise. At Wacker, Polanki and his fellow council members conducted extensive internal research to ensure they did just that, and in the end, even became an advisory council to the executive team.Next, you have to spread the word—and show your employees that you stand behind it. “After we had defined our principles,” recalls Polanki, “we published them on posters, which were put up across Wacker’s offices. They had our signatures on them, and the executives’, so people knew we meant it.” Polanki and his council also took advantage of town halls and modified several of the company’s programs—including the leadership and management development programs and new-hire orientation—such that they incorporated DEI principles. “We even hired an external person to help us connect the content to the programs.” They also dedicated a SharePoint site and several communication channels to the cause, and instituted internal advocacy groups, including one for LGBTQ+ members and one for veterans. Polanki says more will follow.
Once you’ve spread your principles, and others have started acting on them, you can further amplify their effects, says Polanki, by “starting with the data.” It makes sense. ESG-related efforts are driven heavily by metrics, and so few tools can propel you toward your DEI goals as forcibly as data can. And as a technology leader, few have the power that you do to mobilize that data and to do so not only for your department but for others.
Polanki recommends that, above all, to employ your data more meaningfully, you make it more visible, which you can do even by simply starting conversations with other leaders, since many of them will hesitate to ask what’s possible. He recalls one such conversation with Wacker’s very own ESG team: “We asked them, what can we do for you? What’s on your mind? And it was only then that they said, ‘Well, actually, we’re having a lot of containers shipped to California and we’re concerned about the waste.’ I explained that we could give them some visibility by pulling data about those containers—what materials they contain, whether they’re recyclable, and so on. They didn’t know we could do that, and it helped them act much more effectively.”
The other tool is longstanding data solutions, like dashboards and accompanying analysis, both of which Polanki’s team constructed for Wacker’s Environmental Health and Safety group. As a result, the group could now get, in mere hours, data that once took them at least days to collect. And it came with trends, to boot. “We could now ask questions like, okay, where is it happening? Is it a seasonal thing? Why does this one area have so much variation?”
Polanki plans to resign as the co-lead of Wacker’s DEI council later this year. He feels that he and his fellow members have built a sturdy foundation from which the next leaders can further expand the council’s influence. “If you think in terms of crawl-walk-run,” he says, “we’re finally walking. The next council can take it further. They can set up new resource groups, engender more inclusivity, and start to have a more direct impact on the business.”
Yet Polanki’s far from finished improving the welfare of the people around him. A graduate of University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, Polanki has been approached by that community to become more involved with certain university activities, like becoming a resident council member for the university’s Flint division technology and innovation center. When asked by the university, Polanki asked Wacker whether they saw any conflict. They didn’t, and encouraged him to participate, knowing that his doing so would advance their own mission to “make the world a better place with our solutions.”
This outward growth demonstrates Polanki’s last bit of advice for looking beyond your traditional responsibilities as a technology leader. “Be thinking, can I help my communities where we operate? Can I partner with the local community? With universities? How can we make a bigger difference?” Leaders who ask these kinds of questions and embrace these responsibilities, he says, will find they create better results across the board, in part because they have wide-ranging intangible effects.
Company culture forever changed when remote work became the norm. In a remote-first work environment, maintaining a sense of community and shared purpose can be challenging. However, at Metis Strategy, we believe in the importance of making time for in-person collaboration, even when we are miles apart. Our Day of Service exemplifies this commitment, as associates, managers, and partners from across the country gather regionally to make a positive impact in their local communities.
This year, teams in D.C., Houston, San Francisco, Atlanta, Miami, and more participated in service activities centered around the theme of sustainability. As we head back to our respective offices, we’re grateful for the opportunity to connect with colleagues, uniting behind the common goal of helping others.
The Bay Area Squad worked with Indigenous Permaculture, an urban farming group that uses regenerative farming practices to feed those in need across the San Francisco and East Bay Area. The team mulched, weeded, planted, and fixed irrigation lines on their Treasure Island plot. The day was both productive and educational, as the team learned about the importance of sustainable agriculture and community partnerships in empowering communities to develop self-sustainable ways of living.
“It was interesting learning about how pairing certain plants next to each other can act as a natural pesticide,” said Becca Salisbury, an associate on the West Coast team. “We also enjoyed learning how this group teams up with local farms and restaurants to distribute food about to go bad to those in need.”
Surrounded by nature, coworkers, and a spirit of collaboration, the team not only gave back to the community but also gained a deeper understanding of the crucial role local wildlife ecosystems play in supporting sustainable farming practices. It was a powerful reminder of the impact that collaboration, and just a little bit of mulch, can have in nurturing both the environment and the community.
Across the country, the D.C.-based Titans gathered in support of the Rock Creek Conservatory, a watershed organization aimed at restoring, protecting, and supporting the natural oasis of Rock Creek Park. This group, which included our President Peter High, took on the task of picking up trash around the parklands.
“D.C. is such a beautiful city, and it felt good to contribute to that maintenance effort for a few hours,” said Jillian Fielder, an associate from the East Coast team who organized the event. “At the end of the day, we had a few decently full bags of trash which included everything from Styrofoam packing materials to beer bottles to candy bar wrappers. I’m really proud that Metis Strategy continues to make community engagement and service a firm-wide focus.”
The day was marked by teamwork and a shared sense of purpose, showcasing these Titans’ commitment to environmental stewardship and community engagement. Following the event, the team gathered in the park to celebrate with a Capo Deli lunch.
Our Titans in Texas made a strong impact, representing Metis Strategy across Dallas, Houston, and Austin. Kelley Dougherty, Eva Maxcy, and Katherine Kennedy spent the day sorting food donations with Meals for Kids Houston, an organization whose mission is to end childhood hunger by delivering healthy meals directly to the homes of children in the Houston area facing extreme hunger.
In recent weeks, the Houston area experienced unprecedented severe weather, which caused the Meals for Kids warehouse to lose power and forced the organization to discard a significant amount of perishable goods that had gone bad without refrigeration. “You could tell the organization was very worried that the weather issues would impact their ability to provide food for these kids,” said Kelley. “It felt great to be part of the community that stepped up to make sure that wouldn’t happen.”
The Houston-based trio couldn’t have stepped in at a better time, joining a community-wide effort to support an organization in a time of need. While everyone was united in the common purpose of community service, a friendly sorting competition also served as an exercise in teamwork.
The Day of Service was a major success across Metis Strategy. In addition to the stories shared above, Titans in other parts of the country also found ways to meet up, volunteer, and spend valuable time together without a screen in between.
At Metis Strategy, the Day of Service is more than just another company event; it serves as a reminder for us all to give back to our communities and strengthen our interpersonal relationships at work and beyond. We are proud of the dedication and hard work displayed by all of our teams and look forward to continuing this tradition of service and collaboration for years to come.
A little less than 20% of chief information officers in the United States are women. That roughly mirrors the percentage of women enrolled in engineering programs at universities in the U.S. Although progress has been made in the roughly 40 years since the inception of the CIO role, more needs to be done to create pathways for women to grow careers in technology.
One of the organizations that has done a remarkable job in mentoring women and working behind the scenes to help women land CIO, chief technology officer, and chief digital officer posts is T200. The group was founded by roughly ten women in 2017, and in less than four years, has grown to roughly 160 members. As founding member, Suja Chandrasekaran, currently the Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Information and Digital Officer of CommonSpirit, noted, “We go past peripheral connections. Since our inception, we connect with depth, diversity and strength.”
Chandrasekaran spoke at a T200 event today to mark International Women’s Day and to announce a new program called the Lift Platform which sets bold goals to foster new opportunities for the next generation of women leaders in the technology and digital realm.
The Lift Platform is designed for women in technology and digital roles who report directly to CXOs. They will be vetted for fit with T200’s principles, and they will represent diversity of industry as well as race, creed, sexual orientation, geography, and more.
The Lift Platform drives networking, mentorship and sponsorship. Mamatha Chamarthi, the CIO of Stellantis, said, “We want to elevate the next generation [of women leaders]. We will identify leaders who have a willingness to contribute and give back; a willingness to volunteer to uplift other women.”
Pizza Hut CIO Helen Vaid went further in saying, “Half of the world is women. Therefore, half of the resumes we see should be from women.”
The group listed the following goals in the materials shared in the kick-off event this morning:
12 initial members of the Lift Mentorship program have been identified, though their names were not shared at the kick-off event. 16 mentors have been assigned, as well. They include the CIOs, CDOs and/or CTOs of American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Align Technology, Citrix, Zoetis and Clark Hill Law, along with Chandrasekaran, Chamarthi and Vaid, among others.
T200 leaders hope to drive outcomes to include supporting women to thrive in their existing roles, while driving explicit growth and professional learning goals for the mentees, creating visibility for the next generation of leaders for additional opportunities and to progressively improve outcomes each year.
T200 leaders have set the objective to have five mentees become CIOs in 2021. The longer-term objective is to be a driving force for women in technology to grow to parity globally across all industries. Ambitious women who strive to follow in the footsteps of the 160 extraordinary women who currently make up the T200 should take note that there is a clearer path for them to follow!
Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He has written two bestselling books, and his third, Getting to Nimble, is out this month. He also moderates the Technovation podcast series and speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on Twitter @PeterAHigh.
