RELEVANT with Simphiwe Mayisela - By Angela Shearer

Interview with Simphiwe Mayisela - Head: Information Security, Risk and Governance at Public Investment Corporation (PIC) 

Simphiwe says, “I AM fearfully and wonderfully made. As a kid I dreamt of becoming a policeman, to lead and to serve, and that is probably why I enjoy my role as an information security professional so much.”

  I am motivated by the need for achievement and in my free time I work on my Doctoral thesis about the effect of regret-induced status-quo bias on IT Security investment decision-making.” 

  He humbly admits that completing his Doctoral Studies is probably the most difficult thing he has done.

  Simphiwe knows who he is and he is clear about what he thinks and expects. He is fair, informed and forgiving. 

  Greater visibility into who he is as a colleague and leader is revealed by the depth and richness of the thoughts he shares on leadership, innovation, self-development and the myriad of challenges that organisations and leaders are faced with. Simphiwe shares the following insights:

  An unspoken rule that I expect my leaders to live by is that a wrong decision is better than no decision at all. A leader who is decisive always wins my admiration, so long as most decisions lead to good outcomes. This said, it doesn’t mean that I put pressure on my team leaders to make prompt decisions. Prompt decisions are not always desirable, particularly when the situation is a paradox rather than a dilemma. The Paradox denotes contradictory yet inter-related elements that seem logical in isolation but absurd and irrational when appearing simultaneously. Unlike a dilemma, which requires an “either/or” choice between two alternatives; paradoxes continuously exist concurrently (two sides of the same coin) and are difficult to resolve. An example would be when a company may wish to embrace innovation and digital transformation while trying to comply with privacy regulations. Deciding on one choice between competing strategic demands, with seemingly opposing perspectives, may be a huge challenge. As such, we need to eradicate the common misconception among most leaders that the decision-making process should result in one clear distinct decision.

  To effectively manage paradoxes, leaders must factor time horizon throughout the decision-making process so that the paradox is viewed as a pattern of consistently inconsistent responses over time, instead of a single response to an individual issue. A phenomenon that is most prevalent is that leaders who engage paradox at an individual level are often regarded as inconsistent and lacking decisiveness at an organisational level. I believe that should stop.

  Someone who had a considerable influence on my life was Nigel Henderson, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at UCS Solutions. As a leader, Nigel made a tremendous impact by helping me develop my Emotional Intelligence. Nigel helped me realise that although my technical expertise has been instrumental in advancing my career to senior management, I would need to develop my EQ if I wanted to be a successful leader. Nigel took time from his busy schedule to perform a 360-degree assessment on my leadership competencies. As a qualified and well-versed coach, Nigel conducted a set of interviews with a handful of nominated referees, from within the organisation, with the aim of highlighting my strengths and developmental areas based on the wider audience’s view. This exercise ultimately led to a substantial improvement in my personal leadership and management skills.

  As the Head of Information Security, Risk and Governance at PIC; my role entails making decisions that will allow the organisation to mitigate IT risks and improve IT governance, while aligning to PIC’s Corporate Plan (i.e. business strategy) and compliance requirements. In some cases, this necessitates amendments in business processes, and at most, driving people to do things that they would rather sidestep. Making the decisions is easy, making sure that stakeholders are aligned to those decisions is the challenging part.

  I always encourage my team to “think outside the box” and to come up with inventive and innovative ideas to solve conventional challenges. I say inventive and innovative because creative thinking fosters both invention and innovation. Innovation is distinct from invention in that innovation brings something into new use, whereas an invention brings something new into being.

 To add to this, I also encourage creative thinking through collaboration. Collaboration is essential when it comes to discovering original concepts because it promotes a culture of “free sharing” of ideas that is necessary for continuous innovation and invention, across a multi-firm network.

  Transparency is one characteristic that I believe every leader should possess. It fosters inclusiveness and it goes hand-in-glove with collaboration. It’s important for every leader to be transparent when it comes to their vision. Trust suffers when there is no transparency. Transparency enhances connection with the team and when the team realises that their leader is interested in their participation, they will willingly follow and drive the vision from within. People tend to take ownership of vision, ideas, strategy (or anything for that matter) when they feel that they were not side-lined during its formation

  I believe great ideas come from people all over the organisation and not necessarily from senior management. My experience is that management is often guilty of conventional thinking and can be reluctant when it comes to trying new things or considering new methods. Some examples of this phenomenon and limitation would be when Ford Motors was circumspect when it came to hybrid cars and Microsoft’s initial reluctance to adopt open-source software. Senior managers are often unwilling to accept new innovative ideas because what’s new is generally viewed as a digression from normal business practice. Because of this I feel that employees should be given the space and an environment that provides the safety and freedom to experiment. This should be done in such a way that they don’t need to fear being reprimanded or punished, regardless of the result.

  The best way to encourage shared values in the organisation is through collaboration and the eradication of bureaucracy. I’ve come to realise that most employees don’t know their company’s values, let alone live them, because values are often forced down on employees, not communicated to them in a way that makes them want to own them.

 At PIC we help new employees understand the culture by taking them through induction as a bare minimum. We also strongly encourage executive management to lead by example. If our most senior ranks don’t live and practise the culture, then employees can never regard it as more than an idealistic myth. It cannot become a reality if it is not embraced at the helm first.

  When it comes to hiring my team members, passion is a determining factor when faced with two equally-qualified candidates. Passionate candidates tend to demonstrate excitement about a specific topic within their domain and they often keep abreast of latest trends. For instance, a candidate’s response on a simple question about a recent security breach on the news will be a distinguishing factor. How they respond will go a long way in separating the wheat from chuff

  The biggest challenge facing leaders like us, especially now in the era of digital transformation, is collaboration. Digital transformation does not only test the CIO’s ability to collaborate, but the ability of other C-suite executives (e.g. CEOs and COOs) to collaborate is also tested. In an era of digital transformation, the departmental boundaries are diminished. Digital transformation requires input from various departments within an organisation, as such, leaders need to work across multiple departmental line to able to generate digital products and processes that encourage new digital ways of doing business. Everyone must succeed together.

  Another critical challenge that I believe leaders are faced with on a greater scale is globalization. The expansion of Burger King, a British owned firm, into South African shores early last year underscores the concept of globalization. With this opportunity, leaders are faced with challenges like the adoption of unfamiliar management styles and they need to find a way just the right axis to accommodate a blend of cultures, religions, geography and social backgrounds – the challenge of the diverse workforce. The challenge of managing people from different countries is further complicated by the need to manage people within the same country but who are diverse in terms of race, gender, age, sexual orientation and ethnicity. As leaders we must find ways to capitalize on these differences and ultimately achieve productivity and performance goals.

 To survive globalization, leaders and organisations need to cope with what I call “temporariness” which is flexibility, spontaneity and unpredictability. We need to foster innovation and excel in the art of constant change. We must embrace technology advancements (e.g. Internet of Things, crypto currency, etc.) to gain cross-border market share, competitive edge, virtual presence, and to lead and motivate distant employees. This creates opportunities for leaders to learn the skills of overcoming resistance to change, process and methods of creating better organisational culture that facilitates continuous improvement. At the same time, employees must also take ownership of their own development and furnish themselves with skills, knowledge, attitudes in learning modern technologies and overcoming any resistance.

  One mistake that I’ve seen leaders make is not having an enterprise-wide digital transformation strategy. We are starting to see a lot of companies pursuing digital initiatives through investments in mobile technology, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Analytics, Cloud/Edge Computing and Social Media. However, most of these technologies are implemented in an isolated, piecemeal and uncoordinated fashion. The result is that the company builds up a mixture of digital technologies on an ad-hoc basis, each independently designed and specified and with no guarantee that they will be compatible and interoperable.

  These days, organizations exist in a VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous). This means that the environment in which leaders operate is forever changing. Most often, this change is met with a lot of resistance from employees who find it difficult to adjust to the change consequences. Most leaders get derailed by this resistance when they should be putting measures in place to overcome it. We need to learn to deal with specific employee’s reactions to change by being empathic while reaffirming employees that change is needed.  The inability to lead change is the behaviour or trait I have seen derailing other leader’s careers. For digital transformation initiatives to be successful, companies should focus more on the transformation component, than they should on the technology component. And for this to happen, someone who has a strong ability to lead change and transformation is needed. Incorporating change management should be at the forefront of any leadership development initiatives.

  Many people that move into leadership positions for the first time often come with a wealth of qualifications and a good track record of work ethics. Very few have had the opportunity to hone the craft of managing relationships and manoeuvring company politics. The latter is very important given than big companies are inherently political in nature. If I was to give them advice I would recommend that they become politically astute as fast as possible. They must work on their ability to effectually understand others and to use such knowledge to positively influence others to act in ways that support one’s objectives. 

  I personally take an active role in mentoring, coaching and developing others and I’m always humbled by how much I learn from my mentees. They always bring a fresh perspective and help me unlearn some of my own programming. As Alvin Toffler said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

  At the end of the day, being a leader is all about serving those who follow us, and the best way to do that is to connect with them so that you can understand how best to serve them.