Every IT department has its heroes. The SWAT team that swoops in when the production database goes down at 2 a.m. The on-call engineer who restores service before the executive team finishes their first coffee. These people get noticed. They get praised. They get rewarded.
But here’s the question worth sitting with: what about the team that built the system that didn’t go down?
The Two Types of Performers
Think of it as firefighters versus turtles.
The firefighters are visible, fast, and dramatic. When disaster strikes, they’re already running toward it. The whole department sees them work. Leadership thanks them publicly. The reward model practically built itself around them.
The turtles are slow, steady, and quietly methodical. They design processes that don’t break. They write the boring documentation. They build the unglamorous automations that make 2 a.m. calls unnecessary in the first place. And because nothing dramatic ever happens around their work, it’s easy to miss them entirely.
The Cultural Question for New CIOs
If you’re stepping into a CIO role, ask yourself honestly:
- Do you actually know the culture of your department?
- How are your staff being rewarded — through outcomes, or through visibility?
- Is your praise system catching the people who prevent fires, or only the ones who fight them?
The reward model shapes behavior over time. Reward only the firefighters and you’ll end up with a department full of people waiting for fires. Reward the turtles and you’ll get fewer fires in the first place.
Making the Invisible Visible
The hardest part is detection. Steady performers don’t generate alerts. Their wins look like the absence of problems, which is precisely why they get overlooked.
Celerity Insights uses Staff-Maps, a questionnaire tool that helps bring these unknowns into knowns — so the people quietly holding your department together actually get seen.
