The CIO appears to have excellent IT skills, but unfortunately allows himself to be surrounded by those making political recommendations. He needs to dig deeper into this.
If you challenge someone to do their job, they run to HR and you now have a target on your back. Some HRBPs have allowed themselves to be a tool of the political system.
A person needs to spend 10% of their time telling everyone above them how hard they work and that should insure survival, those spending 100% of their time doing their job could be at risk.
Agree with you completely, @OYXTFM7-9hpp. Especially the part about trying to get people to do their job backfiring. Williams will not go far like this...