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CIO SUMMIT® T 416-698-6933 E bclavir@ciosummit.com |
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friends, influence business: IT Executive Leadership program gives senior IT professionals the skills they need to leap into the CIO’s chair By ACNielsen, Computing Canada, May 14, 2004 |
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A killer golf swing may be the most important skill an aspiring chief information officer needs to succeed. That’s because much of a senior IT executive’s job entails relationship-building – within their departments and with other decision makers in the company, says Mimi Hunt, Athabasca University’s program director in the IT management department. “I always tell CIOs to create a schmoozing line item in their budgets because it’s important,” she says. Hunt was in Toronto last month lecturing a group of 24 students enrolled in the IT Executive Leadership program, a forum that offers practical and academic instruction in the skills needed to make the transition to an executive-level position with IT. The program, co-sponsored by the CIO Summit and Ryerson University, is comprised of three modules, each containing four days of classes, says Barry Clavir, executive director of the CIO Summit. “In each module, we’ve paired a leading academic in the field along with an experienced CIO to ensure participants gain insight into both theory and practice,” he says. It’s that practical focus organizers say will differentiate the program from others out there. “These guys can go to school and hear academics anywhere,” says program director Craigg Ballance. “What they don’t have access to is real CIOs.” The transition to becoming a CIO is a difficult one and education is a practical avenue to ease that, says James Norrie, professor and director of Ryerson University’s School of IT Management. “The transition from being a functional leader in IT is very different to being a member of the executive team – taking on responsibility for providing leadership to the technology function as it relates to integrating business strategy and IT strategy,” says Norrie. “Nowhere along the way do we educate these folks and then they wonder why their first stint as a CIO is a failure.” Parviz Mohamed says the program is exactly what she was looking for. As the director of IT development services for TransAlta Corp. in Calgary, Alta.,Mohamed is just one step below the CIO. Although she’s not interested in pushing anyone out of a job, she says she’s eager to develop as an IT professional. “This isn’t necessarily about a promotion,” she says. “It’s more about my professional development. Mohamed says the training has helped her sharpen her skills in strategic execution and political maneuvring, essential tools in a CIO’s arsenal. “One of the challenges is how to become more effective politically,” she says. “Not so much with the execution of IT, but more around the value of IT and how to interact with other business leaders in an effective manner.” How well a CIO leads her team, says Mohamed, is also an important measurement of success. “At the end of the day, if you’ve been able to build relationships and articulate the value of technology, that’s a good thing,” she adds. The program has offered Wayne Millar an opportunity to re-examine his leadership style, something Millar sees as crucial to being a successful IT leader. “My approach has always been intuitive. I lead by common sense,” says Millar, director of onsite support for Sunlife Financial in Toronto. “I need to sit down and figure out what kind of leader I want to be and plan a more structured approach.”Millar has about 80 people on his team and says the program has already had an impact on the way he deals with his direct reports. One of the bonuses of participating in the leadership program, adds Millar, is the opportunity to network with other IT professionals from across the country. “Most people, because of their time commitments, spend a lot effort looking inside the organization. I realize I need to look outside more often and here we have top IT people from across the country.” The next IT Executive Leadership program will take place in Calgary this June.\ The cost for the program is $8,900. |
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Binary code: IT directors are heading back to the classroom to learn how to speak the same language as CEOs By Andrew Wahl, Canadian Business, April 26, 2004 |
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Any executive will tell you that often the most important business doesn’t take place in the boardroom, but in the elevators and hallways of a corporation (if not in restaurants, bars and golf courses). That’s where relationships are built, over time, in small snatches of conversation and quick impressions, not some long PowerPoint presentation. People working in sales or finance get this stuff. In fact, they got where they are today in part because they mastered, at an early stage of their career, the political art of small talk with the boss. But techies? They don’t speak the same language – or at least the other executives don’t think so. In their eyes, the CIO knows servers, networks and e-commerce systems – things most execs struggle to understand. That disconnect poses a big problem for IT professionals moving up the ranks. Recently, I found out just how much of a problem it is when I chatted with several IT directors (generally the people who report to the chief information officers and the prime candidates to take over those positions). It didn’t take long to find out what they really think. The classic problem is that, when they get on the same elevator as the CEO or other top executives, the topic of conversation is – you guessed it – their laptop. “It’s unbelievably insulting,” said one director of IT. “These are the same people who you stand in front of to make strategic presentations about your interpretation of their business, and they give you funds for it so you can help them do business. And they see you in the elevator and it’s, ‘Oh,my laptop isn’t working,’ and ‘Do you think you can get me a BlackBerry?’ You know what? F— off!” You can’t say that to the boss, of course. (Well, you could, but only once.) So the challenge for high-level IT professionals who closely interact with other high-level execs in the corporation is to learn the nuanced language of business, and the kinds of management skills that resonate with senior-level people. That’s why a group of about 30 IT directors signed up for a six-month (parttime) IT leadership course jointly organized by the CIO Summit, an annual speakers’ forum, and Toronto-based Ryerson University. (A similar course will begin at the University of Calgary in June.) This pilot group of students hail from across the country, with jobs at mid-size and large publicly traded companies from almost all industry sectors, as well as the public service. Not only did the program address topics like how to transition from manager to leader, how to structure a department for better IT governance and how to manage expectations, but it also gave participants a chance to network with their peers and swap stories. And the IT directors seemed happy to discover that the problems they’ve encountered – knuckleheaded CEOs included – were not all that unique. The pressures keep ratcheting up. IT is constantly putting out new fires – from security, privacy and business continuity threats to spam, Microsoft patches (they were specifically mentioned) and cameras in cellphones – and it draws attention to all the wrong parts of the job. “Like most service organizations,” said Jay Giblon, Gennum Corp.’s director of IT, “people tend to only pay attention to you when something’s going wrong.” But CIOs and IT directors (especially those hoping to get promoted) can’t get into those kinds of details if they are to play a leading role in the executive suite. That job operates at a higher level and is more about communication, navigating corporate politics and, especially, how to cope with budgets.And all of that requires less tactical thinking – something tech managers are accustomed to – and more strategic thinking. It’s a hard shift, but it’s absolutely essential for IT professionals to make if they are to be effective in their jobs, and especially as IT becomes more closely integrated with individual business units – or face being outsourced altogether. What many of the IT directors I spoke to made clear was that those skills need to also change how other executives perceive their contributions to the organization. A good start would be to find a way to politely remind CEOs that fixing their laptops isn’t what they’re paid to do. |
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Geeks
break glass ceiling: Out of the computer TAKING
CARE OF BUSINESS |
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