Hire is not the only one to believe this lack of computer literacy can seriously hamper effective corporate decision-making on IT. And before you get too smug, you should know that some CIOs are as technologically illiterate as some CEOs and board members.
"At the end of the day, the typical CEO or top level executive at these larger companies is, for all intents and purposes, clueless when it comes to computer literacy," says Scott Testa, US software company Mindbridge's vice president of marketing. "We even had an ex-CIO who had worked with us who couldn't figure out how to send an e-mail.
"Ultimately the success of many companies is based upon the strength of their information technologies. So if you have the head of a company that doesn't understand [computers or] isn't computer literate then by nature you have a problem," Testa says.
Randolph Kahn, principal of Illinois-based Kahn Consulting, has a particularly chilling story from his shame files. "We were at a client site not too long ago where we were forced to educate the CIO and the CTO on a certain technology they had implemented. It became very embarrassing when we had to educate them on the ways in which their technology was functioning, which was different to their perception of what was happening," says Kahn. "It was an uncomfortable situation to have to educate the senior-most technology professional in a Fortune 100 company about the technology that they've spent millions of dollars on."
Angela Lewis of Angela Lewis Consulting, an Australian commentator and writer on issues related to the societal impact of technology, and lecturer in IT education, says the problem is compounded because many senior executives do not see IT training to be inherently valuable in any way for them. That is partly because they get someone else to do their computer-type tasks - "that is why I have a PA" - but it is also because many PAs take it upon themselves to do everything for their bosses.
"I know one [PA] for example who opens and prints her boss's e-mails and leaves them on his desk. He then dictates his answers and she responds, but will also add an addendum to it saying: 'He really means xyz'," Lewis says.
"Non-IT savvy executives pursue training when lack of it starts to interfere with their workloads. For example, they get annoyed at the fact that the PA has trouble explaining how to download e-mail from the laptop if they are sitting in a hotel room in Hong Kong and need to read figures without someone printing them out for them."
Lewis says it's typically this type of frustration or an embarrassing situation that prompts executives to improve their computer literacy. An important presentation that they must give personally, or finding themselves in a meeting where all the other senior people have pulled out PDAs or laptops when they do not even know which hole to plug the mouse into, can do the trick.
Tammy Erickson, senior executive with The Concours Group, believes the problem is both widespread and unsurprising, considering you can fairly safely assume that every executive over the age of 50 took his or her college exams "using a slide rule". That means senior officers generally grew up in a vastly different technology world than the youngest members of the workforce, many of whom began using computers in primary school.
"Ironically, this group of executives, those between 50 and retirement age, have probably had the most difficult time of any age group in mastering the computer - not because of a lack of aptitude, but because of a lack of time," she says. "Many studies show that retirees typically become quite literate because they have the time to explore the computer and get comfortable with its uses. Many working executives have never had that luxury. They've mastered the computer's most rudimentary functions, perhaps e-mail and word processing, but for many the more sophisticated uses are lost in the press of complex executive and family responsibilities."
But Erickson says however challenging technology is to these executives, they do acknowledge the value of technological competencies. For example, a number of years ago, she led a series of seminars designed for companies that were deemed the "best of the best" in their respective industries. One of the most interesting insights she took away from that experience was completely unexpected: the consistent pattern of technological sophistication that existed among the senior management of these diverse firms.
"I've thought about it many times since and it's not clear to me if personal mastery of technology is the chicken or the egg, but I'm convinced this knowledge is critical for leaders of successful firms, regardless of their firm's specific focus," Erickson says.
Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.