To B-School or Not to B-School
MBA courses are certainly a popular option for CIOs, with many of them starting, some concluding and nearly all wishing to do one if they could go into a state of suspended animation career-wise and study full-time for a while. David Johnston, the newly appointed CIO of the SA Department of Human Services, and until recently the CIO of SAWater, followed his commerce undergraduate degree in accounting and business law from Melbourne University with an MBA, after a four-year stint as the corporate treasurer for Bunge Industrial in Melbourne for four years. He believes the ability to understand how business ticks and finance flows is vital to the CIO role.
"The financial side is absolutely critical," says Johnston. "If I did not have a strong finance background it would be very difficult to do the job. You need to understand cash flows, balance sheets and management of IP [intellectual property]. I personally found the MBA also very useful from a strategic thinking perspective." By comparison he believes that "most of my counterparts are technical; rebadged IT managers and CIOs with a business background [who] tend to view the world quite differently".
That said, Johnston did begin a PhD in information systems strategy a couple of years ago, but found the academic focus did not suit his needs. His next course is one being run by the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), about corporate governance, which Johnston believes does not receive sufficient attention, particularly corporate governance as it relates to information technology. "Too many people responsible for business governance - boards - have an insufficient understanding of technology and this has implications for the proper execution of their fiduciary duties," he says.
Which returns us to the currency argument again as proffered by Dairy Farmers' Talbot - that skills need boosting regularly. But Talbot admits willingly that there is a price to be paid for that refresh, and it's the usual bugaboo - time. His graduate diploma from Macquarie University was a tough course with up to eight MBA-level units.
"I would finish work at five [pm], be at Uni by six, in lectures to 10 then home at 11. If I was working on projects I'd work until one or two in the morning. Or I'd wake at four or five and then study for a couple of hours, and that was seven days a week. I didn't have any weekends," Talbot says. "Macquarie is a very demanding university. I'd recommend to anyone that if you're going to give up this amount of time make sure it's a very highly accredited centre."
All that said, Talbot believes the sacrifices and commitment were worth it. "I'm in a better position now. When you're being headhunted to these positions and they ask: 'What qualifications do you have?' you can say: 'Here's a current one.' And their eyebrows pick up because it shows you're current and your tenacity is there."
In addition Talbot has been a member of Rostrum and Toastmasters, and both have helped him hone the presentation skills he says are critical to the CIO role. Weston Foods' Coogan is another advocate of public speaking clubs. He says the seven months he spent with Toastmasters helped improve his presentation style, which he agrees is an important skill in the CIO toolkit.
Talbot says he would love to have followed up the diploma with an MBA, "but it's a huge commitment and [has an impact] on the family. In my circumstances - and I have a very tolerant wife and stable family life - I chose not to go on for two more years because it would have been selfish."
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