Expert Opinion
You need to learn to be good at office politics, advises one prominent CIO, or you'll never prove your strategic value. As assistant to the chief executive on Birmingham City Council's executive committee on transformation, Glyn Evans answers to more stakeholders than most CIOs could shake a stick at. But he has managed to gain a deep engagement with many of them. "We [the council] associate IT with business change," he says, despite the fact that, in his words, he has to visit a lot of senior managers who used to spend their entire meeting grumbling about their PCs.
How did Evans achieve this? "We outsourced a lot of the IT operations, but it's also important to manage expectations. You must make people realise that no system is ever going to be perfect." Evans is a master politician, as you would expect of the chairman of influential public-sector group Socitm (the Society of Information Technology Management). As a consequence, he speaks the language of his constituents and reflects their concerns effectively. "When you speak to the head of refuse collection, you don't talk in terms of bin collection. These days you say 'recycling'," he advises.
As a breed, CIOs probably aren't natural politicians. But whatever job you do, it's vital that you remind people why you're important, says Lesley Everett, a personal development coach. Everett runs workshops to help professional people who don't have an instinct for self-promotion. Engineers and technologists are frequent clients. It's especially important to work on 'raising your brand' in professions that few people really understand. Who knows what a CIO does? Many CIOs might be pushed to give a good answer. You may not want to be a 'business strategy leader', whatever that is, but you don't want to hide your light under a bushel. Which, unfortunately, is what many technically-minded people do.
"Logical thinkers tend to think that just being good at their job is enough, and that the quality of their work will speak for itself," says Everett. "The problem is, most people don't understand that the more work you've put into a system, the easier it appears to them." Like it or not, everyone has a personal brand and Everett has a range of practical tips to help CIOs improve their personal brand image in the company.
Communication is Key
It's not so much about branding, but about communication, argues David Miller, managing director of consultancy ITDynamics, which offers interim management to companies in need of IT leadership. "People can see through the 'profile raisers' these days, but it is still necessary to communicate more. There are subtle ways to remind people of your work. More importantly, you can eliminate some of the negative elements that attach themselves to your work. Surly helpdesk operatives, for example, should be made to shape up or ship out," he explains. "Don't neglect to cultivate people, be proactive in finding out what their needs are and make sure they know that someone is listening to them. So spend more time speaking to senior people in each department, finding out what problems they have, what's missing from IT and what issues are not being addressed," he adds. "The chances are you do that already, but the trick is to make sure everyone knows about it," says Miller.
Miller also advises IT leaders to formalise the process and make it a regular event by having a conference call every week, or a meeting. "It may be against your nature to grandstand, but it's not enough to do your job, you have to be seen doing your job," he says. As a consultant, Miller is often called into corporations to act as an interim CIO, before setting up the infrastructure for individuals he recruits to take over. Once a CIO has shown he or she has listened to all the board members and the senior decision maker, that platform needs to be built on.
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