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Successful digital transformations don’t happen without organisation-wide effort, mindset and processes changes, and the right technologies. They also don’t happen without guidance from skilled CIOs and digital leaders.
So much more is being asked of IT leaders after what has arguably been the biggest business disruption in recent memory. CIOs are tasked with deploying digital initiatives often while reducing costs, ensuring cybersecurity and compliance measures are in place, supporting innovation, and enhancing customer interactions, to name a few.
“What we’re hearing from companies and CIOs is they are not just doing what they’ve always been doing. Their skillset is really becoming broad and very business-oriented,’’ says Stephanie Woerner, a research scientist at MIT’s Sloan Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). “Work has changed dramatically, and expectations of how your company is going to operate have changed. If you’re going in with an attenuated skillset … you won’t be able to deal with these new demands.”
Jason Pyle, managing director of IT recruitment firm Harvey Nash USA, says IT is no longer like a utility company in control of every technical detail the greater organisation uses. “Today,” he says, “much of what IT does might be better described as a ‘watering hole’; a place that attracts, unites, and gives fuel to often quite disparate groups of people who are there by choice, not compulsion. For the CIO, the difference can be radical; control is replaced by influence, structure by fluidity, certainty by ambiguity.”
As the need for technology changes so do the demands and skills required for a CIO, Pyle adds. The Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey 2020 revealed that more CIOs have “moved on” from their role than left of their own accord. “It is tough being a technology leader,” he notes.
Here are seven traits of highly effective digital leaders — those who have not only brought their organisations through the pandemic but have the skills necessary to thrive well into the future.
Adaptability
With a focus on deploying more frequently and iteratively when eliminating manual processes, being able to adapt is a skill that John Elton, CIO of TIAA Bank, says helped him significantly during the pandemic.
“My mindset was shifted to start looking at the internal processes in more detail and working with [the lines of business], which was a fairly big shift,’’ Elton says. “Not that we didn’t do that before, but … being able to adapt and change the focus has been a game-changer.”
Digital initiatives are “never ending,’’ Elton adds. Adaptability is especially important now that “the idea of a digital project has gone by the wayside and it’s more about digital products.”
One facet of adaptability is in how you communicate. Elton says part of being a leader is adapting to IT’s “different perspective on the way they get work done. So the way we’re communicating with teams and motivating them needs to shift.”
Another form of adaptability is being able to make technology shifts and doing so without disrupting other initiatives and strategies under way, he says.
On a personal level, Elton says he has been working to adapt from being an introvert to an extrovert, especially during the pandemic. “I have had to focus on that three times as much and putting myself on camera and being engaged — it’s much more of a deliberate activity.”
Capable of navigating uncertainty
Part of being adaptable means being able to cope when things don’t go as expected. A successful CIO is happy to start on digital journeys where the endpoint is not 100% certain, says Pyle. “They can live with change and they embrace ambiguity,’’ he says. “This can often sit uncomfortably with their governance remit, but successful CIOs have the ability to be both Jekyll and Hyde, promoting experimentation and agility, [while] making sure there is a framework that manages the risk.”
Adept at building relationships
Deploying large programs is never easy, says Arthur Hu, senior vice president and global CIO of Lenovo, where IT just finished deploying a global CRM system. Along the way, relationship building has proved critical.
“You measure your success in adoption and uptake versus just going live and pushing the ball over line,’’ he says. At the end of the day, it’s critical to understand who the stakeholders are that will benefit from a deployment, he says.
In the CRM project, “we got a little away from that and had to reset a bit to say, ‘Who are we trying to benefit and it’s not just us as tech enablers.’ When we did that, we were able to build better bridges to form better hypotheses.”
Transformation, Hu says, is fundamentally about relationships. “In this case, we had to invest more time and needed more business participation in getting their perspective. So relationship building is a good muscle skill you have to use.”
Part of that means having “contextual awareness” and learning to meet business colleagues where they are and speak their language, Hu says. “The quickest way to get the business to disconnect is to bring them to the table and then you lose them” if you’re trying to get them to speak the language of IT.
Hu says he leaned on his consulting background to focus on better relationship building “and switch contexts and wear different hats.”
Connecting with the business is also a key skill for David Behen, vice president and CIO of La-Z-Boy, as his company undergoes its digital transformation.
“The ability to understand the business partners’ needs and collaborate with them on business processes and technology solutions has defined our success,’’ Behen says. “Anyone can acquire this skill by maintaining relationships with their business partners. Creating structure and processes allow you to build and sustain that relationship, instead of just coming together during a project. It is engrained in the culture, cultivated by building great relationships and being accountable to your customers.”
Excellent communication
Overseeing digital transformation at Raytheon Intelligence and Space has helped Wallis Laughrey, vice president of strategy and chief transformation officer, strengthen his communication and collaboration skills. RI&S is in the throes of a multiyear effort to re-engineer its business with new technology and modernise business processes to drive speed, agility, insights, and efficiency, Laughrey says.
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