Transforming your CIO: technical expertise is no longer enough for today's CIO. Here's how to find the CIO to move your school into the future - People & Politics

University Business, Oct, 2003 by Barbara Kaufman

Technical expertise and good project management skills are no longer enough for today's CIO. In most cases, a CIO is brought to the campus not to maintain the status quo, but to drive change initiatives and help develop a shared vision of how IT strategies support mission-based objectives. This new role demands a CIO who understands campus culture, key constituents' needs, and institutional priorities, yet has superb communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills. Today, being a CIO on a university campus is about managing relationships and change; it's also about being a compelling storyteller.

ALIGNING LEADERSHIP STYLE AND SKILLS WITH CAMPUS NEEDS

When recruiting CIOs, presidents often focus narrowly on finding deep technical expertise, neglecting to test for candidates' institutional, cultural, and environmental fit. If the candidate's skill sets, management style, and background are not in alignment with institutional mission, priorities, and expectations, a short tenure will ensue.

Another common error? Expecting a technically competent candidate to magically morph into a leader who can motivate staff, delegate, think at an institutional level, and learn to be accountable for outcomes achieved through empowering, influencing, and working through others.

Finally, a CIO whose leadership role is not recognized cannot be expected to lead. "Often there is a great deal of tension around the CIO because he or she may not be appropriately placed in the organizational hierarchy or may not have the appropriate access for effective leadership," says Robyn R. Render, VP for Information Resources and CIO, University of North Carolina. "The chief executive officer must examine critically whether the CIO's position is appropriately placed to help accomplish mission and objectives. At the same time, the CIO needs to do his or her homework by stepping outside the technology role to learn the business and culture of academe. That's the two-way street that will allow the CIO to really make a difference."

A number of factors make up the skill sets today's CIO needs, in order to fulfill the role of leader and change agent:

Functional business orientation and communication skills. The CIO must be able to develop mission-based IT strategies that meet the campus's needs for instructional, communication, and marketing tools--and translate IT strategies into a story and message that resonates for key constituents, "CIOs need to be able to communicate at multiple levels, and understand each audience," says Deena Chapman, professor of Information Systems at California Baptist University and adjunct professor at University of Redlands (CA). "In talking to a board member, for example, the CIO has to be able to translate technical language into Layman's terms without sounding condescending or arrogant."

Mary Ann Dase, CIO of California State University, Channel Islands, sees it as a storyteller role: "Translating IT strategy is a constant process of crafting stories that people can understand without losing the message of the technology." One of her stories exemplifies how security is about protection and prevention, not restriction. She tells how her department spent several days restoring the university's systems following a virus attack, only to have the user access to the entire network's resources wiped out the next day because the virus attacked an un registered server that did not have the required virus protection.

Political savvy. Render argues that with portions of a university's support coming from the public sector and the government, it's crucial that the CIO understand the political landscape. "The internal politics are equally challenging," she says. "Not only is IT mission-critical, impacting all aspects of the higher education enterprise, it is also very visible and sometimes perceived as an obstacle rather than a tool or asset. It's critical for the IT leader to understand all of those perceptions and engage the entire community in discussions about IT."

Ability to achieve balance. Balancing the long-term vision and basic day-to-day needs is particularly challenging in a start-up environment such as the CSU Channel Islands campus, which is striving to be a 21st-century IT campus. "The opportunity to create a new environment presents challenges that are different from the planned changes you make in a legacy organization to enhance technology," says Dase. "There's very little time to meet immediate needs in all of the various technology areas being developed, yet at the same time, we must continue to look ahead to avoid installing technology that has little long-term viability. It requires a rapid deployment model which doesn't allow for the full consultation process most information systems projects begin with," she adds.

In addition to balancing immediate needs and a long-range vision, the CIO of a complex system has to achieve a keen balance between allowing autonomy and local control on the one hand, and identifying the system impact of individual campus initiatives on the other. Render cites the following example: "When other institutions began making significant investments in Internet-based degree programs, we evaluated the market and the needed resources, and decided to encourage our campuses to develop their own capacity. Over the last few years, we've compiled a comprehensive array of online offerings across our 16 campuses. Only now are we revisiting and leveraging this new capacity at a system level. Building upon the strength of the campuses that have taken the lead, we are now responding through the use of online learning to some of our systemwide issues such as difficult-to-sustain yet vital curricula. We're supporting our campuses to pool their resources and collaborate in groups of common interest. The system can leverage those local investments to benefit the university as a whole."