Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Blog: Does the "I" in CIO stand for "Inspirational"?

Yesterday the WSJ did an expose about a midlifer's Facebook foray. It made me mull over two CIOs I recently interviewed with two organizational tolerance levels for the latest in populist technologies. It made me think about what actually is the biggest barrier is to acceptance of new technologies within IT? Age of the staff? Tolerance of the enterprise? Or leadership skills of the CIO?

The first conversation was with a UK CIO who believes that his job and that of his IT organization is to spend 10% of their time experimenting in a lab with new tools, which is how wikis, mashups, and Second Life became part of IT's technology lexicon. The firm is in the recruiting and outsourcing industry and the CIO observed that "very old-fashioned industries need to be re-invented. And in my experience, you must keep challenging your people all the time to help them become more open-minded."

The second conversation was with a US CIO who observed that his firm's foundation is the intellectual property of employees. He too wants to bring in social networking tools to solve difficult problems in a new way. And he's worried that the younger generation won't want to work in the company if they lack access to these as well as Google and Gmail (which IT has locked out - but rumblings are already in the air). So he wants to bring in some young people into IT to get some fresh perspective. His staff members are not entirely supportive. "My 55-year-old infrastructure guy has spent his entire career keeping people out!" He doesn't want to use a headcount that I tell him to use for some early 20-somethings if he can use it to hire someone with experience."

These two examples make me think that the "I" in CIO may need to start standing for "Inspirational". Just the way sales executives need to inspire and pump up the troops to get them to go out there and sell, and athletic coaches need to inspire their teams to win a game, the CIO has an equally inspirational dimension to the job that involves convincing and selling ideas to business peers, but first, to the staffers they lead. And it may involve inspiring folks to be open to technologies that the CIO may secretly fear.

Anyway, CIO # 2 is going to insist that his infrastructure guy take on a CIO-funded 20-something intern that he must treat kindly. Perhaps with a more inspirational CIO, maybe it wouldn't have had to reach the point of insistence.

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Google, HIS Limited, Lexicon

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Server and Storage Optimization Techniques
    By meeting the requirements to deploy new applications and support a larger number of internal and external customers, IT organizations are facing a space, power, and cooling crunch. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • Closing the print security gap - The market landscape for print security
    Today, many organisations continue to rely on printing to support business processes, particularly in the public sector, finance industry and legal profession. Whilst MFPs and printers have improved business productivity, they pose the same security risk as any networked device if left unprotected. With reported data breaches on the rise and growing industry and regulatory requirements around information security, businesses may suffer financial and reputational damage if they ignore the risks of unsecured printing. Read more.
    Learn more »
  • Print security and the mobile workforce
    Where, when, and how we work is changing. Whether your employees are working on the road without a dedicated workstation or from a home office, they need a safe way to print. Driving this shift is the accelerating adoption of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. But even with these devices, printing remains a key business function for virtually all employees, and many may already be using them to print. Read more.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments