Above all, he notes, it's smooth business relationships that give CIOs the credentials to drive change.

"In some organizations the CIO has a balancing act with peers who may see IT as stepping into their rightful turf. To mitigate future concern, the CIO should be working daily on forming tight relationships with them, learning their businesses, listening, and then speaking to them about transformation through technology change by using their own processes as examples."

Successful transformation agent CIOs already know all this. Take ActewAGL's CIO Carsten Larsen, who is also General Manager of Commercial Development at ActewAGL & TransACT. The collective bowels of Larsen's board and senior executive team clinch regularly as they nervously contemplate all the changes he advocates. But they clearly like and trust him, and are willing to let him take the lead.

That's the kind of trust that only comes if people like and trust you; isn't putting yourself in that position what the transformational role is really all about?