Setty says learning how to ask the right questions and listening are also key skills for IT staff to gain.

However, there are yet more skills deemed necessary for today's IT professional. Mary Rose, vice president of administration and CIO of Massachusetts-based Babson College, has a few more skills on her wish list:

• The ability to see the big picture without being overwhelmed by the details, along with understanding how departments and people interrelate.

• The ability to view a business issue from a non-technical perspective.

• Solid communication skills, which includes both refined writing and speaking skills, and the ability to explain technical information clearly in a way the business understands.

• Collaboration skills - IT folks close themselves into their own domain, getting lost in the technology or application.

• Customer service skills - IT needs people who are service-centric.

• Time management skills - IT folk need to deal with multiple requests with a structured approach and prioritization.

• Self-assessment skills - IT folk need to understand their strengths and weaknesses and commit to training and development opportunities.

Soft Skills, Hard Learning

AXA Australia CIO Wendy Thorpe agrees that grooming staff in such skill sets is essential, since when geeks rule the uninitiated can easily form negative views of the entire IT shop based on a bad experience with a single person. But she also accepts it is sometimes best to leave talented geeks in the back room.

"We know we need to make sure that we send people out who are going to be able to fit in to the environment that we are sending them into, and then they can manage the interaction with the back team," Thorpe says. "What we've done about it, because we have people who are very good technically but don't necessarily have those customer-fronting skills, is to appoint somebody who is the face: who has those customer-facing skills, who is very presentable, who can go off to the executive floors, who is well spoken, well dressed, and who is technically able enough to understand the problems and solve things on their own, but who when they run out of grunt if you like, can then go back and present the issues to the technical teams and then get the solutions and take those back to executives."

Others selectively outsource largely to ensure the company's egos do not have to deal with geeks. Omega Environmental Technologies CIO Thom Davis is keenly aware that increasingly complex systems make it impossible to keep high-knowledge, high-talent people on staff with as much knowledge of certain products as outsiders who are more product specific. So he has decided to outsource particular knowledge needs. "Our internal staff takes a more project management approach while we go outside for specific product knowledge. This is the only way we can keep our internal costs and headcounts in line," Davis says.

However, his determination to de-nerd his geeks goes further. Rather than considering those with technical skills during the hiring process "with the hope they can actually wear matching socks", Omega looks first for soft skills and only then tech savvy. "This way the boss is getting someone they can communicate with," he says. "Then, if there are issues that this customer service-type person cannot solve, they can get on the phone with the geek in the basement. We basically look for individuals that can communicate in both languages - human-speak and geek-speak. This saves lots of frustration and miscommunication."

"From my perspective," says Corporate Express CIO Garry Whatley, "it all goes back to the recruitment process. A lot of what we do with our recruitment time is to look specifically around people's attitudes and communication skills, so while we would obviously like our staff to perform from a technical aspect, we would look for rounded people.

"We've made plenty of mistakes, but I would say it's improving, maybe because lots of organizations have recognized the need, and CIOs and people themselves are doing a lot of work."

Communication skills are also a major theme of Corporate Express training and succession programs, and the organization uses profiling to identify those needing help to advance their communication and relationship building skills. Whatley says project management and security skills are also rare, and the company is occasionally planning to pay more to attract people with expertise in these areas.