Time to Show Initiative

Let's be blunt: The overwhelming majority of the time, CIOs are reactors. They're desperately responding to whatever last-minute requests come from the lawyers or the investment bankers or the CFO on some board-level issue. When they successfully scramble to deliver the goods on deadline and in desired formats, they're taken for granted. When the data is late or missing, they get blamed. That's life, but there's nothing proactive about their role.

The rise of accountability-driven governance is an excellent opportunity to change that. Smart and gutsy CIOs will make the most of it. They will work with their CEOs, CFOs and corporate counsels to work with the board. They'll be proactive. They'll informally chat with lawyers and nonexecutive directors at other firms to get a sense of what kind of customization is necessary. They'll mock up some digital dashboards and take them into, say, the CFO's office and ask: "What do you think?"

A CIO at a billion-dollar US retailer did exactly that and the CFO's initial reaction was outrage. Who the heck did the CIO think he was? The CEO was more relaxed. He calculated that this proposal would make him look smart. He had the CIO present it as a trial balloon. The directors didn't want their own system but they did want earlier access to the CFO's numbers. So IT set up a secure Web page on the corporate site for the directors to log into. Everybody was better off.

The key? The CIO demonstrated initiative in a way that didn't threaten the CEO but addressed an unexpressed desire of the board. (The CFO was reportedly still annoyed but now took the CIO much more seriously as a corporate player.) The best way to accomplish this is to partner with one's C-level peers and colleagues to better serve the board. Then again, some colleagues are better partners than others.

Of course, if the CIO really wants to raise her profile, maybe she informally raises this offer to a sympathetic director who serves on the compensation or audit committee (the two board committees most likely to get an independent director in trouble). That's truly high-risk. Disintermediating your colleagues is corporate hardball. If the corporate counsel, CFO or CEO isn't amenable to creative collaboration around "director dashboards", maybe that's vital data for the CIO to know. A serious independent director might find that informal conversation useful and revealing too. So would a director who's nervous about liability. Can this be done without undermining the CEO? Of course. The better question is whether your company's board understands and appreciates that it must have executive relationships above and beyond the counsel, the CEO and the CFO.

A healthy and productive relationship with the board is a reasonable goal for a world-class CIO. Moreover, in this era of complex compliance infrastructures and global regulation, a healthy and productive relationship with the CIO is an essential goal for a world-class board.

For CIOs, productive board-level relationships are essential for professional development. While there's a wealth of management literature about how CIOs should lead their people and better collaborate across the enterprise, there's a paucity of information about "managing up" - that is, what role CIOs should play not only in empowering C-level executives but also in improving information, interaction and governance at the board level. Using IT to help the board manage itself may be as important for tomorrow's CIO as using IT to cut costs and grow revenue for the enterprise. As crucial as IT governance may be, corporate governance is even more important. CIOs should recognize that and act accordingly.

Michael Schrage is co-director of the MIT Media Lab's eMarkets Initiative. He can be reached at schrage@media.mit.edu