We talk a lot about how IT leaders need to formulate the right strategies and ensure the right technologies snap into place. But to make a real difference, IT leaders need to be change agents.
Most of us know, for example, that there’s inestimable value in the patterns that emerge from analyzing mountains of business and log data. Or that machine learning can reduce overhead and fuel transformational applications. Or that it’s past time to standardize security policies across multiple clouds. But how do IT leaders get their organizations to make the leap?
They need to learn how to sell. It's an essential skill for effective IT leadership.
What’s the first step in sales? Prospecting. You need to discover where the low-hanging opportunities are to demonstrate the value of, say, a data-driven approach to modernizing legacy processes. Organizations in which technologists are integrated into cross-functional workgroups have an advantage, because those allies can be called upon to identify quick wins.
Then you need to convince a primary stakeholder that it’s worth a shot. This is not one and done. You need to collaborate with that stakeholder (or whomever they designate) every step of the way, from requirements-gathering to regular check-ins to testing to training.
You also need to instrument your project from the beginning to ensure you can collect metrics to prove success. If a successful outcome ensues, you and/or a proxy need to broadcast the results. This is your internal marketing program. Get your first stakeholder to sing your initiative's praises and others will beat a path to your door.
The ability to build and sustain such relationships features prominently in "7 skills of successful digital leaders" by CIO contributor Esther Schein. It goes hand in hand with other soft skills, such as the ability to communicate goals clearly, to motivate others, and to "tell stories" using terminology business leaders understand. According to Schein, wrapped around those qualities is adaptability to change, a trait that has been put to the ultimate test over the past 18 months.
Directives about how work arrangements should realign as a result of our rolling pandemic are the province of CEOs, not CIOs. But once basic decisions have been made -- will we downsize office space? what does hybrid work mean for us? -- IT leadership needs to roll out a coherent plan for the associated collaboration, security, and automation solutions. As Computerworld staff writer Charlotte Trueman notes in "How to make the hybrid workplace a success," many companies are looking at a "remote-first" future.
The challenges of remote work have jacked up stress levels for security professionals. But security pros who have a sense of purpose and are able to forge strong work relationships defy the stereotype of the beleaguered CISO, struggling in vain to defend against relentless attack. In "CISO job satisfaction: Finding meaning in the mission," contributor Mary Pratt offers a prescriptive quote from MongoDB CISO Lena Smart: "You need to have a good story, and it needs to be understandable and relatable.”
Working in isolation, by contrast, holds all sorts of hazards. In "12 ways to make really bad technology decisions," InfoWorld contributing editor Isaac Sacolick returns to the same themes again and again: Don't make assumptions. Interact with stakeholders and customers to determine their actual rather than stated needs. Build proof-of-concept solutions first to validate your choices rather than just plowing ahead.
To succeed in any initiative, you need the right people with the right skills in place, including those who keep your infrastructure humming. As Network World contributor Maria Korolov observes in her overview of network certifications, the needs of IT organizations have shifted to accommodate remote work, resulting in high demand for skills in SDN, cloud, and network automation. Network professionals who earn certifications in those areas are seeing unprecedented salary increases.
For any expansion of the technology estate, neither choosing the perfect solution nor lining up supremely qualified personnel is enough. Yes, continuous change promises to be our default state going forward. But if you fail to articulate how each new step in that evolution will unfold -- leading with a realistic picture of the benefits for stakeholders -- your efforts may never be fully appreciated.
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Real IT leadership: Selling the transformative dream - CIO UK
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