Gayla Andrews-Smith of Sprint recently published a great article titled "Why Soft Skills Matter for CIOs". She quotes John Reed, Senior Executive Director with Robert Half Technology, and our friend Katie Ross, Executive Recruiting Partner at Heller Search Associates, a strategic partner of O&A. This topic is of critical importance to all businesses, governments and educational institutions, and it happens to be the foundation of O&A for the past 30+ years. So let’s expand on what Gayla described. While I give Gayla tremendous credit for recognizing the soft skills, I’d like to point out that there is nothing soft about them anymore. In fact, these skills are mandatory today to become world class. The first line of our book, Unleashing the Power of IT, says that “there has never been a better time to be an IT professional”. We hear CIOs repeating that to their teams. But we need to be equipped with the right skills to be successful. Having lived this as a long time CIO, I can deeply appreciate the core competencies required for IT to lead the business through disruption and digital transformation. Navigating the IT Maturity Curve O&A conducted a year-long research study with Babson College, resulting in the IT Maturity Curve, a topic that we write and speak about quite often. For the purpose of this article, I’d like to emphasize two key points. First, the Babson research showed us that it is no longer sufficient for a CIO to develop IT into a strategic partner. IT needs to be the Innovative Anticipator ™ that leads the business. This is reinforced by executive recruiters that tell us that boards expect the CIO to look around the corner and protect the business from disruption or, better yet, lead disruption and digital transformation. Second, there are specific skills that must be developed across the IT organization to evolve through each stage of the Maturity Curve, and we simply can’t skip any steps. For example, if IT is in Stage 1, as a basic Supplier of Services (or “keep the lights on”), they are typically not included in new business initiatives. But when these teams develop specific skills, including service excellence, project management, and business requirements management, they become regarded as a Solution Provider – Stage 2 of the Maturity Curve. The Stage 2 IT organization matures to Stage 3, Strategic Partner, when they excel at internal consulting – becoming a trusted adviser. They also develop the credibility to negotiate with their business partners to drive better strategic decisions. Another key to emerging from Stage 2 to Stage 3 is capturing and communicating metrics that are meaningful to the business. These teams are effective at communicating their contributions, or marketing the value of IT. The Stage 3 Strategic Partners become Innovative Anticipators ™ at Stage 4 when they consistently lead change and demonstrate a culture of innovation. These teams have generally completed their Agile transformation and are consistently delivering rapid, measurable business value. 33 Years of Evidence Our own experience at O&A, transforming thousands of IT organizations, tells us that certain competencies are prerequisites to growing through the stages of the IT Maturity Curve. It’s no wonder that Achieving IT Service Excellence is our most popular workshop, followed closely by Internal Consulting Skills and Marketing Your Organization’s Value. My experience as a long time CIO and trusted adviser to CEOs and Boards demonstrates the same pattern. We achieve excellent service and IT sees a dramatic improvement in their reputation with the business. We become better internal consultants and the business trusts us. And we demonstrate the real business value of IT and we gain the confidence of the business to move into a partnership and, eventually, leadership role. I’ve done this numerous times and the formula just seems to work. You NEED an IT Workforce Strategy The required competencies don’t just happen. You need a strategy to develop and continuously improve in these areas. Whether your IT organization is at Stage 1 or Stage 4 or somewhere in between, now more than ever you need an IT workforce strategy. The talent war has begun. Many believe it will be more challenging then during the dot-com era. That makes sense with so much emphasis on digital transformation and disruption. Leading CIOs are looking out three years and contemplating what their team will need to look like. They’re assessing talent and making plans to develop people wherever possible, and identifying the new roles that they’ll need to hire. These leaders are building their workforce, now, in anticipation of what the business will need in the next few years. If you’re not looking three years ahead, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Watch for our upcoming article on IT Workforce Strategy for more on this topic.
And remember, your workforce strategy will have a lot of focus on those "soft skills", now considered the required core competencies. Changing the Conversation O&A focuses on Developing the Human Side of Technology. We prepare every member of the IT team to take their game to the next level, becoming Strategic Partners and Innovative Anticipators ™. We are changing the conversation about IT strategy, culture and talent by employing the new "core" competencies and an attitude of "we ARE the business." For More Information Today's leading executives are leveraging The IT Maturity Curve to change the conversation about IT strategy, culture and talent. Start your journey today! Call O&A at (603) 623-7373 or email Tracy Dinu at [email protected]. To learn about the workshops mentioned above, or to see a sampling of each, visit the Unleashing the Power of IT page on our web site.
2 Comments
3/24/2021 08:29:04 am
Excellent explanation. Anyone can easily comprehend since it’s simple & focused. Keep up the great work!
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3/25/2021 08:19:11 am
Thanks, what an informative post! Everything we need to know are found in this article. We hope you keep posting quality articles.
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