The CIO as Chief Communicator

Computerworld - Often, effective communication skills aren't considered high priorities for CIOs. However, like any other major business unit in a company, the IT organization must effectively communicate on a regular basis with all of its constituents and customers.

Consider the case of a large North American food services company, where the communications function was very poor. Competing local IT groups rarely communicated with one another. And the little communication that took place with other constituencies was brief, often "IT-cryptic" and usually self-serving. Powerful IT managers intimidated their staffs, and any communication with those staffs was in the form of top-down directives, offering little chance for discussions about key issues.

Communication between IT leaders and the company's executive business-unit management was no better. Even when the IT organization had accomplished "great things" that it could brag about, IT leadership's lack of understanding concerning the power of marketing and communications ensured that nobody in the company was taking the IT organization seriously.

Fortunately, company leadership appointed a new CIO who understood the power of communication, both within the organization and between the organization and its constituencies. In the IT organization, he undertook a series of steps to open lines of communication from IT leadership to staff, from IT staffers to leadership and among IT staff, so they could more effectively meet their users' needs:

• He set up a series of open and candid "town hall" sessions across IT and with IT users and business-unit management teams.
• He established an open-door policy whereby anyone in the IT organization could communicate directly with him—face to face, over the telephone or via e-mail. Part of this policy was an open electronic forum (similar to a chat room) where individuals could—anonymously if they wished—pose questions to their colleagues or the CIO.
• He initiated a "no surprises" policy focused on encouraging people to communicate problems early and find solutions before the problems grew larger.

This CIO intuitively understood the power of marketing, even though he knew that he didn't have all of the skills required to create and deliver effective marketing messages. He brought a professional marketing and communications person into the organization to help him and others throughout the IT organization become more effective communicators among themselves, with users and with corporate managers.

To some extent, the CIO serves as the translator of IT information—sort of a Rosetta stone—among all the different parties. And the CIO must be able to alter