| | SEPTEMBER 20158CIOReviewACHIEVING TRUST IN THE C-SUITEBy Joe Tenga, CIO, Evocio.As you already know, members of the C-suite are responsible for making and carrying out the key decisions for an organization. As such, there is no denying the importance for the Chief Information Officer to firmly establish himself as a valued member of this team.What about you--are you a valued member of the team? Sure, you are the company CIO and you are part of the C-Suite, but are you held at arm's length from key strategic and budgetary decisions? If you are part of that group of CIO's who feel like they are on the outside looking in, I have something difficult to ask you... Does the rest of the C-suite trust you?If you are an in a position of IT leadership, particularly if you are a new CIO, there is significant tendency for other members of the Executive team to think less of you than you do of them. Or if you want to think of it the other way, they trust CIOs less than they do each other.But why? Well, CIOs and the people we lead often come with some "technical debt", if you will. I have had my share of interactions with members of the C-Suite and I would like to share a few observations that perhaps you may see in your own IT organization- and possibly yourself. Play along as I ask you these questions...Is your "fit" debatable?IT people are, well, different. It's ok to be a bit different. But remember you speak a different dialect than the others, using words and acronyms that are unfamiliar. Perhaps you are a bit uncomfortable in social situations. You probably don't process or communicate information the same as others. Explaining what went wrong in Production yesterday in terms that everyone can understand is still a challenge for you. For some, sitting at the table next to you, these can call into question whether you really fit in with the rest of the C-Suite. Is your focus suspect?If you ask the CEO or CFO what their objective is, they will likely recite some version ofthe company's mission statement, as well as mention maximizing shareholder return on investment. And they would be right to do so. But if you ask the average CIO what their objective is, theirs will likely be a well-intentioned but misguided response regarding how they provide the technology services to the enterprise or that they deliver the flagship product, etc. The successful CIO will have the same objective as his peers...to fulfill the company's mission and delivering business value in all its forms. Also, putting together a sound technology strategy is great, but it is no longer good enough to just look at a problem through the technologist's lens. You need to view things from a myriad of perspectives: the customer's experience, investors' expectations, marketing and sales teams' requirements, regulators' demands for compliance & security, the CFO's Cash Flow concerns, employees' perception, and on and on. At Evocio, our consultant CIOs focus on addressing our clients' concerns around Cost, Security, Compliance and User Experience from a variety of Stakeholder's views. If you demonstrate a limited point Joe Tengaopinionin my
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