Just read a book: CIO Wisdom, written by Mr. Dean Lane
In today’s digitized, interconnected global economy, what kind of wisdoms the modern CIO need cultivate to help their organization thrive in this hyper competitive marketing environment:
1. Business Wisdom Economic tsunami has created a crisis for IT as the business leader start to question the value of IT investment, so the IT leader may need go back to business basic, communicate via business language, to deliver the business first service and process. Business visionary, change agent, entrepreneur, and value driven leader, those are portrait of new CIO.
2. The Tao Wisdom
The Tao conveys a sense of harmony and the natural order of the world, the Tao of IT leaders focus on business and human nature in relation to IT, use wisdom instead of brute force, create insightful business value via success of IT strategy and implementation.
3. Talent Wisdom
Today’s IT leader is also the talent master (actually talent management is top priority at the most effective CIO’s agenda this year), in this regard, IT leadership means “guiding or conducting” via two-way communication, both as coach and listener, the better the team, the more will be accomplished.
Diversity not only adds to the overall health of profession, actually it is sparkling modern IT leadership, collective wisdom via the expanded lenses of diversity are the beauty of humanity.
By nature of job duty, CIO should be the strategic roles with practical approach and technical advances. The most critical factor of strategic planning is creating a common framework of IT fabric and building the capability muscle to enable business integration and innovation, scientific planning scenario such as situational analysis, value chain analysis and assessment are the key success factors to the best IT planning & execution.
CIO role is also inherently a cross-functional role, if you happen to be cross-industrial or even cross-cultural, it surely be even more value-added with bigger influence, the authentic IT leadership magic ingredients include such as passion, openness, clarity, agility and humility. , etc. IT leader as diplomat need communicate via business terms, simplistic fashion, essential insight, and spark the win-win situation.
The inspiring IT leader should also provide the thought leadership, foster business value, and serve customer in the enlightened way.
Governance is to strongly influence, direct, regulate or control the IT practices, the new breed of CIO will have to wear the 3D glasses, to peer through the technology, the business, and the future trends, the best practice of IT governance are walking the talk through vision, best communication, listening, education, well-planned scenario, framework and governance model.
It is critical to know the rational behind the finance and budget, since it’s the foundation of project control, change management, and conversation (say CIO vs. CFO’s love & hate relationship).
The forward looking CIO will manage the budget to leverage the short-term fix with long-term strategy, balance the capital expenditures and operational expenditures, prioritize and reinvent the new chapter of 70/30 budget Ratio (70% of budge going to innovation, 30% to maintenance)
8. Marketing Wisdom
With the era of digitization, sales & marketing savvy CIO will articulate the IT vision and service value, identify the key business differentiator, cost cutting opportunities, optimize the supply chain, and improve the business process and customer services.
The marketing wisdom of IT leadership will lead the success stories in effective communication, customer centricity, governance enhancement and deliver the service excellence.
The common adage “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”, analytics and measurement should become the DNA of CIO leadership, CIO may need the quantity of metrics to make the fair judgment, and quality to gain the right vision and insight, modern BI solutions may help IT leaders to catch some hinder sight and insight from historical operational data, the next generation of BI may help see through what will be happening in the future, which is the essential to today’s dynamic.
10. Collective Wisdom
In this “only change itself not change” world, continuous improvement is the supplement vitamin taken at daily bases for both IT leaders and their organization, senior leader could no longer be the “lone stars”, the social collaboration platform provide the significant opportunities for leaders to take advantage of collective wisdom cross the globe, recruit the best talent without boarder, get opinion cross the angles, and recognize like-minded professionals all over the world.
In this “only change itself not change” world, continuous improvement is the supplement vitamin taken at daily bases for both IT leaders and their organization, senior leader could no longer be the “lone stars”, the social collaboration platform provide the significant opportunities for leaders to take advantage of collective wisdom cross the globe, recruit the best talent without boarder, get opinion cross the angles, and recognize like-minded professionals all over the world.
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