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“Being able to clearly communicate our goals and tactics and explain how every single employee plays a role in our digital transformation … is helping establish a solid digital mindset and language to drive understanding, collaboration, and ownership,’’ he says.
Part of the digital transformation journey is about embracing new ways of working as a team, Laughrey says. Communication plays a huge role in that as well, he says.
“My cross-functional digital transformation team meets weekly to go over deliverables, review data and metrics, and establish next steps. These engagements are crucial because they allow everyone to update the broader team on where things stand,” he says.
A CIO’s value is derived from the trust and partnership they have with the business, and that requires the ability to communicate and collaborate, agrees Pyle.
“The CIO role is one of the few roles that has genuine connection across the entire enterprise,’’ he says. “Moreover, the CIO is often seen as one of the most trusted executives, comfortable being honest and objective with their views.”
A key part of communication is the ability to negotiate with internal and external partners, says CISR’s Woerner. CIOs must also be able know how to motivate others.
“The good CIOs know what digital can do for their companies and the very best ones will know what the risk of not doing something is and will motivate their executive team and their reports to really transform,’’ she says. “They really need to have this motivation; this ability to translate vision into action.”
Empathy
Digital bank Truist is the result of the merger of BB&T and SunTrust banks and will be launched later this year. CIO Scott Case has been through a lot of mergers, and while technology rapidly evolves, he says the core skills of success always center around how to improve the client experience.
“Clients always need to come first, and that will never change. So from a skills perspective, empathy — the ability to put yourself in your clients’ shoes — is one of the most important skills to develop,’’ Case says. “Empathy is critical to bridge the gap between evolving client needs, new problems, and products and services companies create.”
People’s expectations of service providers, including financial services, have drastically shifted and been intensified by the pandemic, Case says. “For example, we went from having to walk into physical locations to immediate gratification of needs on a mobile device, whenever and wherever the need arises.”
The way most companies address a shift creates a disconnect between how they create products and services versus what their clients expect or actually need, he maintains. “With empathy, we’re not trying to take solutions and find problems. We’re trying to find and understand clients’ problems and then co-create tailored solutions.”
Raytheon’s Laughrey says one of his personal philosophies is “that every person can be a teacher to someone.” It also means “everyone is a customer to someone,” and taking that viewpoint is a reminder to be empathetic toward others’ needs.
Capable of cultivating a culture of collaboration
Another key skill for CIOs is the ability to create a culture that empowers teams, encourages experimentation, incentivises collaboration, and measures the performance of a team against business outcomes, not IT metrics, Pyle says.
Laughrey agrees, saying “culture is at the core of RI&S’s digital transformation and communication plays a huge role in developing a positive, digital-focused team culture. It’s a top-down, bottom-up effort and cross-functional collaboration is key.”
He says it is “important to me that everyone, regardless of job function or where they are in the organisation, understands what we are trying to accomplish, and feels empowered to raise issues early and bring forward ideas to achieve our goals.”
RI&S has focused on three core tactics to create a collaborative culture: promoting employee-driven digital transformation improvement ideas and success stories; launching an intranet with goals, results, and progress clearly outlined; and helping employees gain access to information and capabilities to shorten learning cycles and to collaborate more effectively, Laughrey says.
“Narrowing our internal communication focus to these three items has helped break down silos, foster a culture of collaboration, and establish the foundation for a common vision and language that catalyses greater speed and synergy across the business,’’ he says.
Compelling storytelling
While CIOs are “fanatical about creating technology that makes a measurable difference to the bottom line,’’ they know they can only gain board influence if they can talk the language of the board, Pyle says.
“Market share, growth, risk, entry into new markets, customer engagement, agility, innovation are all on the agenda of boards across the world,’’ he says. “CIOs need to frame everything they do in these terms.”
Lenovo’s Hu says he admires and is “endlessly fascinated” by people who can “weave a compelling narrative.” This is a very important skill because it sets the stage, energises an audience, and excites stakeholders and customers, he says.
“I’m always working on how can I tell a more compelling story on the journey we’re working on,” he says.
With that comes feedback that is sometimes negative, but important, Hu adds.
“Storytelling aspects are undervalued, but the reality is, great work does not always speak for itself. If you can pare it with a great narrative that has a great hook.”
