By Andy McCue, 13 June 2007 16:56
NEWS
Techies lack the skills needed to operate at board level and be leaders of change and transformation within their organisations.
Three-quarters of the 12-strong silicon.com CIO Jury IT user panel - conducted at the IT Directors' Forum last week - said IT professionals often talk technology too much while lacking business skills.
Steve Gediking, head of IT at the Independent Police Complaints Commission, said: "We are our own worst enemies because we don't as a group talk the language of business. Three out of four IT directors will talk techie to their board. It's easy enough to get the skills you need."
That view was echoed by Patrick Brady, IT director at Barts & The London Hospitals NHS Trust, who said: "Good managers aren't necessarily good leaders. Business awareness is lacking. The ability to put things in a language that the board understands is lacking. "
Unsurprisingly some said making the leap from manager to leader is down to the individual. John Seglias, Ipsos Mori IT director, said: "It may be that many IT professionals are not interested or bothered in acquiring the sort of people skills needed to be agents of change."
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Domino's Pizza group IT director Jane Kimberlin added: "Some people don't want to play in that area, but it's what we should do. We are well placed to be engineers of change because we know the business. It depends on the board too. If you have a dismissive mindset to work against, you won't succeed, however skilled you are."
One answer is better training for IT professionals and Michael Elliot, Hasbro IT director, said: "The people who rose up through the ranks don't necessarily gain those sorts of skills as they progress."
Will Thornton-Reid, JD Williams head of systems, said: "Early training should be set up to lead into a strategic role. IT directors should be better suited to a strategic role in change management and business transformation because their concerns run across all of the business areas."
But Sue Yeo, Apacs director of technology, information and facilities, argued: "We shouldn't be so defeatist. We all have the will to acquire the people skills we need. I don't mind not being on the main board. I am part of the elite and when I'm needed I'm brought in to discuss strategy."
Julian Goldsmith contributed to this article
Today's CIO Jury wasÂ…
Patrick Brady, IT director, Barts & The London Hospitals NHS Trust
Michael Elliott, IT director, Hasbro
Steve Gediking, head of IT, Independent Police Complaints Commission
Jane Kimberlin, group IT director, Domino's Pizza
Christopher Linfoot, IT director, LDV Group
Ian McCorrison, director of ICT, Lincolnshire Police
Richard Storey, head of IT, Guys & St Thomas' Foundation Hospital NHS Trust
Will Thornton-Reid, head of systems, JD Wlliams
John Seglias, IT director, Ipsos Mori
John Shepherd, head of IS, Gloucestershire Constabulary
Alan Shrimpton, head of IS, Avon & Somerset Constabulary
Sue Yeo, director technology, information & facilities, Apacs
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Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. Richard
I'm bored with this talk:
Of course 'technical' people should learn to understand the wider context and to communicate better with 'non-technical' people.
However, why do we hear so little of the need for 'non-technical' people to make an effort?
Why is it right for 'them' to despise anyone who takes the trouble to understand the technology, and at the same time to *demand* instant help when they're in trouble?
It's time that we saw more headlines about the need for HR (whatever that is) to understand the need to nurture technological skills; for business 'executives' in companies which are increasingly dependent on technology to have some understanding of it.
For example, how can the Environment minister propose technological fixes to reduce 'climate change' and then boast that he 'failed' school physics so doesn't understand his new policies?
2. Mark Hosey
You know, this is a typical example of the “black and white” mentality prevalent in this country. There is a school of thought that believes board members should become more technically minded and not without good reason.
Because of the technical ignorance of board members they often fail to appreciate the benefits their companies can accrue from judicious investment in new technologies and innovative ideas. It is an unfortunate fact that this country has a long sad history of companies (and potential investors) who have disregard the advice and the ideas of their technologists only to find their company slide into oblivion as foreign competitors seize those very innovations discarded by UK companies, for whatever reason.
Sure, techies and scientist get carried away with their ideas and often they have to be reined in a bit. But so too do CIO’s who often waste vast amounts of company capital on wild projects. How many projects have each of us observed or been associated with that we knew were crazy, were started and then abandoned with the accompanying dismissal of the hair brained director that urged the company down that route. Many companies have foundered on the mad ideas of so called business savvy directors and CIO’s. They may well have been business savvy but the reason for a fair number of failures is due to a lack of technology savvy
(continued)
3. Mark Hosey
(continued)
The government, which is made up of mainly of non-technical types is in the process of driving a couple of non-starters onto the rocks of abject failure as I write. They are blindly attempting to do what the vast majority of techies (who do not have a vested interest) are advising them not to do for technical reasons. And why do they persist? Because they do not fully comprehend what they are dealing with!
Non-technical types are often ignorant not just of the potential benefits of ideas and technologies but also of the limitations of those ideas and technologies and because of that they can often get carried away with their vision of Utopia.
Now, we are all guilty of dreaming impossible dreams and some of us then try to implement them, it’s not just techies that do it. And company failure is not always down to a lack of just business skills or technology skills or innovative skills. Failure comes from ignorance, a lack of appreciation for the skills of others which we must rely on. That is why boards of successful companies will have a fair distribution of all skills from production to sales, from design to accounts. Successful businesses must not require techie board members to have business expertise; a general knowledge and appreciation will do. Similarly they must not expect the others to have technical expertise; a general knowledge and appreciation will do. They do however expect each to rely on the others skills to provide sound advice and guidance. Each must contribute using those skills they do best and no one skill is of paramount importance. Opinions contrary to this are founded on a misplaced sense of self importance.
Each ignores the other at the company’s peril.
4. Nick Cole
Lack of business skills - debatable, lack of leadership - no.
Business skills are learnable if techies are given the opportunity to learn. Business needs to remember that the techies have spent a lot of time learning their specialism in order for them to be effective. Given business opportunities they can learn from that as well.
Leadership is necessary for any manager in any profession or discipline. The main difficulty is that business tends to ask questions that often have no simple answer without diving into a pseudo technical explanation. Sometimes attempts to explain why something should or shouldn't be done and the potential consequences or benefits can come across as patronising.
If there is a non-listening mind-set around the boardroom table then nothing is going to get through. The main problem is that business doesn't appreciate that they need to understand at a reasonable level the techie part of their business as well as all the other parts. In a lot of instances there is resistance to a techie telling them what they can or cannot do because the technology won't allow it or it has massive cost implications. Also there is resistance to examine the unintended consequences of a technology solution which can be immense.
Instead of arguing about the black and white of these two extremes everyone needs to accept that technical skills are a necessary component of any rounded person, just as much as so-called business skills.