We all know that as organizations strive for competitive advantages, the expert application of information technology (IT) can help businesses achieve powerful market insights, drive operational efficiencies, and ultimately win customers and their loyalty. Those working in IT can be a company’s secret sauce for success, whether it’s crunching huge data sets to beat the market or protecting the firm from hackers.
However, while top IT leaders possess deep technical capabilities, they often can lack the leadership skills needed to lead change within their departments—an important issue at a time when the 24/7 global business environment and technology itself is constantly changing.
These challenges can range from meeting expectations for technology-enabled business performance to the difficulty of negotiating organizational needs against the constant evolution of IT requirements and resourcing. The biggest developmental gaps we see exist in the areas of strategic orientation, leading change, collaboration, and influence.
In a partnership with the CIO Executive Council, Forum created a virtual training program that leverages strong learning design, action learning, CIO participation, and peer and formal coaching to help address some of the challenges particular to IT leaders.
Here are three success factors that can be utilized by other IT executives looking to lead change within their organizations:
- Offer rationale and insight from experienced leaders regularly. A key challenge most IT executives in leadership development face is learning how to apply new skills acquired throughout training sessions. If training is not reinforced along a career path, it can be disregarded. One thing the CIO Executive Council saw as key to making the leading change program successful was providing participants with access to the insight and advice of experienced CIO leaders. The program’s cadre of CIO coaches helps trainees navigate the challenges they face in applying the newly developed perspectives and behaviors to important strategic initiatives. The CIO coaches are able to reinforce commonalties in the challenges that members of the collective trainee groups are facing and counsel them on how to implement solutions or processes to address varying phases of change by referencing their own experiences.
- Debrief, brainstorm, and share what to do differently. Because the training is more of a process spread out over longer durations, rather than a one-time event, participants have the opportunity to implement what they have learned. They are encouraged to share these newly implemented approaches with other trainees to provide tips and get critiques from other experienced leaders. Sharing and discussing the real-life implementations of their training helps IT leaders understand how to properly apply, adapt, and continually optimize strategies for the future.
- Provide practical administrative support and virtual check-ins. While having experienced leadership support seems like a simple idea, it is often a scheduling challenge to build and keep momentum to lead change. The CIO Executive Council overcame this issue by creating “virtual reconnects,” which allowed the coaches and participants to come together at a time that was convenient for both the CIO coach and the trainee. This critical “sustain-and-attain” training component helps support, extend, and expand application and lasting impressions within organizations. This is directly correlated to high scores for impact back on the job.
As with all workplace endeavors, flexibility, collaboration, and innovation are critical behaviors that underscore the success of an initiative. Virtual instructor-led training is proven truly effective if strong facilitation is present, as the environment calls for a different skill set on behalf of the faculty. These key success factors highlight the importance of developing and implementing thorough virtual learning opportunities, leadership engagement, and committed talent management expertise in order to prepare IT executives for leading change in their continuously-evolving environments.
Tom Rose, Ph.D., is a psychologist with 25 years of experience playing internal leadership and external consultant roles in the consumer products, financial services, and pharmaceuticals industries. He serves as an executive consultant at Forum, which helps senior leaders execute people-driven solutions that accelerate business growth, corporate change, and overall performance. For more information, visit http://www.forum.com
