The Monthly “12 CIO Personas” Book Turning: CIOs as “Chief Interaction Officer” July 2019

The digital CIOs have to wear different colors of hats and master multiple leadership personas and management roles effortlessly.

This book “12 CIO Personas: The Digital CIO’s Situational Leadership Practices” is the extensive brainstorming and logical content expansion of my book “CIO Master: Unleash the Digital Potential of IT,” to re-imagine and reinvent CIO leadership via practicing multitudes of digital influence. The important thing is that CIOs as the top leadership role must have a strong mindset, a unique personality, and a clear idea of what needs to be done, yet creative enough to not hold the company back from growth. Regardless of which personality they have, digital CIOs need to be both transformational and situational, innovative and tactical, business savvy and technology insightful, communication-effective and operation-efficient. Here is a set of blogs to brainstorm CIO as “Chief Interaction Officer.”

            Chief Interaction Officer

CIOs as Chief Interaction Officer: Three Questions at the Big Table to Accelerate Digital Transformation Traditional IT organization is often perceived as the support function and a cost center and traditional CIOs are perceived as tactical IT managers and tech geeks. To really be considered an equal peer with other top business executives and board directors. CIOs have needed to both convince and deliver the alternative view of IT being a profit enabler and innovation engine. IT leaders have to communicate effectively to advocate IT as the strategic partner of the business. Because miscommunication or “lost in translation” is the key issue to separate IT from the business, it is worth the effort to take better communication approaches and be both creative and critical in enforcing business and IT collaboration. At the big table, which questions CIOs should ponder in order to enforce communication and accelerate digital transformation?

CIOs as “Chief Interaction Officer”: Can your Words Carry Weight in making the Digital Paradigm shift The pace of changes in IT would force more CIOs to shift into transformation-oriented digital leadership roles because IT plays a significant role in leading innovation and driving the digitalization of the company. However, in many organizations, CIOs have been perceived as tactical managers or even geeky technicians for so long, all forward-looking CIOs should ask themselves: “Can my words carry weight in making the digital paradigm shift?” How to become the “Chief Interaction Officer,” and “Chief Interpretation Officer,” and ultimately "Chief Influence Officer," for improving IT management effectiveness, building a strong IT brand, and amplifying digital leadership influence?

Practicing Creative Communication to Bridge IT-Business Gaps Due to an unprecedented level of uncertainty, velocity, ambiguity, and complexity, misunderstanding, misinterpretation or miscommunication are the big causes of many business issues and human problem in our society. Usually, IT-business gap is caused by miscommunication, communication clarity directly impacts on the business effectiveness and organizational maturity. Besides technical dialect or finance language, should IT leaders practice creative communication to close IT-business chasm, enforce business relationship and promote IT as a trustful business partner?

CIO as Chief Interaction Officer: How to Build Trust Business Relationships Modern CIOs have many titles, from ‘Chief Innovation Officer’ to ‘Chief Influence Officer’; from ‘Chief Insight Officer’ to ‘Chief Improvement Officer’, etc, but keep in mind CIOs also need to become ‘Chief Interaction Officer’ to build a solid business relationship, because nowadays, IT touches every key process of business and every digital point of customer experience.

The New Book “12 CIO Personas” Chapter 8 Introduction: The CIO as “Chief Interaction Officer” Traditional IT organizations are often perceived as the support function or the cost center, and traditional CIOs are perceived as tactical IT managers and tech geeks who often have the poor reputation of business communication. Thus, to reimagine IT with the art of the possible and reinvent IT to get digital ready, CIOs are the “Chief Interaction Office,” to envision, communicate, connect, and innovate in order to build a solid business relationship and improve organizational management maturity.

Modern organizations have their own sophistication with silo functions, the sea of information, and the pool of talent. The CIO is an inherently cross-functional role, to bridge the business and IT; the data and insight, the business’s today and tomorrow. The digital CIOs have to wear different personas and master multiple leadership and management roles effortlessly. They need to lead at the strategic level for conducting a complex digital orchestra; they should be handy managers to plumbing information and keep it flow smoothly; they also have to be like the diligent gardeners, to build a unique IT landscape via tuning technology, removing waste, nurturing culture, and empowering people.

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