If you find yourself at the table with the other members of your C-Suite fielding questions about performance or uptime or that massive hack at your competitor's headquarters, how do you know how much detail to give so they're equipped and empowered but not overwhelmed?
That is a tough question to answer but a necessary one as well. In order to ensure we are continually providing value to the organization, IT must become more benefits-driven when speaking with key stakeholders. And how you talk to non-IT executives depends on the person and function. Some executives are more technical than others. Yet in my entire career I have not met a business leader with a desire for more detail than absolutely necessary. The CIO therefore, must also wear the hat of Chief Translation Officer. Executives need to understand the technology without having to deal with the nitty-gritty detail of it. And providing them with that understanding is a learned skill.
At any company, if you start with a “Here’s how it works” explanation, you’re in trouble. Why? Because nobody cares. What these people do care about is what a technology is going to do, why they should do it, what the benefit of it is, and how it’s going to drive the business. If business leadership had the time and ability to learn all they needed to about the technology to manage the business, they probably would look you up and down and ask, “So why do I need you?”
Make Execs Part of the Process
With the recent rise of so many categories such as cloud, mobile, and especially online security, I see a lot of terms getting thrown around where they didn't used to be. Managing new expectations and anxieties is a matter of sitting down with your executives and saying, “Look, you need to know about security and the risks and the threats, and what are we doing to mitigate those risks and protect ourselves as a company.” What they don’t need to know is what version of which firewall we’re using, or which virus protection or malware package has been implemented. That's irrelevant. They need to be reassured that we are protected and that systems are in place to ensure we remain protected.
In my role, I make regular presentations to our board of directors who I believe should be aware of the risks we face every day. Since it is impossible to fix and close every hole and vulnerability, there is no such thing as "no risk" and it's important for them to understand the potential risk and what I’m doing as CIO to mitigate it to the extent possible and reasonable. Including them in the decision process establishes a comfortable level that is invaluable.
The same dynamic exists with service uptime and service delivery and a lot of the other IT pieces. We don’t talk about how quickly or slowly we replace a PC when it’s broken. We talk about service and worker productivity. The same style applies - talk about the business benefits rather than the “how” it gets done.
Stuart Kippelman is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information officer of Covanta, a world leader in waste-to-energy and renewable energy projects. He is responsible for the global vision, strategy and operations of Covanta's IT organization.
