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Interestingly, the current CIO credibility journey looks conspicuously like the Shelf-ware Process traveled by many enterprise applications. (see Shelf-ware Process side-bar at right). This is unfortunate because...
… CIOs that start this
credibility journey tend to get caught
in a vicious cycle of exclusion …
…that is extremely difficult to escape.
The cycle of exclusion works like this. Low and decreasing levels of CIO credibility limit their ability to influence executives throughout the enterprise. This lack of influence prevents the negotiation of realistic IT value performance expectations.
As the IT value expectation gap grows, the perception of CIO business acumen is further diminished. This growing perception of incompetence leads to an additional decrease in CIO credibility. Unchecked, this cycle continues to spiral downwards, creating constant negative pressure on CIOs.
Knowing this cycle exists is critical for CIOs because it reveals that the commonly proposed solution for improving business partner relations - better project alignment and communication skills - will not be enough.
Even further, delivering cost effective, reliable IT services will not reverse the credibility impacts of the vicious cycle.
Why? Because successful delivery against existing expectations will not create a material change in customer perception or satisfaction. The only way to reverse the cycle is to exceed existing expectations or to create new ones.
CIOs will need to reconsider their purpose and follow through with new acts of leadership if they wish to take control of the expectation dialogue (see sidebar at right). One high-impact area of leadership that is open to CIOs involves mastering, leading and leveraging the IT Adoption Discipline as shown below.
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Leading the IT Adoption discipline can be more than just self-serving. The existing leadership vacuum is the reason why so many companies cannot achieve effective usage of their enterprise software and therefore rarely achieve their intended business results.
Since CIOs are the common denominator in all IT-led business transformations; it is no wonder they are bearing most of the blame for their organization's lack of success with IT. On the flip side, CIOs that can deliver unexpected service excellence by mastering the IT Adoption discipline in their own backyard and bringing a vision for value realization across the enterprise will be the ones that destroy the Shelf-ware Process.
Conclusion: CIO destiny is about personal choice
The statistics that track the shelf-ware journey suggest that the role of the CIO is currently moving in the wrong direction. We cannot afford for this to continue for two reasons.
First, IT represents the backbone of our global village and will continue to be a critical factor in enabling growth and solving complex business problems. Second, the opportunity cost of marginalizing a large pool of creative and committed IT executives is far too great for the business world to bear.
CIOs are sitting at the nexus of their organization and, depending on personal choice are well positioned to do more than just avoid becoming shelf-ware - they can choose to lead their organization to higher business performance.
CIOs must choose a new path forward to take control of their destiny. Leading the IT Adoption discipline is one way to create CIO credibility and ensures that companies maximize the returns on their IT investments.
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