EQ4PM

Right Message, Wrong Audience - CIOs are People Who Need People

I read an article on CIO.com that got me riled up.  The article, Relationships:  CIOs are People Who Need People, talks about how important it is for CIOs to build relationships with stakeholders.  This was based on a meeting of the CIO Executive Council members who discussed best practices for relationship building.

It wasn't the message that got me excited; clearly CIOs need to build relationships.  In fact, the article basically described many of the relationship management approaches and techniques that we have talked about here on this blog.  This includes things like:

• Identifying your important stakeholder relationships
• Meeting individually with each of your important stakeholders
• Building your relationship skills like communicating, collaborating, listening without being defensive, and being flexible
• Ongoing relationship-building as an integral part of your job

The article even talks about a "Relationship Template" that sounds very similar to the stakeholder management tool we use in our EQ workshops for project managers and IT professionals.

What got me excited was the idea that they wrote this for CIOs.  Of course CIOs need relationship building and other emotional intelligence competencies.  You can't get the top technical job in a real company without those skills.  Does anyone think that individuals can progress in their career all the way to CIO without having these skills?  What, they get the job then all of a sudden they need to start building relationships?  I don't think it is is possible.  I mean, the only way I can imagine that someone can become a CIO without these skills would be if their dad owned the company.

One of the CIOs quoted in the article was a perfect example of why you can't wait to become a CIO to develop relationship skills.  Tom Langston of SSM Health Care Systems acknowledged that it was his relationships with the COO and the SVP of HR that got him the job as CIO.  I think the fact that he had no prior IT experience shows the relative importance of relationship skills to technical experience.   

And that is my beef.  The CIO Executive council is focused on the wrong audience.  They shouldn't focus on CIOs; it's too late for them.  If you got to be a CIO without emotional intelligence then you should probably thank your lucky stars and quietly get busy boning up on those important skills. 

CIOs should be focused more strategically on helping the up and coming IT professionals in the IT department.  They should be stressing the importance of relationship building skills and emotional intelligence.  It is those aspiring IT professionals who need to learn that being effective is more than just laying down quality Java code.  If they want to be CIO some day, these IT professionals need to learn to build effective relationships, empathize with their customers and stakeholders, and exercise control over their own emotions.  They need relationships and emotional intelligence more than technical skills, as Tom Langston's experience clearly demonstrates.

It's the right message but I think they are speaking to the wrong audience. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts - Anthony Mersino

EQ and Soft Skills for IT Professionals

My friend John Kennedy was kind enough to pass along an article from CIO magazine called Soft Skills for CIOs and Aspiring CIOs: Four Ways to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence.  The article talks about the importance of emotional intelligence and soft skills for all IT workers, from developers to CIOs.  It goes on to talk about the four ways to boost your emotional intelligence including:

1. Learn to Take Responsibility - Taking responsibility is defined as taking ownership to the extent you can for the situations in your life and creating the best from that.
2. Take a Public Speaking Course - Author Jim Clemmer claims the ability to verbalize, persuade and influence are tightly interwoven in what is at the heart of emotional intelligence and the work of influencing or relating to others.
3. Practice Yoga and Meditation - Yoga and meditation achieve mindfulness by using attention on breath as a tool to enable relaxed awareness, focus and objectivity.
4. Take an Improv Class - Improv illustrate what gives emotional intelligence such importance—people need people.  "Fundamentally you can't do much in life alone" said Richard Boyatzis, one of the well known EI researchers interviewed for the article.

I would not have included items 2 and 4 in my own list but cannot argue with them being important.  I also liked this quote from the article (the empasis is mine):

"Although we may think we don't or shouldn't bring our emotional selves to work, the truth is a bit different. For one thing, people want to hire, promote and simply be around people they like, those who are confident, even-keeled, optimistic, committed, trustworthy."

I've heard a lot of reasons for improving your emotional intelligence but never heard it put quite this way.  I do think it is absolutely true; people want to hire, promote and hang around with people they like.  Likability and charisma are just as important to career advancement as those certifications and other technical skills.

I think it goes a little beyond like-ability.  Simply put, IT professionals need to be able to play nice with others, specifically those on the business side.  Few IT professionals are isolated anymore.  Even the entry level developers need to communicate and build relationships with business analysts, project managers, end users, and even sponsors and clients.  Emotional intelligence and soft skills are necessary to be effective. 

Barbara Brown of Brown Wood Fish reminded me of some of the frustrations we had suffered through with problematic technology people in our shared dot.com past.  She also reminded me of the Saturday Night Live skit "Nick Burns - Your Company's Computer Guy".  Nick Burns was a computer support technician played by Jimmy Fallon.  He was smart but smarmy and condescending to everyone he was supposed to help.  The skit was funny to a lot of people because they knew people who behaved exactly like Nick.  It was funny on TV, but, in the words of Borat "not so much" in the workplace.

I have been intrigued by this recent interest in emotional intelligence by IT professionals.  I first noticed it at my workshops; folks would comment that the course was not just for project managers, that all IT professionals would enjoy it.  I've met with a number of IT Managers to discuss what they believe is behind this recent interest.  At least at CNA and Tellabs, the interest is coming from the top down; the IT leadership is driving it.

It will be interesting to see where this interest in emotional intelligence leads.  For my part, I am tailoring some of my emotional intelligence to be more relavent to IT professionals. 

If you have comments on Soft Skills for IT Professionals, I love to hear them.