Originally interviewed in 2023 for the Marcus Evans Australian CIO Summit.
“CIOs spend most of their time discussing strategies, long-term objectives and opportunities, with the C-suite, Board and consultants, but that is not the language their technical people use every day. Their message often gets lost, and they don’t get the buy-in they are looking for. There must be better alignment between the teams,” said Greg Cassis, CIO & Program Director Service Modernisation, Australian Financial Security Authority.
Cassis was a speaker at the Marcus Evans Australian CIO Summit 2023, where he shared his perspectives on executive leadership, technical execution, change management, generative AI and cybersecurity.
There is a gap between the CIO and the technical team perspectives. CIOs spend their time focused on high-level issues, and they get caught up in that language even when they are with their technical people, who might have very operational roles that aren’t directly linked to organisational outcomes. Their messages get lost because they are not applicable. The changes or strategic conversations don’t impact the technical staff. It doesn’t make a difference to their daily tasks.
When CIOs are wondering why their teams aren’t buying into a strategy, it is not necessarily that they don’t want to, sometimes they simply do not understand how it impacts them. They don’t see the benefits of the change on their work.
There is a gap there. The challenge is in managing the difference in messaging between highly technical roles that are operationally focused versus the management executive level.
It is partly about understanding that not everyone needs to buy into the vision or the dream. Some people just want to deliver technically and understand only what they need to know. CIOs need to conduct stakeholder analysis around what’s important to different groups of people, and craft the message to make it relevant for them. One message cannot fit all. They cannot expect that everyone’s expectations are aligned. The messaging needs to be crafted accordingly.
When CIOs are thinking about change management, they should actually be thinking about change impact management. Managing the impact of a change on people. Rather than why the change is good, why now, we have to think about its impact and how to manage it. That is the same whether it is internal or external. Sometimes IT departments are the drivers of technical change, and we’re not always good at understanding how it will impact people internally and externally. We need to get better at that.
Many CIOs are being asked for their opinion on generative AI. Understanding how to embrace new technologies, apply them and extract value in a way that doesn’t compromise security or confidentiality is important. CIOs need to be at the front, educating people on what they are hearing about in the media. People are learning about Chat GPT outside of work, their children are using them, so understanding how they can be applied in the work context and leading the messaging is important.
The biggest risk for many organisations is the risk where customers stop trusting them with their money or information. There are different reasons why they might lose trust. We have seen privacy and cybersecurity breaches. Sometimes it is just somebody making a simple mistake, other times it is a sophisticated group of cyber criminals. But the impact from a customer trust perspective is the same.
However, there is a big difference if what is exposed is customer information the organisation didn’t need to keep. It is the leaking of that additional data that makes the breach much bigger than it needs to be. One way to reduce risk is by limiting the personally identifiable information the company saves, keeping just what is needed.
Take the time to speak to as many people in your technology division that you can, not just your management team, but outside of your division. Find out what people really think and what is going on.
"Their messages get lost because they are not applicable" - Greg Cassis
View Greg Cassis on Linkedin here.
Find out more about the upcoming Australian CIO Summit.
For more information, please contact: Kyriakos Xenophontos, kyriakosx@marcusevanscy.com