Steve Macaulay
What are the key skills and challenges of IT managers and IT departments?
Now we are going to explore this issue with Dr Robina Chatham. Now
Robina businesses are constantly looking at how effective their IT departments are. IT departments are constantly saying to themselves, could
I do better? What’s your analysis of what’s required?
Robina Chatham
I think over the last ten years we have made significant progress in terms of our knowledge of the business and also being able to demonstrate value to the business, but I really think the challenges going into the future are very much about building a partnership with the business and engaging more in sort of personal relationships.
Steve Macaulay
Now you’ve spent a lot of time analysing that and looking at IT managers for real. Now if we look at one area and that’s this whole communications area what’s your analysis of how effective they are today?
Robina Chatham
I think that one of the big issues is that most IT people are very clever, they have got a high IQ and some of them believe being right is enough, but it isn’t, it’s about your ability to be heard and it’s very much about learning how to communicate with the business in business language rather than in technical jargon and their ability to influence, to inspire, to enthuse other people and to be able to reduce complex concepts very simply so the business can understand but without patronising or talking down to them.
Steve Macaulay
Now that sounds quite a long list. If you were to say well, let’s draw up if you like a skills competency profile here, where are the areas that IT managers particularly need to work?
Robina Chatham
I think it’s about developing their people skills, in particular their emotional intelligence. Their ability to read, understand and empathise with other people. To be able to put themselves in the shoes of the business and also I think they need to focus more on the future, innovation, how they can help the business what they can do rather than on what they can’t do or the risks associated with change.
Steve Macaulay
In an ideal world we’d say if you’d got big budgets, if you’d got all the time in the world, maybe you could make those changes but in practical terms what should be done to make this actually happen because it’s a big list you’re saying there.
Robina Chatham
Well the thing I find helps most is first of all to enhance people’s self understanding and we use various psychometric instruments particularly the
Myers Briggs Type Indicator to help them understand how they are, their strengths, their weaknesses, but more importantly how other people differ
© Cranfield University www.cranfieldknowledgeinterchange.com 1

Steve Macaulay from them and then learn how to communicate in not their language but you would be able to modify their language to that of the receiver and then we find they enhance their communication and also their ability to understand that different people have different strengths and its very much about drawing upon those collective strengths of a team.
So if you were to sum up then the key skills that IT managers need, what would they be?
Robina Chatham
Forward thinking, having a vision about the future. Having the courage to take a risk and sometimes challenge accepted wisdom, authority, to develop their influencing skills, having the passion to inspire and motivate others and also their empathy to engender trust and loyalty particularly when they are dealing with people on an individual basis.
Steve Macaulay
So that’s some very useful things to get cracking on. Thank you very much
Robina.
Robina Chatham
That’s a pleasure Steve.
© Cranfield University www.cranfieldknowledgeinterchange.com 2