November 1, 1999

Ed Tobin: Build Communications Networks
By Ram Charan

Whether they come from a business or an IT background, CIOs have to communicate effectively with managers from both groups. "When dealing with business managers, you have to translate IT into business," says Ed Tobin, CIO of Colgate-Palmolive Co., an $8.97 billion supplier of personal-care products. "You really have to work on the communication, so they know what you're talking about and understand the strategy and don't just say, 'Yeah, that sounds good.'"

Tobin earned an MBA in finance and was in business planning before moving into IT about 16 years ago. "I had to learn the technology," he says. "But the way I look at it, you need to understand both sides. It's very easy to get lost in the technology and forget what the business does for a living."

A big part of communicating effectively, according to Tobin, is building networks with people on the business side. He suggests setting up a senior-level business steering committee. "You need to think of that group as if they were your board of directors," he says. "We have scheduled meetings four or five times a year on the management calendar, so everyone knows the meeting's there, and that's where you're talking about strategy and where you stand with it. So it's a very formal process that's about IT. That becomes a real key mechanism to report back to that group."

Tobin also suggests the CIO and other senior IT managers try to attend senior-level meetings among business managers, if they're discussing topics related to IT. "Get yourself invited to those meetings and discuss the strategies," he says. "We have a corporate-level steering committee, and then our operating division is doing the same thing, so things are cascading down. At the next level down, within IT, you take your senior management team and have the same formal process several times a year. That becomes the connection--'Look, here's what the senior business management is doing at one level, and now you're talking about the senior IT management at another level.'

"If the CIO and business management agree on strategy, you'll never implement it unless senior IT management hears that same strategy. So you've got the one group at the business level, and then you need to make sure you're getting that communication to the IT people, and that just keeps cascading down."

return to main story, "How To Survive As A CIO"

Photo by Dan Brinzac

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