The Great Waltz: Career Advancement in IT Strategies for individuals and institutions in the match-making process EDUCAUSE ‘02 Carrie Regenstein Mark Hale Lev Gonick Copyright Carrie Regenstein, Mark Hale and Lev Gonick, This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

The Great Waltz? Maybe it’s a tango (takes two!) Match-making process The individual The institution

Seminars on Academic Computing Discussion ‘02 Know yourself Skills and education Personal preferences and Life Principles/Goals Feedback from mentors and friends Learn about the current & future institutions Size and type Public/private SWOT Analysis Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats Is it a match?

Know Yourself Redux: Do I… Make a difference? Think about the success of the entire institution? Use a value-driven approach? Thrive in an uncertain environment? Take risks? Work like a generalist rather than a specialist? Hawkins & Marcum, Technology Everywhere, chapter 8: “Leadership Challenges for the Campus and the Profession”

Informal Survey CIO’s CIC, Ivy-Plus, CLAC, 2-year Quantitative (demographics) 68 respondents Anecdotal, not random sample Qualitative Path to position Personal perception

What surprised you? Difference between corporate and academic cultures Organizational “silos”: distrust instead of communication Senior management’s lack of breadth of understanding: everyone wants to be the final decision maker about every task. Importance of politics, negotiation, interpersonal & communication skills People skills outweigh technology skills

What do you wish you’d known before taking the job? Culture Politics, including unions & shared governance Setting expectations Institutionally Individually Challenging management issues Personnel Budget So much administrivia! It’s always about the people!

One piece of advice … Read New Work Habits for a Radically Changing World, by Price Pritchett “Imagine yourself as a diplomat in a hostile foreign country.” “Be flexible in your thinking,” but “never compromise your personal integrity or the integrity of your organization.”

One piece of advice … Learn the other parts of the IT world, but never pretend to know something that you don’t Don’t overreact; remain focused, calm and open “It’s a tough job — not a farm team any more!”

What would you have done differently? Understand earlier in my life that I really was going after a career.

The Survey Questions vetted at SAC Sent to a few CIO lists Mixture of numbers, stories Four categories I.Your institution II.Personal background III.Career path IV.Personal reflections on current position

The Institutions ClassSectorSize V bigBigSmallV small Resrch Public 8 Private MA Public 1551 Private 75 2 Yr Public 9106 Private

The People Asked for age, degree, gender 14 females, 54 males Coded degrees into years of study

Ages

Degree as years of study

The jobs 51 in first CIO job, 17 not 32 promoted to CIO from inside 36 moved to CIO, 9 from outside HE 13 had “parachute” clauses

Mobility explored Size Current VB B S VS PastPast Sector Current Pub Priv PastPast Class Current R 4/MA 2yr PastPast

Looking for Significant Relationships Data grouped on class, size, gender Institutional class No relationship with age, gender, severance or first CIO Weak relationship to degree_years Institutional size Only related to severance

Looking for Significant Relationships Class by size interaction Significant differences in average deg_yr Deg_yr increased with size in 2 yr schools Deg_yr decreased with size in research schools Gender – no relationships for CIOs….

Attributes for the job Vision, technical skills, management, political, communications Asked to rank-order Could add other attributes Sense of humor, relationship-building, tenacity, patience, leadership, budget skills, common sense, loyalty to staff…

The rankings … How often Vision Technical skills Manage- ment Politics Communi- cations First First or second st, 2 nd, or 3rd

Path to the job Data are complicated, varied Encoded by type of job: Computing (26 paths were all computing) Faculty (17) Academic admin other than Fa (16) Industrial (9) Library (8) Faculty administrative (8)

Path to the job Pure computing most common in 2 yrs Faculty roles decline from Rs to 2-yrs Acad Admin most common in V Big & R No industrial positions in R’s Library roles decline from Rs to 2-yrs

Survey summary Data are interesting Stories and thoughts are more so