The Great Waltz: Career Advancement in IT

Strategies for individuals and institutions in the match-making process

EDUCAUSE ‘02• Carrie Regenstein• Mark Hale• Lev GonickCopyright Carrie Regenstein, Mark Hale and Lev Gonick, 2002. 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?

CulturePolitics, including unions & shared governanceSetting expectations

InstitutionallyIndividually

Challenging management issuesPersonnelBudget

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 categoriesI. Your institution

II. Personal background

III. Career path

IV. Personal reflections on current position

The Institutions

Class Sector SizeV big Big Small V small

ResrchPublic 8 Private 1 4 3

4+MAPublic 1 5 5 1Private 7 5

2 YrPublic 9 10 6Private

The People

Asked for age, degree, gender

• 14 females, 54 males

• Coded degrees into years of study

Ages

0

5

10

15

20

25

32-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51-55 56-60 61-65 66

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

2 3 4 6 8 9

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

SizeCurrent

VB B S VS

Past

8 1 2

3 2

1 3 3

1 2 1

SectorCurrent

Pub Priv

Past

12 4

1 8

ClassCurrent

R 4/MA 2yr

Past

5 3 1

3 6 3

1 1 2

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

PoliticsCommuni-

cations

First 21 5 16 17 16

First or second

33 8 34 27 39

1st, 2nd, or 3rd

45 18 51 39 53

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