Communicating with the CEO

When taken to task by the CEO for increasing IT costs or other key business issues, you can either agree and make the necessary cuts, or fight back. As an officer, your job includes arguing for IT despite resistance from other officers, including the CEO. So in response to the CEO's statement, you can try to explain the nature of IT expenses and use the meeting as an opportunity to make your case. You could agree with the CEO, followed by an explanation of why costs are being increased and how the results have benefited the company. The best result would be for the CEO to finally understand that IT is not really a cost center but rather, a department that enables the other parts of the company to do things more efficiently or to do things in a different way. IT is an investment rather than a cost.

Read more about communicating with the CEO:
- read the column at ComputerWorld

ALSO:
- read this on working with your CEO
- this on teaching tech to your CEO
- and this on forging a good CEO-CIO connection