娇色导航

The AI revolution is creating opportunities for IT executives to drive innovation, growth and productivity. In this month’s Global Tech Tales podcast, we discussed that taking advantage of those opportunities will require new leadership skills and strategies. Here I outline a few of those ideas.  

You can watch our conversation here or in the video box below. 

Business as usual, focus on the future

Ask ChatGPT for the top skills that an IT leader needs in 2025, and it will return list a range of skills, including executive communication, innovation mindset and strategic vision. At the top of the list will be AI and digital fluency – understanding AI ecosystems and how they transform business models, staying current with emerging tech, and being able to strategically apply technology for automation and innovation – not just operational IT. 

This mix of operational and strategic resonates with our 娇色导航audience.  

Look at the ‘State of the CIO’ survey. Today most IT leaders are prioritizing time on security, operations, and modernizing infrastructure and applications. At the same time, they see their near-term future focus as being on business innovation and strategy. 

Take care of the day job but focus on the next thing.  

For IT this is the shift we have seen for some time, and it is accelerating. Savvy IT leaders are investing in their strategic and leadership skills. From a tech perspective, they are keeping up with AI and agentic.  

I spoke to a 娇色导航at an event in the US recently who told me that he and his direct reports set aside time every day to educate themselves on the latest developments and updates in AI tech. I doubt they are the only ones.  

IT leaders need to take care of the traditional business of running successful IT infrastructure and strategy in support of business strategy. But they should have at least one eye on the impact AI will have in the near-term future. That includes a focus on issues such as skills, organizational strategy, and leadership style.  (See also: Analytics, AI and the race to be prepared.)

Skills gap? Upskill and reskill

We’ve likely never seen so many IT professionals seeking work, yet for IT leaders it’s difficult to find employees with the right skills – especially in nascent areas such as agentic AI. The answer may be to take the talent you have and upskill.  

I recently joined a panel conversation featuring the 娇色导航of a large manufacturer with more than 40,000 employees. He said that within that organization they are identifying people in all roles at all levels and offering them training in agentic AI.  

This approach shows promise across a variety of organizations. Technical and conceptual training as an inspiration. Proof of concept projects that are as much about disseminating skills and knowledge as they are about succeeding on their own terms.  

We can’t know the potential or limitations of new technology, but we can empower people throughout our organizations to think proactively about solutions that utilize AI, and to educate and empower their peers. Act as guides and cheerleaders for AI experiments and projects at all levels. 

The agentic org chart

 How should IT leaders think about job roles within their organizations with the rise of generative and agentic AI? In discussed how he is focusing less on hiring customer service professionals in favor of AI agents, whilst reskilling existing customer service people to become account managers, where he needs more humans.  

 
Within IT and strategy some organizations have a named individual or team with overall responsibility for leading AI projects and solutions. They cascade out lots of technical training for existing infrastructure-, connectivity-, data center-, and end-user supporting staff.  

Then there is the wider issue of what drudge work (toil) in all roles can be replaced by agentic or generative AI, and what does that mean in terms of the shape of your human workforce. A lot of organizations are planning a similar future to Benioff: agents managed by humans.  

Using humans to direct agents in doing the work rather than to do the work themselves. It’s not without risk but should be considered: can you hire people to direct agents rather than do the work themselves? Will this be a force multiplier – if the right use case can be found? 

It’s incumbent on IT leaders to think the unthinkable with regard to organizational strategies. The staff you need today may not be the team of tomorrow, but if you upskill and empower the right people, maybe they will direct a new way of working.  

Problems to solve not jobs to do

Related to the upskilling/reskilling question is the way IT professionals are motivated in a changing world which demands new things of them. We recently published an article on the new rules of IT leadership. This states that the old way of training workers in new technologies has changed from showing how to do something to supporting workers to become tech fluent and having them figure out the way to succeed.  

Not so much ‘this is how you do the thing’ but here is a problem to be solved, and here is the potential and capability of technology to help you solve it, and here are some guardrails and a strategy… go figure it out. 

IT strategy and business strategy are becoming one and the same thing. IT leaders need to inform and inspire their teams to drive change, not just support business leaders. And that means giving technical training, contextualizing the work, and orientating staff around customer success.   

Great things can happen when people are motivated and unafraid of unknowns.