Five characteristics of high-performing IT cultures

One CIO described a high-performance IT culture as one that has “the ability to achieve extraordinary things with normal resources.” Stability, partnership, and courage cultures are all capable of high performance

Creating a high-performing IT culture is a deliberate and ongoing effort that requires diligence, an informed approach, and continuous monitoring. A high-performing IT culture not only addresses business needs but is a source of competitive advantage. We found that high-performing IT cultures – whether stability, partnership, or courage – share five common characteristics.

1. Selective hiring: All CIOs want to hire the best talent, but CIOs in high-performing IT cultures are especially demanding. They hire very selectively, offer outstanding opportunities for career growth, and groom their staff to excel beyond all expectations. They also seek flexible employees that fit cultural needs. For example, in a courage culture, CIOs should look for candidates with a strong track record of risk-taking, innovation, and creativity.

2. Business outcomes – focused: By emphasising business results instead of IT activities, CIOs can clarify priorities and help teams understand their business impact. For example, they might orient the organisation toward business outcomes by flattening it to remove the distance between staff and customers; measuring senior leaders on time spent with internal and external customers; or linking IT incentives to business performance metrics such as top line growth, bottom line profitability, and customer satisfaction scores.

3. Fluid planning and budgeting: The pace of technology change has accelerated so quickly that in many cases, one-year planning cycles are no longer applicable. CIOs can prepare their IT teams to be agile and responsive by allocating operational budgets and developing effective governance mechanisms that allow for course corrections and priority adjustments.

4. Continuous learning: High-performing IT cultures invest in and reward continuous learning, branching beyond technology skills to include business aptitude, market dynamics, and business model innovations. This equips teams with the ability to predict and quickly respond to disruptions. For example, the CIO of one financial services firm consistently selects five percent of the IT workforce to be retrained for skills needed in the future.

5. Commitment to innovation: Innovation is not just the domain of the courage culture – all culture types need to innovate to be healthy. Innovation involves continuously looking for ideas to do things better, finding new ways to drive value, and creatively solving the thorniest business problems – regardless of culture type. For example, stability cultures might innovate by developing more efficient ways to operate IT environments, while partnership cultures can innovate to improve collaboration and consensusbuilding.

A company’s IT culture is as unique as a fingerprint. The CIO can proactively use culture as a dial to align an IT organisation to business needs, creating cultures of stability, partnership, or courage as required. To take it to the next level, CIOs can cultivate habits that drive IT culture to perform at the highest levels. When this happens, IT functions like a well-oiled machine.

Excerpt taken from the article “IT culture: From business limitation to competitive advantage”. For more information, please visit www.deloitte.com/mt/cio