| Think you’re an effective communicator? You might be, but even the best need a refresher from time to time, especially as the language of business, and the means to collaborate, are always changing.
From water-cooler riffing to big-picture strategizing, CIOs today need to have all the bases covered to put muscle on every part of the IT culture. It’s a privileged position to be in, leading a tech team and representing it across the enterprise. Don’t lose sight of that. But as Christina Wood discovers in today’s lead feature, there are increasing demands on IT leaders to be more skilled in language, listening, and the art of negotiation.
A conversation with the engineering team, for instance, is a very different one with the executive team, says Eric Johnson, CIO at PagerDuty. “Technical speak is the kiss of death for a CIO.” Basically, as a rule, you can’t communicate too much, especially with all the means to do so at your disposal like intranets, chat channels, or any method to grab the attention of an engaged audience — like an intro message at the top of a newsletter.
 | Carl Friedmann, Executive Regional Editor, CIO |
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