Dwane Sterling:

You’re most effective in the role when you don’t have to use as much of said social capital in order to get something done. You’re in a real bad spot, by the way, if you have to go to your boss, the president, whoever the board of trustees, and have them use their social capital, right? So, to a certain extent, this conversation about social capital is almost more about how do you get yourself into a situation where you don’t have to actually consume a lot of it, right? And that comes back down into whatever your value proposition is, that comes down to the performance of your team, comes down to the way that you position yourself, right? And back to the whole concept of higher education is undergoing a transition, right? I know a great many IT organizations where in the past they were the department of no.

Dwane Sterling:

So if you change that narrative and you say, we are no longer the department of no, we are the department of facilitation, right? So don’t come to us and just, and expect that we’re gonna say no. Come to us and expect we’re gonna have a conversation about what your needs are and how we can enhance those needs or bring you closer to those needs. Leveraging and using the technology. I’ve found that it tends to take maybe about a year and a half to two years or so, right? But if you can affect that kind of cultural change within your own IT department that a great, many of these other departments or divisions, whatever you wanna call them, they start to come to the table, right? You invite them back in from, from the cold, so to speak.

Joe Gottlieb:

That’s Dwayne Sterling, Chief Information Officer at Skidmore College. Turning our theme upside down by pointing out that the most important thing to remember about social capital is how to minimize its use. We talked about the role of social capital in affecting strategic change, the skills needed by IT leaders to become strategic CIOs. And what’s possible when your institution obtains a socially adept process rhythm that isn’t burning trust and other forms of social capital, but is actually creating them. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Joe Gottlieb:

Welcome to TRANSFORMED, a Higher Digital podcast focused on the new why’s, the new what’s and the new how’s in higher ed. In each episode, you’ll experience hosts and guests pulling for the resurgence of higher ed, while identifying and discussing the best practices needed to accomplish that resurgence. Culture, strategy and tactics, planning and execution, people, process, and technology. It’s all on the menu because that’s what’s required to truly transform. Hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of TRANSFORMED. My name is Joe Gottlieb, President and CTO of Higher Digital, and today I’m joined by Dwane Sterling, Chief Information Officer at Skidmore College. Dwane, welcome to TRANSFORMED.

Dwane Sterling:

Thanks for having me on, Joe. Very, very happy to be here. So what do you wanna talk about?

Joe Gottlieb:

I’m glad you asked, Dwane. I wanna talk about your thoughts on the importance of social capital for the strategic CIO, but first I love it if you could share a little bit about your background and how you got connected into the work of higher ed.

Dwane Sterling:

Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Interestingly enough, I got started out in retail, right? So I was working in working in warehousing and transportation on the engineering side of the equation. Very quickly transitioned into technology within that space that got me a little closer to the money side of the business. They put me in merchandising. That’s where I got my feet wet with with analytics and reporting. Started doing some project management, wound up in healthcare. Actually, at that point healthcare needed a lot of a lot of help on the change management project management side of the equation. From there entered into management and then ultimately wound up here in higher education as a CIO. Now, of course, there’s a whole bunch of details in there that make for very exciting you know, I guess campfire stories. But we’ll leave that to the rest of the conversation.

Joe Gottlieb:

Excellent. Well, it’s great to have you on board. And so imagine you’ve, you bring a little bit of a, well, a diversified perspective from those other types of businesses that you’ve worked in. As you think about the work in higher ed, and I’m sure that will come to light in the conversation, and in fact, let’s start right there. The role of a Chief Information Officer in higher ed in particular has certainly evolved substantially during the last 10 years from, I would say, an operational focus to a more strategic focus. How would, how would you describe this shift in your terms and your words, and how has it shaped your experience as a CIO of Skidmore?

Dwane Sterling:

Well, so, you know, it’s interesting. I agree with that completely. I think what’s most interesting about that is that we are in the process right now of undergoing that change, right? And so, you know, with other industries, you know, whether it be healthcare or, you know, in this case, retail, we’ve seen that transition. It has to take place, and they’ve already undergone that on the higher education side. Now, my feeling is that, that this industry is now dealing with the growing pains of having to make that transition over from CIOs being primarily operational to that of the more strategic CIO, right? So in in essence, actually, they’re finding that CIOs are having to grow into truly executive roles, whereas before, they were probably a little bit more on the operational side. And that comes with a, a whole host of required skills, which I’m not entirely certain that folks in the IT universe are particularly poised to to have.

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, let’s talk about some of those skills. As I, I tend to agree with you, it makes a lot of sense. One of the things that’s true about the technical world is that there are certain people that are just more comfortable understanding technology than others. A lot of those folks wind up in the technical field and pertinent to this conversation, right? You can, you can start to become attached to that. And before you know it, you’re translating for people. So if you want to enter, if you wanna collaborate with people that have different responsibilities, that, and, and collaboration is important. Sometimes there can be a language gap and a, and even an interpersonal and, and, and skill gap, right? So if you agree, what are some of those sort of, sort of skills that show up in that gap?

Dwane Sterling:

<Laugh>? So, so you actually, you said that so much more kindly or nicely <laugh> than, than I would. I, so here’s my question, right? My question back, not, this is rhetorical, of course, but my question back is how many people wound up in it because they felt more comfortable with the technology than the people, right? And so there’s a certain percentage, I won’t, like, enlighten us on what that percentage is, but there are a certain percentage of people that were drawn to that specifically because there’s less interaction with people. Well, now, this transformation as we go from operational over into this, we’ve gotta be executive, we’ve gotta manage change, we’ve gotta be more strategic. It’s now forcing people out from the shadows, so to speak. And it’s putting them in a position where in order for them to succeed within the realm of trying to execute on that change, they have no choice but to become very we’ll call it socially savvy. And I even go so far as to say, if you’re gonna be in the upper reaches of it, very, very socially adept.

Joe Gottlieb:

I wouldn’t disagree with you. And, and you’re right, this is something that could be sensitive for some people, but it’s, it’s observable, right? It is. And, and the natural tendencies that, that might lead someone to really develop an interest, let’s just say in STEM, in the sciences, right? Like they, these, the, not exclusively, but these have often been less, well, less focused on social interaction, where other fields are much more socially interactive. It’s a fact, right? But you’re quite right. The role of technology has evolved to become so much more prevalent. And I think that helps change it on both sides. I think more people that never had an interest in technology directly and are quite social in their interaction or their choice of profession or, or, you know, the way that they, you know, operate in this world are becoming more familiar with technology and there’s an easier time maybe for them to relate to folks that are more technology savvy. But you’re quite right. Those that are well in this space have seen the need to develop some of these traits, particularly as organizations have had to evolve to make more effective use of technology. I think that’s the construct that we’re talking about here, right?

Dwane Sterling:

Yeah. I mean, so here’s what’s interesting, right? I I tend to describe it as what is the organization’s technology iq, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And that’s not necessarily do, you know, Excel or any specific application, but the folks within the organization, how acclimated are they towards the solutions that technology presents, right? Ultimately, that’s going to, to effectively determine whether or not your organization can compete in the environment, right? Those organizations that are more ready on the uptake with technology, or more acclimated towards instituting technology that provides, you know, process benefits or, you know, any number of other benefits, they’re just naturally going to do a lot better, right? Yeah. And so it’s interesting to balance that versus the essence of whatever makes you the organization that you are, right? Because the last thing you want is for your organizational identity to then be lost within this mass of all this new technology, right? So your consummate IT leader knows and understands, and, you know, I’m sure we’ll get to this, knows and understands the ethos of the organization, and then builds an infrastructure that allows that ethos to to grow in an organic organic fashion.

Joe Gottlieb:

It’s so true. And I think when you talk about technology IQ, you’re not talking about bits and bytes. I’ll bet you’re talking about how there’s a, there’s an adage, I forget who penned it, you might think of it, but this notion of technology when it first appears, will appear like magic until you understand it, it’ll, it, it, it, it it for most people, right? And, but, but when you start to recognize it and become more familiar with it, it just becomes what you expect to utilize. So email, for example, no one would say email is a techie thing anymore. It’s just taken over what we used to do in terms of posting letters to each other, and we all, and then, okay, so literacy is involved for sure, and not everyone is literate, but for the literate world, right? It is just a ba it’s a technology that’s not magical at all anymore, right? And so

Dwane Sterling:

I’ll say, let me cut in there, right? I’ll say, I actually have lowered the barrier to entry for what I would consider to be high technology IQ. What I will accept as an IT leader is just the notion of I know that there’s a tech, a technical solution out there that can help me mm-hmm <affirmative>. So you don’t need to know the calculator or email. I will accept you just knowing, hey, there’s gotta be something here that makes this easier. And if I can get my folks to that point, my folks being the peers or the, you know, the rest of the folks at the, the institutional organization to understand that there must be a way to do this better or to enhance our process, leveraging or using technology, even if they have no idea about it, just come to me with that notion we can take care of the rest.

Joe Gottlieb:

I love that. And because it is what you need to free people up to contemplate the art of the possible in any organization’s evolution, right? Any institution figuring out how are we gonna pursue this aspect of our mission? How are we gonna achieve this particular strategic objective? How are we gonna deal with this nagging tactical annoyance that must be fixed, right? Like, all the above. If you have this reasonably familiar and non-threatening concept of there’s gotta be a solution out there. Like, so let’s presume that first let’s get excited about what we want to do, and then let’s Dwane let Dwane and his team help us accomplish it in collaboration as we pursue this in a way that we’re on the hook to deliver it. We as department heads, deans, you know, administrative leaders, you know, the president, et cetera, right?

Dwane Sterling:

Right. And, and so, you know, that really, we’ll say, changes the nature of my role, right? Because I almost start out having to evangelize technology. And then once people kind of hear that and say, wow, that okay, I’m, I’m interested, right? Then my role kind of shifts a little bit, right? And now all of a sudden, I, you know, I become the ambassador, right? And it’s, we want Dwane around because he’s going to represent technology in this space in a way that’s, you know, that’s, that’s helpful for us.

Joe Gottlieb:

This is some of the best description I’ve, I’ve arrived at of this nuance that eludes many organizations, right? This concept of, and I think it’ll play out throughout this conversation around how to be a strategic CIO. It’s just this nuance around collaboration with IT capabilities in tow and en enabling only at the level required to make that what is really a business collaboration. And we, yes, it’s in an institutional context. That term always seems to dilute the academic or institutional focus, but it should not, right? It is this, it is, it is the, the group of folks that are driving an institution forward. I wanna shift gears a little, and now say, especially given the necessarily strategic focus of today’s CIOs, how would you characterize the pathway from IT specialist to IT generalist to IT leadership? Because I think there’s some, there’s some proactive behaviors that have to come along that path, right?

Dwane Sterling:

Yeah. I, I would say the best way of describing it is that it’s fraught, right? And I think, you know, maybe first off, I would almost shift this around, right? I’d say that most people probably get their feet wet in an IT generalist kind of way. They discover a concentration that they, like, they move down that specialist pathway. And then unfortunately, at that point, they tend to run into a barrier. Right? Now, typically that transition happens somewhere between being a manager and being a director, right? Once again, keeping in mind you start off as a generalist, then you specialize in one particular area, then you become a lead, then you become a manager in theory, then you get a, the, to the director position and, and go from there. But the director role is the one role where, at least in my job descriptions, right?

Dwane Sterling:

Mm-Hmm. It is expected that you have social and or political savvy within that role. And I find that making that transition is tough for a number of reasons, right? Certainly there’s the easy, you know, the low hanging fruit of, well, my job has never been about talking to people from before or managing expectations on that social level. But the other barrier I find, is a lot of times they just don’t wanna do it, right? This is a, you know, my job before has been over here doing this very specific thing that I feel comfortable with. Now you are injecting an element of uncertainty insofar as having to manage and manipulate the hearts and minds of people in order to help them execute on that change. And that doesn’t feel good. I don’t spend my time doing the stuff that I wanted to do anymore.

Dwane Sterling:

Now I’m spending my time dealing with, we’ll say, unfortunate personalities or, you know, and back to the whole concept of, you know, how many people really want change, right? Yeah. So if you’re the one bringing change, you have to understand this is, I described it before as being violent and vicious, right? And, you know, and I think a lot of people that are true change managers really resonate with that, right? But, you know, if we’re gonna borrow a a tired phrasing from from the mafia, your, your change manager at a, at a high level, this is not your peace time consigliere, right? Your, your change manager is a wartime general. They understand that change is violent, vicious, and bloody, and nobody wants, really wants to do it. They need it, right? They don’t enjoy it, but they need it. So, so our job is to try and visit that and getting IT leaders to the point where they have to embrace that, and that becomes their day to day. It can be challenging to find people that are down for that challenge.

Joe Gottlieb:

So that’s certainly true. I wanna, I wanna look at this through a lens that I think applies. And that is, there’s this thing called credibility <laugh>. And, and in the technical world, <affirmative> tech cred is a thing for sure, right? It, you know, it exists in a lot of other parts of society, but for sure, people in tech look at their peers and they, they unavoidably evaluate them based upon how much they respect that individual’s depth of technical expertise. It for sure runs this interesting labyrinth of specialization versus generalists, right? So it’s okay, you can be a specialist and he’s really, really, he or she’s really, really good at that, but they also cover reasonably well across the broad, broad swath. So this being a thing, how does it lead to, and you mentioned how fraught this is, right? So maintaining the cred and I, and, and, and the other thing that happens is, politically, in an organization, if you use your technical cred and your, your knowledge to scare people, to use fud, fear, uncertainty, and doubt, it’s a weapon that can be not only abused, but you can get addicted to it, right?

Joe Gottlieb:

And, but, but the problem with that is you’re using FUD to now keep the people you need to collaborate with, kind of on the defensive and dependent upon you, versus demonstrating something that can, they can trust. I, I, I’ll, I’ll help us figure it out. Let’s free ourselves back to that notion of, you understand it can be done. Let’s have that conversation and collaborate. I’m not gonna scare you into my choice. I’m gonna help us arrive at our choice, but I’m, I’m responsible to, to make sure I give you options. And how does that play out in this whole so tech cred universe.

Dwane Sterling:

So there’s, there’s so much there that we could probably make a two-hour conversation about just that. And still not even scratch the surface, deeply guilty.

Joe Gottlieb:

We’ll be right back.

Emily Rudin:

Hi, I’m Emily Rudin, Chief Client Officer at Higher Digital and proud sponsor of the TRANSFORMED podcast. Higher Digital is a full-service product agnostic consulting company, providing strategic, functional, and technical expertise to help colleges and universities navigate digital transformation successfully. We believe true transformation isn’t about forcing change, it’s about unlocking the potential already within your institution. Our expert teams specialize in creating tailored solutions for your unique challenges, enabling meaningful and measurable progress. Higher education is evolving faster than ever. How is your institution adapting? Let’s start the conversation today. Visit Higher.Digital.com to learn more.

Joe Gottlieb:

And now back to our program.

Dwane Sterling:

So there’s, there’s so much there that we could probably make a two-hour conversation about just that, and still not even scratch the surface, deeply guilty. Let me, let me start off by saying anybody who exists on the security side of the equation, right? Knows that you can move people through force by saying, this is gonna be a security nightmare. We’re not going to allow you to do that. Every time you utilize that, however you can get something done, you’re taking yourself away from the other side of leading people, right? And this is the reason why I say this topic is just, is super deep, because have you ever spent any time thinking about how it is we characterize leaders, right? So in, in my, from my perspective and in my experience, leaders tend to fall into one of three categories. You either lead through intelligence, in which case everyone follows you because that guy is smart, we know he’s smart, we’re gonna follow him, we wanna be making the right decisions along with him, right?

Dwane Sterling:

You lead through through charisma, which is, we’re gonna follow that person because we like him and we trust in them. Or you lead through willpower, which is regardless of whether or not this person has always been spot on, they always come out on top. You know, people, leaders who lead through willpower tend to have a fair amount of battle scars, but there are a lot of people in the organization who say, <laugh>, we’re not willing to challenge that person. ’cause They always come out on top, right? So to a certain extent, this conversation breaks down into what kind of leader are you looking to have in your, your organization, or how do other people see that person from a leadership perspective? You start to erode away at their ability to truly embrace you as a leader. If you rely too strongly on the fear tactics, right? Yeah. Sometimes you have no choice, right? ’cause They, they, it’s very hard for them to get it and or to get it quickly enough. But that’s almost never the approach that I prefer to take.

Joe Gottlieb:

I think that makes a lot of sense. There are circumstances that call for it, and yet it leaves behind this scar tissue that you mentioned that when it can be avoided is quite useful. And I think that’ll, that’ll come into play here as we evolve this conversation. So what role? So I think now it’s a good time to now tackle this social capital concept. So given what we just said about not using fear and creating that scar tissue with, you know, trust me I’m right. Type behavior and, and engagement models. Let’s talk about social capital. What role does social capital play as the new currency of strategic IT leadership?

Dwane Sterling:

You know, well, I’ll, I’ll say this boils down to influence, right? And so, you know, I, I think it’s safe to say we all have a certain amount of social capital. It’s all about whether or not we’re applying it effectively to get her job done. Right? Now, this might sound strange ’cause there’s certainly a conversation about social capital, but you’re most effective in the role when you don’t have to use as much of said social capital in order to get something done. You’re in a real bad spot, by the way, if you have to go to your boss, the president, whoever the board of trustees and have them use their social capital, right? So to a certain extent, this conversation about social capital is almost more about how do you get yourself into a situation where you don’t have to actually consume a lot of it, right?

Dwane Sterling:

And that comes back down into whatever your value proposition is, that comes down to the performance of your team, comes down to the way that you position yourself, right? And back to the whole concept of higher education is undergoing a transition, right? I know a great many IT organizations where in the past they were the department of no, right? And, and they felt empowered in doing so. Now, here’s the problem with that. The departments that rely on it, they’re not going to rest back on their laurels while the IT department stands in the way of them accomplishing what they’re looking to accomplish, right? And as a result, they then seek to self-soothe. They hire their own technical people, or they add on their own, you know, their own technology. And it’s just almost ineffectively from the perspective of overall productivity ineffectively executed mm-hmm <affirmative>. So if you change that narrative and you say, we are no longer the department of no, we are the department of facilitation, right?

Dwane Sterling:

So don’t come to us and just, and expect that we’re gonna say no. Come to us and expect we’re gonna have a conversation about what your needs are and how we can enhance those needs or bring you closer to those needs. Leveraging and using the technology. I’ve found that it tends to take maybe about a year and a half to two years or so, right? But if you can affect that kind of cultural change within your own IT department that a great, many of these other departments or divisions, whatever you wanna call them, they start to come to the table, right? You invite them back in from, from the cold, so to speak. If you try and take it aggressive and it’s, Hey, we are, we control this, we’re in charge of that, and we’ll say no, then they stay out there and we will as an organization continue to be, you know, unproductive versus what we could be.

Dwane Sterling:

If you take that collaborative approach, now all of a sudden people are willing to, to come to you and say, let’s talk about what my needs are. How can I effectively consume your services? And all it takes is a few wins in there before the other departments come and say, whoa, wait a second. You, you helped out the finance team and it seems like everything got better for that. Is there anything you can, you can do for us? And we’re seeing that now, right? With you know, with some of the AI stuff that we’re doing. And interestingly enough, the you know, the, the CFO sat me down and had a conversation with me the other day and he said, I said, Dwane you know, do you think that there’s any ways in which AI can, can help my universe? And I gotta say, I almost actually had a heart attack. I have a little bit more social savvy, so I, I kept a straight face, but in my mind, you know, there’s part of that, it kind of just died from shock.

Joe Gottlieb:

Yeah. Well, boy, a couple things I wanna pick up on what you just said. So for one, I love that concept of breeding a little envy among departments about how a good process can work and yield benefits and, and have more people saying, Hey, I wanna partner with you too. And it sounds like you had a good example of that with your CFO getting curious about all the, all the fun stuff being done with AI. And you’re right. That is one that nor that, that cuts across the usual pattern. So I’ve <laugh> Yeah, I, I understand what you mean by being floored, but I also now want to bring the social capital concept. I like how you, how you basically inverted the question around, or, or, or made the direct statement that social capital is a cost and the best projects, efforts, initiatives minimize the use of social capital because they maximize good process, good communications, they just so social. Another way to think about social capital is, well, people have to trust me and I have to build trust. So trust is a form of social capital. I’m sure you’d agree, right? And so, so all the talk about trust and its importance deserves the same kind of reckoning that we’ve just done with social capital, which is, boy, if you need a lot of trust, maybe you should, should investigate your methods to see if there’s a better way to go about this more transparently where trust is not so required.

Dwane Sterling:

Well, and, and you know what? So I I’m glad that you, you teased that out, right? Because this is where this is where I make the statement, and I fully accept that that I have a bias here, right? But the statement that I, I typically make is, I believe that it’s harder to be a, a consummate executive within the IT space than it is in many of these other we’ll say, divisions or, you know, or, or what have you. And the reason for that is in order for us to build that trust, that social capital, that currency, it starts off with being operationally sound. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Right? And so what we’re expecting out of our leaders on the IT side is we’re expecting for them to have the operational sound, the technical skills, but then on top of that, you also have to have the, you know, be a social champion. You have to be savvy, you have to be able to present concept, you have to be able to win over the hearts and minds of of people. And I’m not entirely certain that the executives of other areas are similarly. And this is not just in higher education. I think this is, you know, across the board. I’m not certain that their pathway is quite as wide stretching on that spectrum.

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, I don’t know if it was in a prior conversation with you or somebody else, but I was recently in a conversation where we arrived at this minor epiphany, and maybe everyone’s known it for a long time, and I think maybe even, it feels like I’ve known it in other ways for a long time. But this notion of no other executive in any organization, it’s, you’re right, it’s not just limited to higher ed. No other executive deals with supporting, I’ll say deals with that. That’s a, that sounded like a pejorative No other executive really is required to collaborate with every part of the organization. But the chief executive, so the chief executive and the CIO share a trait in this regard, they both must be servant leaders to the entire organization. And no other departmental leader has the same responsibility, has the same obligation.

Dwane Sterling:

That’s very true. I often describe it as there is no one department here that touches every single person that comes in contact with the, with the organization. We are the single thread that connects absolutely everyone.

Joe Gottlieb:

So imagine what that means. What it means is, and remember the president or CEO is in the top spot, and so they have a certain amount of control and power, in theory servant leadership would argue otherwise, but they certainly have some, some tools that the CIO doesn’t quite have <laugh>. And so you could argue then the CIO’s role is the hardest role in the organization by, by, by now just distribution of this equation that we’re running right now. Imagine what that triggers. It not only triggers both the need to now collaborate effectively with different domains, right? Right. But also then different personalities that happen to be running those domains at any given time and within the context of the, of the organization and in the context of how things change over time, right? So, so it’s a fascinating fabric to, to consider. And this is why I’ve often stated, and this is why I’ve, earlier I said I’ve, I’ve felt, I felt I’ve known this for a while, but we’re putting a finer point on it in one way, is that the CIO is actually in a very unique position if they’re up to the challenge to facilitate an organization’s ability to drive sustainable intentional strategic change.

Joe Gottlieb:

Yes. Because they see it all, they can help the organization benefit from what they see in consolidating the, the aggregate requirement for change. Because every change in an organization now triggers a technology change. There’s no escaping it. And so the ci the, or the IT organization feels every need that the organization has with some exceptions. But for the most part, it is the most, it is the most summarizing ing proximity in the organization, which is fascinating. And so they are, they’re in a position, if they have the skills and they have the trustworthiness, I’ll, I’ll say, I’ll state it just like that because they could, they can abuse this or they can struggle with this, but they’re in a position to really help the organization accomplish intentional, sustainable strategic change. Does that, does that make sense to you?

Dwane Sterling:

Yes. And it’s very true. The piece that I think is most difficult though, is as you’re making that transition from operational to strategic, it’s very, very often the case that that technology person is not invited to the table of conversation.

Joe Gottlieb:

We, we know this happens a lot,

Dwane Sterling:

Right? And so, you know, I remember, and this happened a while ago, you know, or say a long time ago, I remember having a conversation with with someone and I said, yeah, you know, well, Dwane, I’m gonna, I’m gonna invite, I’ll invite technology to the table, you know, whenever we have a topic that comes up that involves technology. And my response was, what topics do you have in this organization that don’t involve technology? So, you know, so back to this concept of the, the difficulty of kind of circumnavigating this that, that social capital, some of the times it’s how do you figure out, you know, what do you do in order to, to get technology as a discipline to be brought into the conversation in an environment where you have to undergo that change? And most people, it’s not just the leadership within IT that have been primarily operational. Well, everyone else also, they’ve seen it as operational, right? So this goes back to that concept of raising that technology IQ, right? How do you get other folks to understand that we have to embrace technology. They’re not gonna come in and grandstand, they’re not gonna stand in the way of things. And ultimately the reason for that is technology is of all departments and of none,

Joe Gottlieb:

Right?

Dwane Sterling:

That’s where it becomes truly important for you to use your, your social capital to influence people in a way such that they start to see technology as a tool that they need to leverage in order to be effective moving forward.

Joe Gottlieb:

It’s very true. And there, and every organization presents different obstacles and different pathways through that. I wanna, I wanna bring this around to towards closure, and I want to give you a chance to talk a little bit about how you’re leveraging what you’ve built at Skidmore and how you’ve applied some of these notions there. You’ve completed a long list of projects in your almost six years there now. Spanning E-R-P-C-R-M-L-M-S, you know, security. This seems like a great foundation. It seems like having modernized a lot of these systems, you’re now in a place where the organization not only can be stuck being preoccupied with remediating a lot of of those older systems, but now can look up and pursue strategic objectives on a, on a modern base. Is that true? And if so, let me share some of the examples of that.

Dwane Sterling:

Yeah, so, you know, so here’s where, where things get fun, and maybe we’ll kind of dial it back a little bit. So, interestingly enough, when I first got to to Skidmore, a large portion of the reason why they brought me was because I had, I was somewhat well known in the area, although in, in healthcare well known for bringing a lot of change with me. So that was part of the reason why they, they brought me you know, I could certainly have come in and in a ham-handed fashion, said, all right, we’re gonna change all these different things and it would’ve been a disaster. One of the things that I did was I wanted to really understand the organizational ethos, right? And every organization has it. Skidmore is this creativity, right? And so what, what Skidmore is really looking for is it’s really looking for an effective platform within which it can grow or build these creative structures.

Dwane Sterling:

Now we’re higher education, right? And so a lot of that lives within the realm of, of you know, of of, we call it pedagogy for those that are not as familiar with higher education terminology. So a lot of that lives within the realm of teaching and what we do with students and faculty members. I took that concept and worked that very same concept just onto the functionality of the systems that we relied upon, right? Because interestingly enough, if you’re not talking about students and faculty, the mentality of students and faculty actually still bleed over onto the staff side, right? And so we’re often, we like to call ourselves faculty adjacent, right? That’s a fancy way of saying that. Although we are not actually faculty members, we do tend to have a lot of personality quirks in common. And so long story short, with creativity kind of being at the core of what Skidmore really holds most dear building out platforms from the perspective of growing the capabilities that we have, that’s where we really make our bread and butter, right?

Dwane Sterling:

And so as we came in, and I, I, you know, if you want to use an example, certainly as I came in, it was, you know, let’s replace the ERP solution that the one that we had was was 20 years old at that point. And anyone that will talk about it in non hushed terms will tell you that’s certainly long in the tooth, right? So we had the, the ERP solution, I would say if I had to be pressed for it. And it’s maybe, well, let’s see, I, if I had to be pressed for it, I’d say one of the most pivotal things that we did was change our integration platform, right? So we didn’t have one from before. And we went to a model where we’re now leveraging, you know, integrations in the, in the cloud. But that fundamentally changed the interaction of all of our applications on campus and gave us access to a whole host of new skills and capabilities.

Dwane Sterling:

And I would say even five and a half years post us… ’cause That was one of the first changes I’d made five and a half years… Post us making that change, I still have people coming to me today saying, I’m so glad that we moved in in this direction. I try not to say that too loudly ’cause I feel like the vendors are listening and they’re definitely gonna make me pay when it comes time to to renew that contract. But truly, that’s been one of the most pivotal steps that we’ve taken. And it keys back to that concept of Skidmore loves creativity. That’s who we are as a core. Let me build you a platform upon which that creativity can can grow and flourish.

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, I love that you wound up using that example because integration, while not seen on the surface by all these, you know, department heads really is the heart and soul and guts of how to make systems talk to one another to allow data to flow, to then make that creativity exists on, as opposed to be obstructed by a lack of flow, by a lack of integration. So it’s a great example of something that might not have been so obvious and so predicted. Great way to close this. You, you’re right, we could talk for hours about this. Let’s bring it to a close though. In summary, what are three takeaways that we can offer our listeners on the topic of the importance of social capital for the strategic CIO?

Dwane Sterling:

Well, you know, so I’ll say you know, the first is which character, which role are you gonna play in any given situation, right? You know, I, I like to characterize it as saying, and I hit on it earlier. Sometimes as the technology guy, you have to be the evangelist, right? Your job is to go out and really stoke that, the flames of excitement and passion. Other times it’s the ambassador, right? You’re sitting across the table and you just, you have to make sure that everything moves smoothly. And then lastly, there’s always gonna be this role of being the negotiator, right? So you, you’re going out and you’re wheeling and dealing a lot. You definitely have to do it with the vendors, but interestingly enough, you have to do it with the folks inside, right? So the first piece, of course is kind of grabbing that role and knowing, you know, which roles are, are what and what given situations, right?

Dwane Sterling:

The second piece is kind of understanding the game, right? That, that includes understanding how decisions are actually made at your organization, right? Are decisions made based off of intelligence? Are they made based off of influence? Are they made based off of money? And I’ve known a lot of situations where people think one thing, they’ll think, oh, we make decisions here based off of intelligence, when in reality it’s made based off of influence, then they wind up somewhat sore that the decision was not made in a way that they predicted, right? So, so it doesn’t matter necessarily which of those it is, but you have to know if you’re gonna be a change manager, if you’re gonna be a leader, if you’re gonna be an executive, you have to know how decisions are made in your organization, right? And then the last piece is just, I guess maybe really simple is just keep in mind, right? It’s not a, it’s not a pleasant pathway to, to institute change, but keep in mind, nobody likes change, but everybody wants it. And, and particularly if they see other people going through that change. So, you know, so nobody really likes the change, but everybody wants it ultimately.

Joe Gottlieb:

Dwane, great summary. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Dwane Sterling:

No thanks for having this has been fantastic

Joe Gottlieb:

And thanks to our guests for joining us as well. I hope you have a great day and we’ll look forward to hosting you again on the next episode of TRANSFORMED. Hey, listeners have transformed. I hope you enjoyed that episode and whether you did or not, I hope that it made you stop and think about the role that you are playing in your organization’s ability to change in the digital era. And if it made you stop and think, perhaps you would be willing to share your thoughts, suggestions, alternative perspectives, or even criticisms related to this or any other episode, I would love to hear from you. So send me an email at Info@Higher.Digital or Joe@Higher.Digital. And if you have friends or colleagues that you think might enjoy it, please share our podcast with them as you and they can easily find TRANSFORMED is available wherever you get your podcasts.