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Women in IT

INTERVIEW WITH SAFECO CIO, DEETSY ARMSTRONG : COMMUNICATION SKILLS KEY TO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SUCCESS

By Margaret Corrubia

I recently met with Deetsy Armstrong, newly appointed Chief Information Officer of SAFECO Corporation, to talk about information technology issues, particularly as they apply to women. Armstrong was formerly Vice President of Information Services and Systems and has been with SAFECO for more than 20 years, serving in various technical and management positions. The newly created CIO position will encompass the same duties as her previous one, but adds even more visibility and importance to IS, a mission-critical resource at SAFECO and brings Armstrong up to the same level as her peers.

When asked what skills she has found to be most useful for a successful career in IT, Armstrong stressed business-related communication skills. Persuasion, negotiation skills, and understanding your customer’s business are crucial to success. She added that these should be accompanied by underlying technical strengths. Staying in touch with technical trends and issues can be a challenge as one moves up in an organization. Armstrong has recognized this and has become comfortable with not having done the job of the person she is supervising. You do not have to know Visual Basic, for example, to manage VB programmers. But, it is essential to keep up with the industry, which she does by attending an IT conference every year, surrounding herself with people who have strong technical skills, and participating in an idea-sharing forum with other CIO’s of property and casualty insurance companies. She added that, over the years, her choice of business reading material has become more mainstream (Forbes, Fortune, etc.), but that these publications themselves have focused more on the technical issues as well.

Armstrong has not personally encountered discrimination at SAFECO, although she acknowledges that the glass ceiling still exists. She feels this is due to the nature of people being more comfortable with those most similar to themselves. Men and women are naturally different, with varying interests and styles. These differences exist across cultural boundaries as well; we are all learning to accept and appreciate diversity.

I asked Armstrong about managing difficult individuals and conflict -- how does she handle these situations? What she finds useful is to put herself in the other person’s position -- what are his/her expectations, what are his/her "hot buttons"? Then she decides what role to play -- sometimes, a direct approach is best; other times, innocent and questioning is the way to go. The bottom line is that you can get more accomplished by working with the person’s style, not against it.

We also talked about work schedules and computing as a career choice. When her daughter was born 18 years ago, Armstrong made the conscious decision to work a "normal" schedule, which at SAFECO was 8 to 4:30 Monday through Friday. She has kept this up, in order to have personal and family time. By working smarter, instead of longer, Armstrong has managed to achieve success professionally and personally. Would she make the same choices, if she were choosing a career today? Yes, due mainly to her experience at SAFECO and it’s perception of IS as a competitive strategy, not just a service. She pointed out that SAFECO is primarily in the information business, not a tangible one like retail. Using technology to harness that information is what she enjoys. I asked her why, in her opinion, fewer women were entering computer-related fields. She stated that the number of both men and women going into IT has decreased; she cannot explain it. Her teenage daughter has no interest in computing as a career choice. We briefly discussed the "geek" image as a possibility, but could not say definitively that this is the reason. Armstrong is familiar with AWC and our mission; in fact, she participated in a panel discussion a couple of years ago. She praised the organization’s efforts on behalf of women in computing.

As CIO of a major corporation, Deetsy Armstrong has reached a level of achievement to which many of us aspire. As her comments indicate, technical skills alone are not enough. Learn the business you are in; be able to speak the language; understand those who work with you or for you and adjust your behavior accordingly; keep up with industry issues. In Information Technology, as with most other fields, communication skills are key.

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