Tim Stettheimer, SVP & Regional CIO, Ascension Information Services, Chapter 3

We’ve all heard talk about the evolving role of the CIO, but just how big of a role does relationship development and management play? If you ask Tim Stettheimer, it’s as much as 80 to 90 percent. Whether it’s being able to talk about the business on a deeper level with fellow executives or knowing your people well enough to identify the high performers, CIOs will not thrive unless they are willing to get personal, says Stettheimer, who is regional CIO for Ascension Information Services. In this interview, he discusses staff engagement and the waterfall effect, the question he asks to get to know people better, and how he works to maintain a strong presence despite being at a large organization. He also offers advice for introverted CIOs, and talks about what it takes to create a sense of trust.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3



* Face-to-face sessions to “create a profile for each leader”

* Partnership with Harvard Leadership Direct

* Professional development plans — “Everyone is involved.”

* Staff engagement & the waterfall effect

* New criteria for CIOs: know the business

* Engaging with other senior leaders — “You have to be in those conversations.”



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Bold Statements

We come together as a senior team to walk through accomplishments, to look at opportunities for people who may be high performing and have really been knocking it out of the park, and try to consider together how we may give them opportunities for further growth.

It comes back to people wanting to get better and wanting to improve, and most people do. And so if you work with them on that, everything else follows. Their job satisfaction will go up. Your retention rates will go up.

We have to be able to know the business at an even deeper level than we ever have. Otherwise, it’s hard to have conversations with our customers that are relevant.

What we do in healthcare is of critical importance, both for the clinicians who use the services that we deliver, as well as for the patients and families, who eventually received healing from those services. This is a big deal, and this is a big job.

Gamble:  In terms of some of the other ways to trying to increase staff engagement and build those relationships, I read about something Ascension does called a talent review sessions. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Stettheimer:  Sure. And let me be specific, this is actually something we do within Ascension Information Services on almost continual basis, but we have different activities we do around this. In the spring, we do have a face-to-face session with all the senior leaders within Ascension Information Services. And we come together to spend multiple days dedicated to talking about our talent, particularly our leaders and in within Ascension Information Services. It’s the director levels, the CIO levels, the senior director levels — all these levels of management that really are responsible for helping our organizations operate every day. We come together as a senior team to walk through accomplishments, to look at opportunities for people who may be high performing and have really been knocking it out of the park, and try to consider together how we may give them opportunities for further growth, as well as benefiting the ministry, and the organization we’re in, in terms of meeting needs.

For example, we’ll have profiles of each leader that will include things like what are their skills,