Recently, Judith Glaser, CEO of consulting firm Benchmark Communications (which works with businesses to improve relationships between linked stakeholders such as sales forces and customers, managers and employees, and so on), began evaluating communications between CFOs and CIOs.

Her research found that CFOs and CIOs have a high degree of mutual respect and trust, a shared understanding of the current business environment, and open sharing of information needed to successfully execute technology strategies. And both sides are on the same page when it comes to jointly addressing obstacles to IT strategy execution, and have a shared sense of urgency for implementing technology strategies.

But there were also some markedly differing perceptions, most notably regarding whether each party knows what it needs to know in order to implement technology strategies. On that point CFOs were quite positive, CIOs far less so.

Friedgan says that disparity actually makes sense. "Somebody in charge of technology will know enough to know there are a lot of unknowns," he says. "But if a CFO asks the right questions about expenses, analytics, and projections, then he has everything he needs to know."

Glaser says that harmony hinges less on actually agreeing on specific points and more on finding a way to proceed even when agreement is lacking. "What I try to do is measure the agreements people have so they can celebrate successes around those," she says, "and then build on that by putting the conflicts on the table so they don't become toxic."

David McCann is senior editor for technology at CFO.

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