In the last "CIO Chronicles" ("Don't Survive, Thrive," March 2007), we talked about what stands between a CIO and the possibility of greater accomplishments. As always, our goal was to keep it simple and pragmatic. There, we focused on some critical elements of CIO leadership in their own right. Judging by the feedback, we seem to have struck a chord with quite a few CIOs among midsize carriers.

Of course, ours is not the only opinion out there. For quite some time now, experts at large have been musing about and dishing out advice to the beleaguered insurance CIO. Certain things such as "alignment of business and IT," "bridging the gap between business and technology," and "improving relationships with the CEO and the rest of the C suite, other VPs, etc." are mere table stakes.

The professed Holy Grail is this: "What makes a great CIO?" And that's the point at which things get interesting and imaginations run wild. Some go so far as to recommend CIOs must know about business generally and understand "the" business in particular at least as well as–if not better than–CEOs. The premise for such an absurdly tall order for CIO greatness is IT "touches" every single aspect of business. Even if that's necessarily true, so what? Do CIOs really have to excel to such a high degree to meet their challenges? Given the pervasive predicament of business-IT relations, anyone with the qualities and skills so many companies seem to be insisting on today for the CIO job likely would be better off seeking fame and fortune somewhere else.