Jim Milde, senior vice president and CIO for Sony Electronics, sounds euphemistic when he summarizes how the fortunes of IS have changed in recent years. "I think historically, when a company is growing like crazy, the role of IS is just try to keep up. We’re going through a period now where there’s much more focus on cost structure and process. We’re at a point where we believe there’s a huge opportunity to drive continued operating efficiencies through our business." Translation> Growth and innovation have taken a backseat to relentless cost-cutting and short-term payback. That means the temperature has been ratcheted up on CIOs. For those who can’t take the heat, the powers that be will make sure the kitchen exits are well-marked.

Time to throw in the towel and retreat into the IS cocoon? No way. Instead, the economic and budget pressures you face make now the time to renew your commitment to solidifying relationships with your fellow business executives. Now is the time to make sure your IS governance is effective. Now is the time to trumpet IT initiatives to the rest of the company. And last, but far from least, now is the time to put all your available energies into aligning your staff and projects and budgets and strategy with the lines of business.

Sure, alignment is one of those topics that never seems to go away. But "old hat" doesn’t mean "stuff that hat in the closet and forget about it." In The Conference Board’s 2002 survey of global CEOs, 50 percent of the respondents identified business and IT alignment as a high priority. (By contrast, only 20 percent said implementing new technologies was top of list.)

Alignment is not new, but it’s certainly not a given either. "It’s still more common than not that IT and the business are not aligned, and that CIOs don’t have quality relationships with people that matter in the business," says Michael Earl, professor of information management at the London Business School. CIOs must work with line of business managers to get benefits out of existing IT investments, to set performance targets, to answer the pressure to save money and wring efficiencies out of operations, he adds.

Below are six habits that highly effective CIOs employ to cope with the pressure-cooker arena in which they play. Some may be familiar; others may be additions to your portfolio. All of them will help you position yourself and the IS function to succeed now and in the uncertain months ahead.