Raise Your Glass To Great Bosses

It's a funny time of year. Folks are celebrating the holidays, and for some of them the traditional office party is full of cheer, while for others it’s a nightmare.

In a way it's a paradox for some that they have a holiday party with the same bosses that treat them otherwise badly the rest of year!

This reminds of some of the worst traits a boss can exhibit--here's a “top 10”:

1) Selfishness: Every day it's all about the boss--their power trip, their ego, their next promotion--instead of about the mission and the customers.

2) Amoral: To some, integrity and business do not go together.

3) Discrimination: They tolerate or in too many cases, even exhibit blatant discrimination themselves.

4) Disrespect: This can be overtly or implicitly, hurting the employee professionally and personally as well.

5) Inconsistency: Flip-flopping is not just something that bothers people about politics, but it makes for a bipolar work environment, where employees are damned if they do and if they don't, but the boss can always say, “I told you so (and the opposite).”

6) Favoritism: Plays favorites instead of judging employees only on the true factor, merit. This causes workers to become demoralized as they see people hired and promoted for all the wrong reasons.

7) Insecurity: They are threatened by seemingly everyone and everything--can't give anyone else credit or recognize the good around them--a one-person team who sees anybody else’s success as implying their own failure.

8) Competitive: They have to be the smartest person in the room, and innovation and objectivity is squelched--no risk is worth the wrath of “boss Khan.”

9) Stealing: If someone else does have something of value to contribute, this boss just steals it and presents it as their own (attribution or recognition, what for?)

10) Micromanagement: Looking over your shoulder every minute, redoing your work, not trusting you, they are control freaks, a complete nightmare to work for.

Bosses come in all shapes and sizes. I’ve been fortunate to work for some of the best, and I hope that I do them justice with my own employees over the course of my career.

Here’s hoping that at your holiday party, you were able to raise your glass with a boss who makes you feel valued and respected--that's a holiday party to really celebrate!

(Source Photo: here)

Raise Your Glass To Great Bosses

The Done Manifesto v2

The Done Manifesto with 13 principles of getting to done has been circulated since 2009 (and recently reprinted in LifeHacker). It was made into a poster and creatively illustrated with Rubik's cubes.

Below are the 13 principles revised and presented as The Done Manifesto Version 2.

(Copyright: Andy Blumenthal)

Of course, there is a 14th principle that could also be considered--I remember this from a poster that I first saw in the local newspaper and candy store in Riverdale--it was illustrated with a little boy on a toilet and a roll of toilet tissue and had a caption that said "No Job is Finished Until The Paperwork is Done." ;-)

The Done Manifesto v2

Where The Biggest Nuts Rise To The Top

According to an article in Mental Floss (November/December 2011) engineers at the Advanced Dynamics Laboratory in Australia in 1996 researched how to mitigate The Muesli Effect, which describes the paradox of how, for example, cereral in boxes tend to separate with the smaller stuff lingering on the bottom and the large chunks rising to the top. This is the opposite of what you'd expect in terms of the larger, heavier pieices falling to the bottom--but they don't.

This is also known as The Brazil Nuts Effect, because the largest nuts (the Brazil Nuts) can rise to the top. While in physics, this may be good, in leadership it is not.

With leadership, the Muesli Effect can led to situations where cut-throat, unethical, workplace operators push their way to the top, on the backs of the masses of hardworking individuals. Unfortunately, these workplace "bullies," may stop at nothing to get ahead, whether it means manipulating the system through nepotism, favoritism, outright descrimination, or political shinanigans. They may lie, steal, kiss up, or kick down shamelessly disparaging and marginalizing coworkers and staff--solidying their position and personal gain, which unfortunately comes at expense of the organization and it's true mission.

Some really do deserve their fortune by being smarter, more talented, innovative, or hardworking. In other cases, you have those who take unjustifiably and ridiculously disproportionately at the expense of the others (hence the type of movements such as 99% or Occupy currently underway). This corruption of leadership begs the question who have they "brown-nosed," what various schemes (Ponzi or otherwise) have they been running, how many workers have they exploited, suppliers squeezed, partners shafted, and customers and investors have they taken advantage of.

Countless such ingenious leaders (both corporate and individual) rise by being the organizations false prophets" and taking advantage of the "little guy"--some examples whether from Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth, Tyco, MF Global, and Bernie Madoff are just a few that come to mind. These and other examples can be found as well in government, non-profit, as well as educational institutions.

Interestingly, the Museli Effect occurs when you shake a box vertically. However, if you rock it side-to-side, then you reverse the effect and larger and heavier pieces of chaff fall to the bottom letting the precious kernels rise to the top.

This is similar to organizations, where if you focus on working horizontally across your organization and marketplace--on who you serve, your partners, suppliers, investors, and customers in terms of breaking down barriers, building bridges, and solving customer problems--then the real gems of leadership have the opportunity to shine and rise.

In the age of social networking, information sharing, collaboration, and transparency, the reverse Muesli Effect can help organizations succeed. It is time to stop promoting those leaders who build empires by shaking the organization up and down in silos that are self-serving, and instead move to rewarding those that break down stovepipes to solve problems and add real value.

(Source Photo: here)

Where The Biggest Nuts Rise To The Top

What's A Life Worth

This is a video of a 2-year old girl run over several times–first by a van and then by a truck–and left lying in the street for 7 minutes, as 18 people pass by without stopping or calling for help.

Are people too busy? Are they afraid to get involved? Are they somehow blinded to what is happening?

Watching the video again and again–the little girl seems to be treated as basically worthless, and it just doesn't seem to make any sense:

–Why didn't the van or truck stop when they saw the little girl?

–Why did they just drive off after hitting her?

–Why didn't anyone else try and stop them–verbally, physically?

–Why didn't anyone step in front of the child and try to stop traffic?

–Why didn't anyone seemingly call for help?

–Where were the toddler's parents or guardians?

I don't know and can't imagine the answer to any of these questions, but I do know that society must answer for this dead child, because this child could be anyone's child, and this unfortunate scene could happen anywhere in the world.

In stark contrast, this same week, Israeli soldier Sgt. Gilad Shalit held captive for 5 years and 4 months was released by Hamas in a prisoner swap by Israel of more than a 1000 for 1–bringing him home to a hero's welcome and cries of "Welcome home Gilad!"

While I am not judging the security calculus of releasing so many potential recidivist terrorists for Gilad, I do believe that no one's child can be left behind–whether for 7 minutes in an accident or 5 years in captivity–we all have a duty to help those in need.

Life is precious and how we treat it is a test of our spirit, mettle, and underlying social norms.

What's A Life Worth

When a Phone is Not Just a Phone

Vertu = luxury phones, at least on the outside, for now.

The phones are handmade, one at a time, by master craftsmen in England for the luxury division of Finnish phone maker, Nokia.

Made from stainless steel with a sapphire crystal screen making them virtually unscratchable (except by diamonds) and keys that pivot on ruby bearings, the Vertu watches are undeniably eloquent and unique.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek (3-9 October 2011) pegs the average cost at for a Vertu at $6,800 with their Signature line costing more than twice than amount!

Started in 1998, they have sold more than 300,000 phones in the last decade, and have seen "high double-digit sales growth."

The main problem with the phones according to IDC researcher is that they are "remaining decidedly low-tech"--running on "Symbian, the old Nokia smartphone operating system being phased out in favor of Microsoft's Windows Phone 7"--another market non-starter!

Currently, they are seen as more jewelry than smartphone, and so "a lot of Vertu owners have another device for everyday use."

However, another area where the Vertu phone has the special something is in terms of service--concierge service that is. Free for the first year and then costing about $3,0000 a year thereafter, you get a 24-hour hotline in nine languages for handling everything from restaurant reservations to travel planning and sending exotic gifts, such as "a box of live butterflies"--well not something I would do everyday, but I may just not be such a great gift giver :-)

Also, many models come with dual-SIM cards so you can have one phone for example for both business and private use with different phone numbers, networks, billing plans, etc.

Certainly this phone makes a big statement in terms of handsome looks and a very special service offering, but to really be luxury inside and out in the mobile computing marketplace, it's got to do a deal with Apple and/or Android, period.

Vertu customers paying big bucks for a great phone, deserve not only the best looks, but the best smartphone technology.

Another big challenge is that with people upgrading their smartphones every 18-24 months, how do you maintain the Vertu's value over time or is this a luxury purchase to be made on the order of Moore's Law?

Oh baby, that's a lot of Vertu!

When a Phone is Not Just a Phone

Optimizing Culture For Performance

Strategy + Business (Spring 2011) has an interview with Edgar Schein, the MIT sage of organizational culture.

In it, he describes why it is so hard to change this.

In my experience, organizational culture is key to success.

Why do we want to change organizational culture to begin with?

Sometimes it becomes dysfunctional and can get in the way of performance.

Sometimes, leaders think they can simply change a culture, but Schein disagrees. He says that you cannot simply introduce a new culture and tell people to follow it--"that will never work."

"Instead you have to...solve business problems by introducing new behaviors."

However, you cannot solve problems or even raise concerns where "in most organizations the norms are to punish it."

Schein states that "the people with the most authority...must make the others feel safe"--to speak up, contribute, and even make mistakes.

Schein goes on to call for people "to work with one another as equal partners"--breaking down the traditional organizational boundaries--so that we stop telling people, so to speak, that "you're in my lane" or "that's above your pay grade."

He goes a step further, stating that the healthiest work cultures are interdependent, meaning that people actively try to help one another solve problems.

What an enormously powerful idea, that everyone has something valuable to contribute. Every opinion contributes to the dialogue--and all employees are worthwhile.

That is my definition of a healthy culture, for the organization and its people.

Optimizing Culture For Performance

The Cost of Underestimating Technology

While research is important and I respect the people who devote themselves to doing this, sometimes they risk being disconnected from reality and the consequences associated with it.

From the Wall Street Journal, 2 April 2011--two economists calculated that "$1,700 is the benefit the average American derives from personal computers each year."

They call this the "benefit we get from computers above and beyond what we pay for them."

To me, this figure seems inconsistent with common sense and the realities on the ground.

In an information age, where we are connected virtually 24 x 7 and can download hundreds of thousands of apps for free, endlessly surf the internet, shop and bank online, get much of our entertainment, news, and gaming on the the web, and communicate around the globe by voice, video, and text for the cost on a monthly high speed connection, I say hogwash.

Moreover, we need to factor in that most of us are now information workers (about 20%) or depend on technology in performing our jobs everyday and earning our living.

Just yesterday in fact, the Wall Street Journal reported that more people work for the government (22.5 million--forget the private sector information workers for the moment) than in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining, and utilities combined!

Additionally, at work, we are using computers more and more not only for transaction processing, but also for content management, business intelligence, collaboration, mobility (and robotics and artificial intelligence is coming up fast).

Finally, technology enables breakthroughs--in medicine, energy, environment, education, materials sciences, and more--the impact of technology to us is not just now, but in the potential it brings us for further innovations down the road.

So is the benefit that you get from computers less than $5 day?

I know for me that's the understatement of a lifetime.

Apparently by some, technology continues to be misunderstood, be undervalued and therefore potentially risks being underinvested in, which harms our nations competitiveness and our collective future.

As much respect as I have for economics, it doesn't take an economist to think with common business sense.

The Cost of Underestimating Technology

Is It "A Message To Garcia" - Or To Us?

There is an inspirational essay by Elbert Hubbard written in 1899 called “A Message to Garcia” that is about taking initiative and getting the job done.

Here is an abstract:

“When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountains of Cuba—no one knew where…the President must secure his co-operation, and quickly…Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia…[he] strapped it over his heart…landed by night off the coast of Cuba…disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out the other side of the Island having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia.”

Garcia is held up by Hubbard as an iconic worker who can “act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing.”

And the right way for a worker to perform, according to Hubbard (in my words) included:

- Attention and care to the job

- Independent action/autonomy

- Cheerfulness (or a good attitude)

- Integrity to carry out their work with or without supervision

Elbert Hubbard emphasizes a strong work ethic that can be best summarized when he states:

“My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the ‘boss’ is way, as well as when he is at home [interesting that this was written before modern telework!]. And the man who when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking any questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it.”

Hubbard’s essay sold over 40 million copies and was translated into 37 languages. It was also made into two movies. The message of Garcia as a model employee obviously resonates far and wide.

Reading the essay, which is written in “Old English,” it was surprising to me that the management challenges we face today are the same ones that were apparently confronted already 100 years ago.

It seems that the search for great employees – meaning those who can generate results, are accountable for delivering value, and are customer-centric - is timeless!

“A Message for Garcia” is truly a call to action for all. No matter what level on the career ladder we occupy, and no matter what organization we serve, what we do for our jobs does matter. Let us “own it” and own it well, just as if we were delivering the President’s message to Garcia.

Is It "A Message To Garcia" - Or To Us?

See A Compelling Future and Make It That Way

I really like Tony Robbins and especially his show on NBC "Breakthrough."

Tony Robbins is incredibly motivational, inspirational, and has a vision for a better future for individuals and society.

I liked this piece he did on relationships (but which can be applied more broadly) with the basic message of three lessons that everyone involved in enterprise architecture can certainly appreciate:

1. "See things as they are, but not worse than they are" -- People make things worse than they are, so they don't have to try ("it takes no guts to be a pessimist").
2. "See it better than it is; see a compelling future" -- "Today can be tough, but if the future is compelling, we can get there."
3. "Make it the way we see it" - This last one, in my opinion, is why we're here in life: to improve things, to add value, to leave things better than when you found them.

We all can have a positive impact in this world, in our work, in our relationships.

All we need to do is find our true selves, do something we truly believe in, and commit to it--no excuses, lots of hard work and of course have fun with it!

See A Compelling Future and Make It That Way

What I Learned From A Beggar and A Disabled Man

This week I was riding home on the metro one day and I witnessed this strange course of events.

Typically, on the DC metro, there is not a lot of panhandling when compared with a city like NY—in fact, it is practically a rarity on the Washington, DC Metro.

So you can sort of image my surprise, when I entered the metro this week and immediately hear a young man begging for money (i.e. “a beggar”) coming down one end of the train car.

What made this particular panhandling scene really stand out though was that the beggar, who appeared young and able bodied, had a serious speech impairment. He kept trying to say something to the effect that he was homeless and needed $16 for a bed to sleep in that night. But he was mumbling, stuttering, and barely able to get the words out, but clearly he needed help and people on the train were giving him money, especially one young family, where the father put some bills into his daughter’s hand who reached out to the beggar, who gratefully grabbed the money and continued trying to repeat the words that seemed stuck in his mouth.

Then, things turned stranger, because there was another young man in a wheelchair with his back to me—so that I could not see what was wrong with him. And all of a sudden this disabled person starts yelling at the beggar to “speak up, get it out, and tell me what’s wrong” – again and again in this horrendous mocking way to the beggar who could barely speak.

The beggar kept trying to get the words out that he was homeless and needed $16 for a bed for the night—but he struggled again and again—mumbling and falling all over himself trying ask for help. And no matter how hard he tried; the disabled man in the wheelchair kept taunting him—as if holding out a bone in front of a dog, but never letting him get any. If the beggar couldn’t speak clearly and ask for the money, the disabled man wasn’t going to give him any and on top of it was going to shame him even more than he already was in front of the crowded train car.

It was devastating to watch; yet everyone did. Somehow, no one could say anything to the disabled man about his behavior—because he was disabled.

After the beggar made it past the wheelchair, staring at the man who mocked him, and made it down to the other end of the car, the beggar turned around one last time, looked at the disabled man in disbelief—like how of all people could you do this to me—and left the train.

At that point, the man in the wheelchair turned his chair and I saw he had only one leg. And he was angry. Obviously angry at the world for his loss and pain and determined to let loose on whomever crossed his path, even a speech-impaired beggar.

I thought about this human tragedy during and long after, and am still obviously thinking about it.

I suppose I expect to find situations where the strong prey on the weak—that’s like Darwin’s theory of the “survival of the fittest”, but I was taken aback by seeing one person down on their luck “getting it” from someone else who was also in pain and suffering. Somehow, I guess I just thought—maybe naively—that someone who knew “how it felt” would have more mercy on someone else in similar shoes.

I come away with a life lesson about leadership and management that for those fortunate enough to achieve these positions, you should never take them for granted. They are not an entitlement because of hard work, education, or other achievements; rather these positions are a privilege, and this teaches me that you should never look down on others or rise up on the backs of others. Each person, each life in this world is valuable. And every person deserves respect and should give respect—whether they are begging and speech-impaired or disabled and missing a leg. We all need to have mercy on one another. The world can be a harsh place indeed.

What I Learned From A Beggar and A Disabled Man

A Winning App Is Not Only an App Winner

In the government, just getting an “app winner” doesn’t necessarily mean you have a “winning app.” But that’s not stopping us “govies” from making progress!

As we all know, the Apple iStore has become hugely successful, with over 225,000 apps and the Android Market with almost 90,000 apps.

These marketplaces have grown fast and furiously because there is a simple and direct road from building the app to commercializing it. In the case of Apple, for example, I understand that the developer walks away with 70% of the revenue, Apple gets 30%, and the consumer can simply download the apps and start using it. Presto!

The government has attempted to capitalize on this apps development strategy by putting government data out there (i.e. data.gov) and letting the developers do their thing (i.e. create apps that are supposed to be useful to citizens).

In distinction to the private sector, the government doesn’t have a marketplace where developers simply make their apps “available” for use. While in the Apple store, any developer can post an app for use, in the government there is no open store like that.

To spur apps development, a number of government agencies have been hosting contests for best applications, but despite the fanfare, many do not get past the initial stage.

Government Technology Magazine (July 2010) in an article titled “Life After Apps” quotes Chris Vein, the CIO of San Francisco, who states that “just because it [an app] wins doesn’t mean the jurisdiction actually gets to use it.”

Jay Nath, the innovation manager of San Francisco explains that “because applications submitted in the competitions don’t go through normal procurement channels, cities cannot use them as ‘official’ apps.”

Whether this changes at some point down the road, I do not know, but it seems like something for government procurement specialists to look at, because there may be an opportunity here to save money and serve taxpayers more effectively.

Even Washington, D.C., which became famous for its 2008 apps contest, is rethinking the “apps craze.” The city has discontinued its annual Apps for Democracy competition due to concerns over “sustainability and value of apps produced.” The District wants to look again at how to engage entrepreneurs to “solve core government problems.”

Nevertheless, there are signs that government interest in developing apps through contests remains strong. For example, “Apps for Army,” a contest for Army personnel, launched on March 1.

In a similar vein, the General Services Administration recently announced that they are using “ChallengePost” to announce contests and have the public suggest, discuss, and rate ideas. This is now being used for AppsForHealthyKids.com, a competition sponsored by First Lady Michelle Obama as part of her important campaign to end childhood obesity.

Overall, there is a lot of innovation out there in government, and a strong desire to collaborate with the public. DC and San Francisco and other major cities as well as the federal government are taking the conversation about apps development to the next level in terms of governance best practices for getting value from them and ultimately bringing the apps to the users who need them.

A Winning App Is Not Only an App Winner

Who Are Your High Potential Employees?

It is easy to confuse high performing employees with high potential employees (HIPOs), but they are not the same.

An article in Harvard Business Review called “How to Keep Your Top Talent” (May 2010) states that “only about 30% of today’s high performers are, in fact, high potentials. The remaining 70% may have what it takes to win now, but lack some critical component for future success.”

According to HBR, the litmus tests for discerning which high performers are also your high potential employees, are as follows:

1) Ability—High performers need to have the ability to not only do what they are doing now, but to take it to the next level to be high potentials.

2) Engagement—High performers must have “commitment to the organization to be prudent bets for long-term success.”

3) Aspiration—High performers who aspire to more senior-level roles and “choose to make the sacrifices required to attain and perform those high-level jobs” are aligned for future success.

These three traits together help to pinpoint the genuine HIPOs—those who have the ability, the engagement, and the aspiration for probable future success.

Of course, having these traits does not guarantee success, since leadership development is tested “under conditions of real stress.”

Many organizations test their HIPOs by identifying risky and challenging positions—developmental opportunities—and putting their rising starts in these positions to see who can meet the challenge.

These stretch positions are what I would call “the moment of truth” when people either sink or swim.

In some extremely competitive organizations, employee failure (contained of course in terms of organizational damage) is just as much valued as their success—because it weeds out the true stars from the runner-ups.

This can be taken to an extreme, where even strong performers are managed out of the organization simply because they didn’t win the next round.

However, rather than weeding people out and treating employees as gladiators—where one wins and another loses—organizations are better served by helping all their employees succeed—each according to their potential.

So instead of an “up or out” mentality, the organization can value each high performing employee for what they bring to the table.

Too often we only value the highest achievers among us and we forget that everyone has an important role to play.

While organizations need to differentiate their high potential employees—those who can really do more—to meet succession-planning goals—organizations will also benefit by nurturing the potential of all their high performing employees and taking them as far as they can go too.

Who Are Your High Potential Employees?

Making Something Out of Nothing

At the Gartner Enterprise Architecture Summit this past week (October 7-9, 2009), I heard about this new math for value creation:

Nothing + Nothing = Something

At first, you sort of go, WHAT?

Then, it starts to make a lot of sense.

Seemingly nothings can be combined (for example, through mashups) to become something significant.

When you really think about it, doesn’t this really happen all the time.

INFORMATION: You can have tens or thousands of data points, but it’s not till you connect the dots that you have meaningful information or business intelligence.

PEOPLE: Similarly, you can have individuals, but it’s not until you put them together—professionally or personally—that you really get sparks flying.

Harvard Business Review, October 2009, put it this way:

“Ants aren’t smart…ant colonies are…under the right conditions, groups—whether ant colonies, markets, or corporations—can be smarter than any of their members.” This is the “wisdom of crowds and swarm intelligence.”

PROCESS: We can have a workable process, but a single process alone may not produce diddly. However, when you string processes together—for example, in an assembly line—you can produce a complex product or service. Think of a car or a plane or a intricate surgical procedure.

TECHNOLOGY: I am sure you have all experienced the purchase of hardware or software technologies that in and of themselves are basically useless to the organization. It’s only when we combine them into a workable application system that we have something technologically valuable to the end-user.

Whatever, the combination, we don’t always know in advance what we are going to get when we make new connections—this is the process of ideation, innovation, and transformation.

Think of the chemist or engineer or artist that combines chemicals, building blocks elements, or colors, textures, and styles in new ways and gets something previously unimaginable or not anticipated.

In a sense, organization and personal value creation is very much about creating relationships and associations between things. And a good leader knows how to make these combinations work:

Getting people and organizations to work together productively.

Generating new ideas for innovative business products or better ways of serving the customer.

Linking people, process, and technology in ever expanding ways to execute more effectively and efficiently than ever before.

Enterprise architecture shares this principle of identifying and optimizing relationships and associations between architectural entities such as business processes, data elements, and application systems. Typically, we perform these associations in architectural models, such as business process, data, and system models. Moreover, when we combine these models, we really advance the cause by determining what our processes are/should be, what information is needed to perform these, and what are the systems that serve up this information. Models help architects to identify gaps, redundancies, inefficiencies, and opportunities between the nothings to improve the greater whole of the something.

The real enterprise architect will make the leap from just describing many of these elements to making the real connections and providing a future direction (aka a target architecture) or at least recommending some viable options for one.

Nothing + Nothing (can) = Something. This will happen when we have the following:

• The right touch of leadership skills to encourage, motivate and facilitate value creation.
• The allocation of talented people to the task of combining things in new ways.
• And the special sauce—which is everyone’s commitment, creativity, and hard work to make something new and wonderful emerge.

Making Something Out of Nothing

IT Communications, A Must Have

Being in a technical field like IT, we often see disconnects between the “techies” and the business people—almost like they are speaking foreign languages at each other. The result is that the techies don’t really understand the business requirements and the business people don’t understand the technical solutions. It’s sort of comical to watch, if not for being so sad in terms of the huge number of failed IT projects that result.

One thing we’ve realized is that we need to be able to communicate and communicate well between the business and IT or else we are not going to be very effective at IT service provision and enabling the business to perform at its best.

One solution has been to have IT staff whose job it is to translate between the business and IT units—these people are in roles at times called “business liaisons” or IT-business relationship managers. It is helpful to assign these liaisons to each business unit and give them authority and accountability for managing and nurturing a healthy relationship and unambiguous communication between business units and IT providers. The liaisons “own the customer” and ensure that requirements are captured correctly and understood by IT, that the proposed IT solutions are clearly explained to the business, and that the customer is satisfied with the systems and services they are receiving.

A second solution is hire IT communications specialists who more broadly “market” and communicate IT plans, policies, processes, goals, objectives, initiatives, milestones, and performance. I have found these professionals to be indispensable to “getting the message out there” and enhancing awareness and understanding for IT in the organization. Of course, IT leaders play a critical role in developing and honing the actual message, and in delivering ongoing two-way communications throughout the organization. In essence, they are the ambassadors and communicators par excellence inside and outside the organization with all IT stakeholders.

In short, IT needs to communicate early and often and communicate, communicate, communicate.

ComputerWorld, August 31-September 7, 2009 has a wonderful article affirming the criticality of IT communications in an article entitled: “Marketing IT: An Inside Job” by Mary Brandel.

As Brandel states: “It’s not about hype. It’s about conveying IT’s value.” I would add that it’s not only about conveying IT’s value, but also about creating IT value, by improving the two-way communication between the business and IT and thereby generating more effective solutions.

The article provides a number of useful suggestions for marketing and communicating IT that I’ve adapted, such as customer satisfaction surveys; IT annual reports that communicates accomplishments, alignment to strategic plan, “resources saved, awards won, and conferences at which staff members have spoken;” e-Brochures with “video coverage explaining goals,” services, policies, and plans; and Twitter alerts on service outages.

The key though which Bandel points out is that IT leaders need to “embed a 24/7 marketing mindset throughout the [IT] organization.” While business liaisons and IT communications specialists are focused on and specialize in this, it is still imperative for everyone in the IT organization to understand and be able to market and communicate IT services and processes to customers. All IT personnel are representatives to the business and should present and represent that customer service is our #1 goal.

From my perspective, this means transitioning our IT organizations to be wholly user-centric. This means a clear and ever present awareness that the business is IT’s raison d’être.

IT Communications, A Must Have

Lessons from Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, U.S. Navy

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper was an amazing pioneer and futurist of computers, and here are some lasting lessons.

COMPUTER:

Computer was the first device to assist the power of the mind rather than the strength of the arm

We’re only at the beginning…

TARGET ARCHITECTURE:

We have to build for problems and with the equipment of the future and not with what you have today.

How do you determine priorities? Instead of giving top priority to the senior squeaky wheel, base decisions on what information is most valuable.

How do you determine what information is most valuable to decision makers? 1) Time to act 2) number of people affected 3) amount of dollars involved.

CHANGE:

We’ve got to move to the future and recognize what we can do with computing.

Ask what the cost is of not doing something.

We have got to get new ideas moving and be willing to fight for them and push them.

Never take first no as the answer. Always go back and ask again. Some people always say no the first time.

Instead of saying “but we’ve always done it that way”—listen to your dreams.

LEADERSHIP:

We manage things, but we lead people.

No matter what you do or what you got, you have to do it with people.

It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.

Lessons from Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, U.S. Navy

The Enlightened Enterprise and the Total CIO

The Total CIO is responsible for the strategy, operations, and governance of everything IT.

The strategy ensures that we are doing the right things and doing them the right way. It’s the CIO’s vision, goals, and objectives for developing IT solutions that meet business requirements.

The operations is providing for core IT functions like voice and data communications, information, applications, infrastructure, security, and so forth,

The governance is how we make decisions about IT. Through good governance we enhance visibility of IT requirements and projects, enable better communication and vetting, share risks, and prioritize, authorize, and control IT investments.

Architecture and Governance Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 2, has a good article titled “Bringing IT Governance from Theory to Action.” (by Davin Gellego and Jon Borg-Breen)

The problem is complexity:

“Even as technology has simplified and become almost invisible to most audiences, the complexity of maintaining technology is reaching a breaking point for information technology organizations…little time is invested between the lines of business and IT to communicate corporate goals and how technology can support these goals. The mandate is simply ‘do more with less.’”

The solution is governance:

Lines of business and IT can no longer work in their respective vacuums. This new interconnectedness means that what affects one now affects all. If problems are no longer confined to one functional area, solutions can’t be either. IT governance defines accountability and decision making and simplifies the challenges of consolidation, outsourcing, and increased visibility—ensuring IT expenditures deliver real business value.”

The traditional organizational paradigm was silos. Everyone works for their particular unit, division, line of business and so on. Each is functionally and organizationally independent. Each develops their own strategy, products and services, customer base, and so on. Each has their own profit and loss statement. Working with other divisions, conducting joint product development, sharing information or ideas, cross-selling, and other collaborative efforts are discouraged, shunned, minimized, and looked at with suspicion. It’s every line of business or man for themselves. A unit that is not “producing” gets disciplined, downsized, reorganized, spun off, or otherwise eliminated. A division head that isn’t meeting their targets is toast! (Interestingly enough, people traditionally work in a “division”—that very word connotes separation, distinctiveness, and divisiveness.)

The enlightened paradigm is cross-functional. Everyone works for the enterprise. Each unit of the enterprise is part of a functional whole. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Collaboration, integrated product teams, working groups, information sharing, cross selling, corporate brand, interoperability, standards, component re-use, and other unifying activities are encouraged, taught, mandated, recognized, and rewarded. Performance measures take into account not only how your division is doing, but how it is contributing to overall mission of the organization. The goals of each individual and unit are aligned to the enterprise.

In the enlightened enterprise, The CIO is not running “the IT division,” but rather is providing IT services and solutions to the enterprise. In this paradigm, the CIO requires a structured and mature governance process, so that all stakeholders have a voice at the table and can influence the decision process and ensure more successful project delivery. IT governance provides for a consistent, collaborative decision process. Governance bring business and IT subject matter experts together to communicate, make visible, align, share risks, vet, prioritize, and issue decisions.

“The most successful enterprises engage in both business and IT in investment decisions. IT governance strengthens and clarifies the connection between corporate goals and IT initiatives. And with both business and IT aware of the strategic benefits of a given initiative, the initiative has a far greater chance of company-wide adoption and success.”

In the enlightened enterprise, “no line of business or IT department is an island. What affects one, affects all.” And in this environment, it is The Total CIO who can reach out across the enterprise bringing a unifying IT strategy, a sound, reliable, secure, and cost-effective operations platform, and a governance process to communicate, make visible, share risks, and make better decisions through the participation of all the pertinent IT stakeholders.

The Enlightened Enterprise and the Total CIO