This Is Where We Build Trust: Growing Trust Within the Enterprise Growth is a very important part of the IT strategy and an essential part of the organizational culture. Growing the organization depends on the ability of the leadership team to get rid of their biases, to allow experimentation, and to create an atmosphere of trust in which everyone can freely talk about how they would achieve the vision. However, many people are not able to talk openly. You need to understand that a great many organizations are built around silos of expertise. People in each department know a great deal about their domain. They don't often have any incentive to think about the entire business model. So, a part of the strategic plan must be an attempt to change how individuals think of themselves and how they think of others. We talked earlier in this book about the value of mentors. Well-meaning consultants, salespeople, and others who come into contact with the business can get people to see the big picture. People need more of that; this is really what strategic planning is about. But, at the same time, individuals who are new to the organization or who do not know about the industry and don't have the reputation or trust that you do can be very intimidating. You want to enable them to be more open and more willing to listen to other people. It's important to find out who in the organization knows what and to enable them to work together. I do not want to overstate the importance of technology in this regard. People can feel more at ease with someone who is a bit more conversant with how technology works and does not feel intimidated by the technology. But technology is also a powerful aid to understanding people and their thinking patterns. This does not mean that the technology is not important, but it needs to be one tool in the strategy. By itself, technology will not make the organization feel safe and give it comfort. People have a tendency to see technology as inherently threatening because of the huge success of viruses and spyware on PCs. It's important to use the right technology, but it also needs to be used in the right way. ### IT Strategic Partnerships Another type of strategic partnership is a partnership between the IT organization and the business—that is, two heads, one pillow. Two individuals who are charged with improving the service being provided by the organization can be more effective if they can interact with each other, and with people in the business, to learn from them. One great source of such partnerships is the organization's CEO and other senior management. These individuals are able to help you understand what is happening in the business and share information, both top-down and bottom-up. These leaders are important partners because they can help people in the organization understand the vision for the business. This is particularly important because as much as you may know about the IT organization, you probably do not know enough about how the business works. Another important type of partnership is a partnership between departments within the IT organization itself. All too often, departments within IT are competing with each other, focusing only on their own area of responsibility and not on the business as a whole. You need to work on collaborating more than you work on competing with each other. At the same time, departments should be looking out for each other in a sense of competition against different threats. ### IT Strategy and the Business Now it is time to take the "big picture" and look at the relationship between the IT organization and the business. First, we need to examine how the IT organization has changed in its role over the years. #### How IT Has Grown As you know, IT's role has changed over time. We talked earlier about the early days, in which IT provided very specific, tactical services to a business. Even when a business was doing things right, the IT organization was making sure that the machines were running and that transactions were processed efficiently. For example, when a banking machine started up and printed a deposit slip, someone was making sure that the machine ran properly, that the tape was installed in the proper position, that the printer in the device was working properly, and that the user was trained properly in using the machine. But the IT department had few other responsibilities. As IT evolved, its scope became larger. It no longer only provided services and support, and it no longer provided very specific technical services. IT now had a vision of what the business was supposed to be achieving and a strategic perspective. IT started to collaborate with the business to help it reach its strategic vision. It expanded its role in terms of what it was expected to provide and in terms of how it was expected to provide it. It expanded its scope as well as its responsibilities. The concept of IT providing the services of the business was one that came from outside the organization. However, it didn't take long for this concept to enter the IT world. The business people had a need for IT's services and started to expect that they would be provided. That's how the change in strategy started. The evolution of IT from its initial starting point to the point where it provides services similar to those of the business began to happen at the same time as the business strategy was evolving. The two things were related. But IT found it more difficult to get the business to accept the shift from them providing specific services to them providing the strategic vision for the organization. The transition was not easy. In addition, the evolution of the business is not always linear. For example, in its early days, the business was highly technical and focused on physical things. But the business changed very quickly and then plateaued, staying at a certain level for a long time. As a result, IT also remained at the same level for a long time. You can imagine what happens when there is a transition in an organization that has been stable for a long time. When it started to transform, there was resistance. So there were three important elements: business, technology, and strategy. IT was at a crucial junction. The organization needed to be transformed because the IT organization had to be much more proactive in being able to provide the vision. That's how they could then create an environment where change could flourish and the business could continue to grow. #### What Did IT Do and Why Didn't It Work? The IT strategy was good—in fact, great—but it didn't work. When I say great, I mean that the organization provided a big change in the business. However, the change didn't happen as quickly as the business would have liked. We talked about this earlier: the CEO didn't buy into the vision and the strategy. It's not clear whether he did not buy in, or if he was unable to take the advice and direction. In addition, the organization was very structured, so everything was divided up by level. Everyone's focus was on a specific set of priorities. It was very much a top-down vision. If you look at it in hindsight, you can see that the strategy wasn't working, but many people didn't believe that at the time. #### The Three Factors Leading to a Successful IT Strategy There are three main factors that influence the success of the IT strategic plan: * **A vision that appeals to all the key stakeholders:** It has to be a vision that is exciting and engaging enough to keep everyone motivated, to keep the people in the organization excited about what they were doing. * **An understanding of why change is happening:** It has to make sense to people, and it has to be something that they will embrace. That's why it is important to build a strategic partnership with people in the business. * **A plan that is not too demanding:** It has to be an ambitious but realistic plan, one that can fit into the framework of everything that is already being done within the organization. Let's talk about each of these in turn. ### A Vision That Appeals to All the Key Stakeholders All of the stakeholders have their own way of thinking about the business and of defining what the business should be. It is important for the vision to speak to them all, and it is important for them to be able to understand it and get excited about it. They also need to be able to relate it to them. You need to be able to explain the vision so that everyone understands it and, at the same time, that they feel a sense of pride and excitement about it. When there is no clear vision, a common response is "I don't know what you are talking about." When people have a common vision, it allows them to work together more closely, in a cohesive manner. This can only happen if there is a shared vision. In order to provide a shared vision, you need to be able to explain it to everyone so that it makes sense to them. They need to understand the vision and believe in it. You also have to be able to explain it in a way that is appealing to each of the different groups within the organization. That way, everyone in the organization is going to be interested in the vision. Some visions are very abstract and are difficult for the business to understand. They don't make any reference to what people are doing or what they should be doing. In those situations, it is difficult to get everyone excited about it because it is too much of an abstraction. And there is no place to start. So what is it that gives the vision some clarity? What is the vision? What does the vision mean? I think that the best answer to those questions is that it represents what we want