I’ve got a few pet peeves.  Linear Thinking is one of them.  Another one is talking about doing something but never doing it.

I’m not talking about ‘not following through’ on things.  That’s a performance issue and one that can be addressed with some coaching and basic management skills.

What I’m talking about are those folks (or organizations) that like to tell everyone how something should be done, why it should be done or why it’s important for the organization to do ‘project X’.

I’m fine with being told how or why something is important…everyone has their opinions.  But don’t tell me the same thing for 6 months without ever taking a step forward and doing something about the project. If you think Project X is so damned important, then DO IT.  Or Don’t.  Just stop talking about it.

There are a lot of reasons for people to talk about doing something but not executing. Analysis Paralysis can kill any project before it starts.  Lack of courage is a killer too (you know…those folks who are scared of making decisions?).   Ego plays a role as well (people like to show how smart they are right?)

I’ve run into many leaders within organizations that talk about undertaking the big ’strategic’ projects.  And they talk.  And talk.  Talking doesn’t “move the needle” (sorry…I promised someone I’d insert “move the needle” into this week’s blog post….they’re playing buzzword bingo and I want them to win!).  Talk without action does little more than frustrate people.

The New CIO has to “do it or don’t”

We all know  the foreseeable future of an IT group will be one of being understaffed and overworked.  There are a lot of projects that need to get done and a lot of projects that won’t get done.

The role of the future CIO is one of project executive. The New CIO has to step up as a decision maker and decide (along with the leadership team of the organization) which projects get funded and which don’t. After the decision is made, communicating that decision down the chain of command has to be done quickly and efficiently so the the entire organization knows what projects are a ‘go’ and which aren’t.

You notice that in the last few paragraphs I never say that the CIO and his/her IT staff should stand around talking about the projects and why they are important. There isn’t a lot of discussion about why Project X should be done.  A decision is made whether it should be done or not and the team moves on. The New CIO has to take the lead in not talking things to death and just get it done.

Now….I’m not saying you should stop discussing the value of a project or a strategy.  Quite the opposite actually.  You should discuss. You should debate.   That’s something that must happen.  But…there is a time when the debate has to end and something has to be done.

The New CIO needs to foster open debate on a subject but quickly make a decision.  With resources as constrained as they are in this economy, talking means wasted time and money.

Discuss, Debate, Decide.  Either DO or DON’T…just stop talking about it.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Join me next week for another article in the series.

Skin In The Game by Chuck Musciano on The Effective CIO

Disposable people? A question raised in Cannes by Mark McDonald on The Gartner Blog Netwrok

The Little Rules of Action by Leo Babauta on Zen Habits

Fits and starts: staying “tech savvy” as a CIO by Peter Kretzman on CTO/CIO perspectives

Deal with Your Elephant in the Room by Mark Suster on CloudAve

The discipline to say “No,” even when times are tough by Tim Walker on Hoover’s Business Insight Zone

Five Signals You Should Make A Change by Steve Roesler on All Things Workplace

Life as a Playground: Creativity and Change by Cheri Baker on The Enlightened Manager

Stop thinking and start listening by Jeffrey Phillips on Thinking Faster

The why imperative by Seth Godin on Seth’s Blog

IT: It’s Not Just About Technical Skills by Mike Schaffner on Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

Engage Employee Heart-Power — Not Just Brain-Power by Clif Reichard on HarvardBusiness.org

Does Transparency Lead To More Ethical Behavior? by Bas De Baar on UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley

This is a short one….lots going on this week.

I got a lot of great feedback on a post I wrote titled “Consultants – Do we need them?“.  In that post I argue that consultants are necessary…not a necessary evil mind-you…but a necessity for modern day IT organizations.

One of the lines of that struck a chord with most folks was:

That’s exactly what any good consultant should do….help the organization understand how to change to adapt to new realities.

What do I mean by that?

Modern day IT is not the same as IT from 20 years ago…or even IT from 5 years ago.  Every CIO has to adjust to the new reality of IT of today and the future.

I believe that 99.9% of CIO’s in this world cannot adapt to the new IT reality without some assistance from experts who understand the new IT realities. I don’t say the above to be hateful.  I think the majority of the CIO’s today are extremely bright and they ‘get’ their current reality but these same smart CIO’s are much too close to their current reality to fully understand what needs to occur to be prepared for the future.

Bringing in the right consultant is key for moving from today’s reality to tomorrow’s.  Find a consultant focused on delivering value to you (rather than selling a technology platform) and you’ll be golden.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Join me next week for another article in the series.

Intuition vs. Data-Driven Decision-Making: Some Rough Ideas by Bob Sutton on Bob Sutton – Work Matters

CIO and the Art of Decision Making by Arun Manansingh on A CIO’s Voice

Before you can truly talk about Change Management, you have to focus on achieving clear vision by Olivier Blanchard on The BrandBuilder Blog

The 5 Secret Characteristics Of A Truly Great CIO by Dr. Jim Anderson on The Accidental Successful CIO

Where Measurement Falls Short by Amber Naslund on Altitude Branding

IT Strategies for Rising Markets by Vince Kellen on The Cutter Blog

Why Stories are an Effective Communication Tool for Your Blog by Darren Rowse on ProBlogger Blog Tips

Use Humility to Improve Performance by John Baldoni on HarvardBusiness.org

The Only Way to Become Amazingly Great at Something from Zen Habits by Leo Babauta

Is “social product management” for real? by Tom Grant on The Forrester Blog For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

The value of IT exists over time not at a point in time by Mark McDonald on the Gartner Blog Network

Enterprise 2.0 Caffeine: Let’s Debunk the Non-Debate by Mark Fidelman on CloudAve

When Should You Let an Employee Make a Mistake? by Peter Bregman on HarvardBusiness.org

Balancing Anticipation and Adaptation by Mike Cohn on Mike Cohn’s Blog – Succeeding With Agile®

Two Powerful Words: I NOTICE by Angela Maiers on Angela Maiers Educational Services

The Intersection Of Quality And Expectations by Jono Bacon on jonobacon@home

Here’s the latest version of my storytelling for knowledge management in projects presentation.  Enjoy!

Recorded Presentation via Vimeo:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Don’t want to listen to me drone on and on?   You can view just the slides on Slideshare:

In the world of  technology we tend to use either really big words, really small words and/or acronyms.

What do you think of when you think of  ‘the cloud’ what do you think of?  Do you think about Amazon’s EC2 or S3 or do you think about  “Parallel and Distributed Processing”?  Both could be right but neither are instructive to the ‘business’ user.  For that matter, is “the cloud” instructive to the business? Probably not.

The New CIO & Language

There’s a lot of talk in the business world about finding IT leaders who can speak to the business. I agree wholeheartedly…but I also think the business needs to learn to speak to the IT world too….but I’ve covered that in detail in a post titled Information Technology Leadership and Alignment. Moving on.

To help align business and IT, The New CIO needs to first look at the language of IT.  Get rid of the big words….and perhaps the small words if they aren’t clear enough.  Look at your IT group’s language to make sure acronyms and tech-jargon are purged from the external facing documentation and communication.  Take a long look at what you communicate to the organization and how you communicate to make sure you aren’t letting the tech-speak take over.

Want to really take it up a notch and make sure you’re communicating what the organization needs to hear? Bring in a marketer and a   communications person to build an IT marketing and communication plan for your team.  Your organization has marketing plans for how you’ll attack the market, why can’t you have one for how you’ll communicate to the rest of the organization?

Be careful though…you don’t want to get too far into business language or you’ll end up using the same marketing/business jargon that every other group within your organization uses.  Keep it simple and real and you’ll be fine.

Next time the CEO asks you “what’s this cloud computing thing I keep hearing about?”, how will you respond?  Big words or the right words?

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Join me next week for another article in the series.

I ran across an interesting post today titled “Why you don’t need Social Media Consultants” on the Brains on Fire Blog.  The main thesis of the post is: “social media consultants provide little value…they do nothing more than you already know how to do so you don’t need them”.

In the article, Spike Jones says:

If you listen REALLY closely to their [social media consultant's] advice, you start to realize that most of it you already know. Because you have all the basic tools you need: Your humanity. Your ability to communicate with people around you. And your intuition. Because when you think about it, using social media is just a natural extension of yourself. Asking questions. Listening. Responding. And remember, social media apps are tactics. And tactics are tools. Sure, you might need some guidance on how to use that bandsaw, but you picked up a hammer and pretty much got the gist after you hit your thumb a few times.

In other words, we’re getting all worked up about (wait for it, wait for it) common sense. Common courtesy. And the best way to find that is to take off your marketing hat and use the hat you were born with – being a person.

Emphasis mine.

I have an issue with this statement.  Most organizations don’t know how to be human anymore.

Before I continue…I wholeheartedly agree with the premise of Spike’s argument (i.e., we already know how to be human) but I would argue that most companies have removed much of humanity from business.  Many organizations have been built to remove the human side of the business and have replaced it with processes and management…I’ve written about this before in a post titled Humanity and Business“…jump over and read that post for more on the subject of bringing humanity back to business.

Take a look at Jay Baer’s comment on the above article.  In the comment, Jay makes a few valid points…one of them is:

What social media consultants do best – at least those focused on tactical agnosticism – is to help companies connect the dots, align internal resources, and understand not that social media is about more than tools and pressing buttons, but about a cultural shift that manifests itself up and down the organization.

Amen.  Re-read that (and Jay’s entire comment)….did you catch the powerful stuff there?

A good social media consultant should help an organization bring about cultural change. That’s exactly what any good consultant should do….help the organization understand how to change to adapt to new realities. Whether that reality is purchasing a new software platform or using social media to build relationships with clients.

Back to my original question: Do you need consultants? Hell yes you do.

Why?  Here’s a few reasons:

• Consultants bring an external view
• Consultants bring experience
• Consultants bring expertise
• Consultants bring relevance
• Consultants bring authority

Whether you like it or not, consultants are a necessity.   Perhaps most organizations don’t need a social media consultant…but most organizations do need help understanding how to be more human.

That’s what a good consultant (social media or otherwise) sh0uld bring to the table.   A good SM consultant should help organizations understand how to be more human while building relationships with their clients.  A good IT consultant should help organizations bring humanity back to the IT organization by helping the organization understand that IT is more than processes, workflows and reasons ‘not to’.

Do you need consultants – yes you do. If you’re looking for a consultant, find one that ignores the technology, buzzwords and tools (at the beginning) and talks about your organization, your needs and hopefully they will also talk about being more ‘human’.  Find a consultant that talks about ‘humanity and business’ and hire them on the spot.  You’ll not regret it.

Starting with Trust by Jamie on Get Me Jamie Notter

Self-Organization vs. Emergence by Jurgen Appelo on NOOP.NL: Managing Software Development

When Organizational Silos Hurt Innovation by Isaac Sacolick on Social, Agile, and Transformation

What Should IT Measure? by Steve Levy on No Secret

Innovation ROI – Why Every Enterprise 2.0-Enabled Connection Counts by Hutch Carpenter on I’m Not Actually a Geek

CIO Careers: Learning from System Quarterbacks by Chris Curran on CIO Dashboard

Be Wrong by Dave Fleet on davefleet.com

“Refuse to lose”: how executive pressure contributes to IT failure by Peter Kretzman on CTO/CIO perspectives

Up from the rubble: What it takes to be the Phoenix by Tim Sanders on Sanders Says

Innovation as a competitive advantage by Jeffrey Phillips on Innovate on Purpose

IT’s Business Lesson by Mike Schaffner on Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

Leading with Courage: Run Toward the Roar by Dan McCarthy on Great Leadership

Knowing When To Stop by Chuck Musciano on The Effective CIO

Behind Closed Doors: What’s On the Mind Of Chief Marketing Officers by Jeremiah Owyang on Web Strategy by Jeremiah

Last week I wrote about “Turbulence, IT & The New CIO” and discussed the need to embrace agility and speed in order to address the turbulence that we see in business today.  In order to be agile, I mentioned the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) model for use in helping keep agility at the front of your mind while planning and doing.

After writing last week’s post, I ran across an article by Kathleen Eisenhardt from titled “Making Fast Strategic Decisions in High-Velocity Environments“.  In this article, the author reports on a study that was conducted to compare the speed of the decision making process and the performance of those decisions at eight microcomputer organizations.

At the time of the article’s publication (1989), popular belief (and much research) stated the following:

• Leaders & organizations should be autocratic
• Decision making should be centralized for speed and control
• When planning, an organization should look at future projections, not operational data
• Careful analysis of the ‘best’ option should be performed
• Fast analysis means less data

Sound familiar to anyone?  I still see a lot of organizations and leaders following this approach today, especially in the IT space.

Eisenhardt’s research showed something interesting.  She was able to show that those organizations that made quick decisions were more apt to use more information and look at more options than those that made slow decisions.  The data also showed that centralized decision making isn’t the fastest route to a decision; organizations that shared data with a larger audience and welcomed feedback were more apt to perform better in the long run.

I won’t go into the full outcome of the research, but I wanted to highlight a few of the key propositions from the paper:

• The decision making process speeds up when you make use of real-time data
• The decision making process speeds up when you increased the # of alternatives considered simultaneously
• The more integrated your decision making process is, the faster it can go
• In “high-velocity environments”, the faster the decision making process goes, the greater the performance.
• Politics slows decision making and degrades performance.

So…what does this have to do with IT?

Everything.  To compete in the turbulent world today, we’ve got to be agile in our thinking and execution.  This research helps highlight that fact.

Organization’s, and especially organizations that use technology, are high-velocity environments.   We are doing more with less and have to do it faster than before.

The faster we can make decisions with more accurate data (real-time) and the more options we review, the better that decision outcome will be in the long run.  Will every decision be correct? No…but it will be a decision that moves you a little further.

If you take the OODA approach discussed last week, you’ll be making decisions, acting on those decisions and immediately looping back to review the post-decision environment and determining what needs to be tweaked in your strategy for the to reflect the ‘new’ environment and to prepare future.

Integrated Decision Making

One of the outcomes of the research showed that decision making processes worked better when they were integrated with each other.   Eisenhardt reports that in those organizations that had strategic planning integrated integrated with tactics (see my thoughts on this topic in Minding the gap between Strategy and Tactics), performance improved.  In addition, those leaders who brought together people from different parts of the organization during the decision making process performed better.

Surprised?  This is why it’s such a huge issue for The New CIO to be engaged and involved with the organizational strategic planning process and be tied in with other groups and teams’ decision making.    Eisenhardt reports that making decisions with as many options as possible using as much real-time operational information as possible is the key to performance…CIO’s should take this and run with it.

The New CIO needs to take research like this to heart.  Use all the data you can, include your team and others from the organization in your decision making process.  In addition, as CIO you need to push for inclusion in other teams’ decision making process.Ensuring integrated decision making with the proper people & data, you’ll be able to mind the strategy/tactic gap and act in an agile manner.

References

• Eisenhardt, K. (1989). Making Fast Strategic Decisions in High-Velocity Environments. The Academy of Management Journal, 32(3), 543-576.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Join me next week for another article in the series.

How CIOs can sense if their companies are getting ready to fall? by Mark McDonald on The Gartner Blog Network

10 Tips on Building a Better Business by Ted Mininni on Marketing Profs Daily Fix

Time to Take off the Web 2.0 / Social Media Gloves by Valeria Maltoni on Conversation Agent

Seven Elements of Effective Coaching by Steve Roesler on All Things Workplace

Diversify Your Self by Peter Bregman on HarvardBusiness.org

7 Traits of the Modern Leader by John Jantsch on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

Corporate Culture, Not Technology, Drives Online Collaboration by Will Kelly on WebWorkerDaily

Is it Selfish to Follow Your Passion? by Kirsty on Nerdy Nomad (hat tip: Bas de Baar)

Road Rules, Not Road Rage by Lisa DiTullio on UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley – The Art of Project Management

Zappos CEO Hsieh: How to build a company culture that delivers happiness by Kim-Mai Cutler on VentureBeat