Political savvy is a critical skill for IT executives. We must compete against other business unit and staff leaders when they lobby for project prioritization and budget allocations. But IT professionals often overlook the need to establish effective strategies and determine how to best manage the relationship with the non-IT leadership.
Global corporations are often politically charged organizations that span multiple languages, time zones, cultures, business traditions etc. It is imperative to have support not only from the top bosses but also from the people who are lower down on the corporate organizational chart. Building a personal matrix of important stakeholders in the different areas of the business is important. And to keep them well informed.
A good starting point is to recognize the powerful influence of IT services on the overall day-to-day business operations, and to market this fact inside the corporation. Even if more and more business executives understand the mechanism of IT, management of IT is still in the hands of the CIO.
Few business projects are successfully completed without direct support from the IT organization. And almost no business unit can operate without systems for a longer period of time.
As IT becomes increasingly important in business, IT people have to become more politically adept. The sooner we start playing politics the sooner we will get the power we need to effectively do the job we love.
We must learn to "play the game", to remember that the magic IT does with computers is not something that is better than whatever other groups in the organization do. Historically we could get away with this position, but that time has passed. We're now mainstream players and we need to grow up and play politics.
Getting political is about communicating the issues - making the company aware the value of our work. You may need more time to ensure a secure and reliable solution; or more money is needed. Or whatever reasons you have. The only politically right thing to do is to step up, own the problem and offer to solve it.
We should also remember that very, very few of the employees in an organization know anything about the underlying technology that makes their applications rock’n’roll.
This underscores the issue of where the business knows it is being supported and where it doesn't have a clue. It would be wise to make sure everyone knows as much as you can tell them about the benefits of your infrastructure. And don't give them detail about the routers and virtual LANs and so on, give 'em the big picture about how much business is done on the network, how much the network has increased revenue, how much customers love it and - this is key - how much better it is than what the competition has.
Remember that CEO’s that bring IT to the top of the agenda bring everyone with them. A generation of CEOs will be replaced over the coming years with younger and more IT-aware executives who grasp their firm's dependence on technology.
When these executives cast an eye at their business units' use of IT, overall IT spending curves, maintenance and operations cost curves, and contribution to innovation, they will bring IT change to the top of their to-do list. If transformation is required, the CIO must be a transformer, and be a real player!
