Last week’s Part I debunker summarized readers’ responses to the following question:

"Why do so many IT (or IS, MIS) departments love the status quo so much-why are they so reticent to change and make a leap forward to improve efficiency, costs, etc?"

Here are more results in Part II:

Business 101

Too often, top managers don’t involve IT (IS, MIS) in company-wide strategy, and so there is a big gap in knowledge and understanding between the business folks and technology folks in an organization. Making the situation worse, IT types–from CIO’s to systems experts and developers–typically have little or no true management background or business training. They simply don’t get the big picture (not that they should be expected to). Hence, the propensity is great for poor communications and stagnation--and for the status quo to roll on.

Says Michael Corley, VP of Marketing at Passport Health Communications, "I am starting to believe more and more that many IT people do not have the business acumen to appreciate whether a system or process is going to lower costs and improve efficiencies.  It's almost a "so what?  It isn't important… They understand the nuts and bolts, but not the strategy.  With this lack of understanding comes a lack of desire to make a change.  If they don't understand how it can help the organization, but they know it is going to cause them some work and trouble, why go through the hassle of changing the status quo?"  

Information Technology 101

Even in the 21^st century a bunch of management types (and especially those in specific industries like healthcare) can barely turn on a PC much less understand a lot about information technology (other than it’s a necessary expense item). Says Jim Aylward, CEO of Sy.Med, "CEO’s, especially in their 50’s and 60’s are not very technical and get easily snowed by IT managers." For politically astute tech types, it’s a breeze snowing their tech-ignorant bosses anytime they want and keeping things like they are–the same technology and same people–even if a less sophisticated boss pushes for improvements.

The flip side of this is that lots of (typically younger CEO’s) are very technology savvy. They don’t understand why their company can’t do what they do themselves. Says Noel Williams, CIO of HCA, "As people become more computer literate with PC’s and cable at home, cell phones, palm devices, etc, they tend to think if I can do this at home why can’t the company do it?" Even though homes and businesses are apples and oranges. This attitude tends to exacerbate the poor communications between top managers and technology types–yielding more gridlock and status quo.

It’s the incentives

Writes George Pillari, President and CEO of CBCA, Inc "I always thought it was risk/reward. Why stick your neck out if there is no personal reward." From a CTO’s point-of-view, it’s all downside to make a change. He or she gets blamed for everything that does not work."

In the mid-1980’s, I worked in HCA’s think tank, The Center for Health Studies. We came up with all sorts of wonderful strategies for getting regional markets of HCA hospitals to cooperate (what were then called "cluster markets"). These business strategies made lots of business sense, but few were incorporated until almost a decade later. Why? Administrators’ and other line managers’ compensation were not aligned to match these interesting new strategies. End of story. How many IS or IT directors, CTO’s, CIO’s are financially rewarded for putting more dollars in the corporation’s bank? Not many.

Why would any of the IT constituencies take any risk at all, much less major risks (with new technologies, etc) when there is no personal incentive financially or otherwise? IT is virtually always seen as a major cost center and even a black hole, and IT is rarely taken seriously in the P and L thinking of most corporations.

It’s the disincentives

More often than they let on, cagey IT types do recognize the big, new technology winners (for the company) when they see them–and usually recognize them faster than anyone else. But unfortunately, there are some big disincentives to champion the latest new technology because it perversely may put them or some of their folks out of job. And their empire and power base is going to shrink and not grow.

It becomes much easier for them to become a hurdle in the IT sales process and kill the new thing before it eats one and one’s children. This is also known as the "legacy systems, they be berry, berry good to us" syndrome. Says Jim Harris, VP of Business Development for POSInfo, "Turf wars create fear of losing their (IT) jobs. Most IT people are very tactical and they worry an outsourcing service or software vendor may make their job obsolete."

"Mainframe folks hiding out in the PC world"

This is a quote from Tom Truitt, an IT headhunter with Southwestern Professional Services. A lot of IT shops, and systems groups, are still directed by or dominated by former mainframe types who haven’t quite made that jump into to 21^st century, much less the 1990’s. Status quo is an understatement with these folks, many who have a hard time using most Office features on their own PC’s. "ASP," for these IT types, is a type of poisonous snake in Egypt. They are stuck in the dark ages.

IT: a mirror image of the corporation

At the end of the day, perhaps the IT department is no different than the rest of the corporation that seems to worship the status quo, especially in leaner economic times. The bigger the corporate bureaucracy overall: the bigger the IT staff, the bigger the IT bureaucracy, and higher the propensity for decision-averse of committees take over–and, of course, the stronger the status quo.

Eddie Pearson, CTO of medibuy, wrote, "They (IT managers) are part of organizations that punish… for making mistakes.  The risk/reward equation is heavily weighted with personal risk for those who promote a new idea.  Most organizations aren't good "incubators" of new ideas.  Change requires new ideas and new ideas (even the best ones) require an environment that encourages trying new things, even at the risk of failure.

Kevin Snively, President of The Help Desk Inc. says, "Reticence (to change) attitudes, reluctance, or silence is not limited to IT…" (in a past job) I showed where we could save _ of a million dollars by a change in our phone system (long distance and T1 service) that would pay for itself in 4 to 6 months. Nothing ever happened. Nothing ever happened because it required change. I’d be willing to bet that they still have not made that change."

So maybe IT is just like the rest of the corporation after all. What do you think? Send your comments to Tom at NoSpinMarketing.

Tom Ranseen NoSpinMarketing 615.383.7157

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Tom Ranseen NoSpinMarketing 615.383.7157