There are still a few occupations and industries that can get through a day without needing some form of technology, but they are few and far between.

Traditionally, in large organisations, it was the Finance department that wielded all the power.  If you wanted to make something happen, you generally had to convince someone from the Finance department before you got the full mandate to proceed.

This control was fuelled by the air of mystery that shrouds Finance, for anyone who is not trained in financial matters.  You only have to mutter ‘Receivables Ledger’, ‘Accruals’ or ‘Double-entry bookkeeping’ to the uninitiated and they scurry away with their tails between their legs, apologising as they go for daring to challenge Finance.  Accountancy looks difficult – all those pages of numbers and ratios.  If maths isn’t your forte, it can be intimidating.

Of course, the activities of most companies are inextricably linked to their financial fortunes.  It’s a rare Finance Director or CFO who can keep saying ‘yes’ to every worthwhile project or investment and when someone has to say ‘no’ it’s invariably someone from Finance.

This has meant that traditionally, business has been limited and controlled by Finance.  Traditionally.

In modern organisations, the balance of power is different.  It’s not just money that enables work, it’s technology too.  Practically everything that happens in a modern organisation is powered by technology.  There are desktop computers that enable people to manage information, create documents and communicate with each other.  There are smart telephone systems that manage communication with customers.  There’s manufacturing technology, high-tech aids to research and development, websites and intelligent CRM that learns from every customer interaction.  Even the coffee machine is controlled by micro-chip.

Most business projects and investments involve technology, either the introduction of new technology or using current technology in new ways.  And although most people are fairly IT-literate in the sense of knowing how to use a pc at home and at work and maybe even have some understanding of networks, when it comes to all the clever stuff that goes on in the IT Department, a lot of people are in awe of the technology and the way that new technology can create massive changes very quickly.

This means that now, the IT Department also has power and control. Business projects are limited, not just by money, but also by tech capability.  Even if the money can be found, the technology has to be managed and it’s more and more likely that if someone has to say ‘no’ it could be someone from IT.

This creates a lot of problems.  And highlights some that were already there.

One existing problem, that in most companies is so deep-rooted that everyone just accepts it, is that – except in the smallest companies and in tech companies – the IT department is detached from the rest of the organisation.

The IT department thinks of everyone else as ‘the Business’ and doesn’t include IT in the business.  ‘The Business’ usually regards IT as a support function and dismisses them as ‘geeks and freaks’ who don’t know anything except technology.

Any dealings people in ‘the Business’ have with IT is treated like a visit to a foreign country.  They don’t speak the same language, they don’t have the same culture and they don’t like tourists very much.

It’s easy, then, for IT to become a universal whipping boy.

If something goes wrong, it’s easy to blame ‘the IT’.  Or just ‘IT’.

IT gets the blame for failures of equipment, regardless of whether it was the right equipment for the job, was being used appropriately or had been maintained correctly.

IT gets the blame for software problems and for the limitations of software that the IT Department may not have been involved in choosing.

IT gets the blame for the late delivery of projects, even though the delays may not be their fault.

IT gets the blame when anything related to technology is involved in a problem and little distinction is made between the various facets of IT.  The lack of knowledge about technology in operational departments can add to the frustration all round.  People compare business technology to their home computers and wonder why new installations take so long.  They disregard the need for cyber-security or ignore the rules of good governance.  The technology professionals are often seen as pedantic and unhelpful.

The result, in many organisations, is that technology is seen as a blocker to business success, rather than the enabler it should be.  Small wonder that the catch-phrase ‘computer says no’ touched so many people!

It’s not surprising either, that most companies have their official IT and also a proliferation of ‘shadow IT’ installations – the website built by a contact of the Marketing Director, that the IT Department can’t access, or the e-commerce package the finance team bought that doesn’t integrate seamlessly with the invoicing system.  Every CIO has examples of this. Some are better at quashing the shadow IT culture than others, but they all know it’s an indicator of their colleagues’ lack of faith in their own IT Department.

The Paradigm Shift

This disturbing and often stressful state of affairs is probably not going to go away.  It’s part of a total paradigm shift that is seeing Technology – in all its guises – move from the edge of the organisation to its centre.  And for modern business to succeed, technology must be at its heart.

This means that business strategy and activity needs to be based on solid technology and sound technical knowledge.  Technology is enabling competitive advantage in many markets, but it only delivers those benefits if the organisation is structured to facilitate the kind of interaction between departments that results in coherent, sensible plans that everyone can believe in.

Technology is moving closer and closer to the customer.  IT was traditionally a ‘back office’ function and IT professionals rarely had to meet or impress customers.  Now, technology might provide the principal way that a customer interacts with an organisation.  Banking is an obvious example.  It doesn’t mean that all tech experts are spending their days with customers, but it does mean that they need a greater understanding of customers and can have a huge impact on the relationship between the company and its target market.

When an organisation looks for innovation, it looks first to technology.  CIOs are being tasked with driving innovation and change as well as supplying the right technology.  There is pressure on IT departments to deliver innovative solutions and to do so at a pace that will leave the competition standing.  Some thrive on the challenge, some do not.

It’s clear that, instead of being a ‘support service’ like HR, Purchasing or Legal, IT now has a different place in the modern organisation.  IT has become an operational department, it pervades everything, it drives progress (or not!) and supports Business As Usual.  Quite simply, most companies can’t do without it.

Most companies are dependent on technology for their success.

Which means that those companies are dependent on the people who control the technology.

And this is where – for me – it gets really interesting…

Next time, I’ll share with you my analysis of the personality types you find in IT and what that means for all of the non-techie business leaders who rely on them.

As we approach the end of 2021, have you reviewed your goals and renewed your commitment to everything that you resolved to do in 2021 and haven’t yet achieved? Are there some outstanding objectives or some abandoned aspirations that are sapping your energy or distracting your focus?

Goal-setting is a key part of NLP and a key part of business success. If you don’t know what you want to achieve it’s very hard to decide what to do! Of course, setting the goals is only part of the road to success. The first step is to make your outcome ‘well-formed’. (If you’d like to learn how to do that, please sign up for one of my NLP courses. I teach it on every course because it’s so useful).

Once you’ve got your well-formed outcome, the next step is usually to work out a strategy to achieve your outcome. So, if the outcome is to increase sales by 10%, then it’s likely that the strategy will involve extra sales conversations, incentives or networking. If the outcome is to increase motivation and morale in your team, then the strategy might include more one-to-ones and more good quality feedback. If it’s a personal goal like running a half-marathon then the strategy will involve regular workouts and a running plan.

But what happens if you don’t succeed in taking the actions required by your strategy? It’s not uncommon to begin a project full of enthusiasm and then get distracted, demotivated or demoralised and go off track.

You don’t just stop making progress towards your goal but sometimes you can start heading in completely the wrong direction.

So you need a recovery strategy. (Nothing to do with economic regeneration!)

Your recovery strategy is what you do when you realise that you’ve gone off track, stop making progress or become discouraged.

A recovery strategy is best devised at the same time as creating the well-formed outcome and the strategy for achieving it. It’s MUCH harder to do when you’re feeling discouraged or demoralised and if you’re distracted you might not realise that you need to do it!

The recovery strategy might include intensive activity to make up lost ground, or it might mean consulting with a coach or mentor.  It might simply be about reminding yourself of the outcome and its significance.

Its purpose is to get you back on track easily, without tears or tantrums and without delay.

The reason that most New Year’s Resolutions fail is for the lack of a recovery strategy. How many times has someone committed to a diet and stuck to it for some weeks or months, but then been tempted by something that should not have been on the menu? And how often does that herald the end of the diet completely?

Many people make the mistake of thinking that if they are truly committed to their goal then they will never stray from the plan. Then when it happens, they compound the problem by assuming that they cannot succeed, because of a single lapse in progress.

If you acknowledge the potential pitfalls when you make your original plan, and you devise a strategy for getting back on track, you seriously increase your chances of achieving your goal.

And this also applies to your big corporate initiatives. It’s not ‘negative thinking’ to identify the places where you could go off track, and have a plan in place to handle it – just in case.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? It seems like good management practice.

But the real beauty of a recovery strategy is the extra confidence it will give you. With a recovery strategy in place you no longer have to consider the possibility of failure, because you know exactly what you’re going to do to get back on track if something goes wrong.

It’s invaluable.