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|In: Career Management|Last Updated:

News flash!

In another case of psychologists proving what we’ve long suspected, Justin Kruger and David Dunning, publishing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, demonstrated the inverse correlation between actual ability and self-assessment.

The better employees think they are, the worse they actually are and vice versa.

Armed with this little factoid, I expect battalions of mediocre programmers to immediately try to improve their ability to write good code by adding humility to their conversation. While the humility, however insincere, will be a welcome change, it will start a tiresome variant of the decrepit “You only thought I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew” gag.

But I digress.

I just read another version of the “CIOs need to know the business” article. I think there’s just one article on the subject, and when a writer is feeling tired he pulls it out, shuffles some paragraphs around, e-mails it in, and goes back to sleep. They’re all the same, really. They make the hoary point that businesses don’t want technology for technology’s sake — technology must serve a business need, and successful CIOs will embrace this concept.

Some insights are more startling than others, I guess. But before we go on, let’s all hold hands and chant together: “Yes, CIOs must know the business, and never propose technology for technology’s sake.” Maybe if we say it loud and proud a few times, everyone in earshot will understand that we’ve fully grasped this concept, and we can all move on to the next one.

The next one, made many times in this space, is that “knowing the business” doesn’t begin and end with abstract notions like strategies and business models. The most important part of knowing the business is knowing the interests, hot-buttons (and cold-buttons), pet programs and pet peeves of every important decision-maker in the company. At least half of an average CIO’s time is spent selling. It’s internal selling … to the board of directors, CEO, senior executives, middle managers … but selling nonetheless.

If you don’t like the idea of having to sell internally, find a different word that describes the process of persuading others to adopt your concepts, in the process adding money to your budget.

If it looks, waddles, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. If it looks, smells, and tastes like selling, it’s selling.

To sell effectively, you need to understand your prospects on an empathic level. You need to understand the business, formally, politically, and personally.

Why, oh why do so many seemingly sensible people jump from here to the ridiculous notion that the CIO can delegate the “understanding technology” part of running IS to subordinates? Would anyone reach a similar conclusion down the hall a few doors, and figure the CFO doesn’t need to understand accounting, just “the business”?

Of course not. Of course, they’d probably reach the right conclusion for the wrong reason, explaining that at the end of the day … or at least the fiscal year … the money is the business. Robert McNamara, overconfident of his ability (sound familiar?) due to his business resume, used a similar thought process in pursuit of victory in Vietnam, running a metrics-driven war in which relative body counts (profits) mattered more than the formulation and execution of strategy and tactics.

CFOs need to understand finance and accounting because they run that part of the business and they need to understand the discipline. CIOs need to understand information technology because that’s what they’re responsible for. This isn’t a complex concept, nor should it be controversial.

Go back to the idea that CIOs spend a lot of their time selling. What do really great sales people do? They paint a persuasive vision of how great your world will be once you’ve incorporated what they’re selling into it.

What’s the first step? Understand what you’re selling. In the case of a CIOs, that’s information technology. Without that knowledge, no matter how good you are at step two — understanding your prospects’ world — you’ll have no way of progressing to step three: Putting that knowledge and your product together.

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|In: Career Management|Last Updated:

Customers make buying decisions. Consumers use products and services. Sometimes they’re the same person. Sometimes they aren’t.

By differentiating between customers and consumers you can explain a lot of otherwise baffling phenomena in business, like why professional sports teams don’t care that strikes and demands for new stadiums (stadia?) have driven the public beyond mere apathy to alpha-state levels. Their major customers are the networks; fans, for the most part, are consumers.

It also explains the poor product quality and “customer” service of many software companies: Software selection is a strategic decision made by IS leadership or the chief technical officer, so when end-users and technicians experience problems and call for support they can’t threaten to take their business elsewhere — it isn’t their decision.

(This distinction, by the way, appears to be an original insight — much to my astonishment, nobody seems to have pointed it out before. If you were my customer instead of my consumer, it could turn me into a wealthy man.)

This distinction is useful inside, as well as outside, the company: Understanding the difference between your internal consumers — the people who make use of the technology you provide to the enterprise — and your internal customers will help you become a more effective leader, and help your career as well.

A recent column pointed this out. Your internal customers aren’t your consumers, they’re the people who approve your budget and who control your career. Some readers weren’t too happy with this analysis: They prefer to eliminate the idea of internal customers altogether. Everyone in IS, in their view, should focus on the connection between their work and external customers (and, presumably, external consumers, too).

This is a position advocated many times in this space: Everyone in IS, and in fact, every employee in the company, should always be aware of how their efforts translate to value for external customers.

The two positions aren’t in conflict, though. They’re complementary, or at least they can be, although keeping all of the connections straight can be a challenge sometimes.

When making decisions, it’s worthwhile to look at the world from more than one perspective. One perspective is that of mission and purpose — what you are trying to accomplish. From this perspective, it’s important to understand your connection to external customers, to provide context for your actions and decisions. IS works best when it relates to the rest of the company as an active partner rather than as a passive order-taker or independent service provider, and to be an active partner you need to participate in interactive discussions about how to achieve business goals. “How can we more effectively attract and retain customers together?” is a better question than, “How can we help you?”

A different, but equally valid, perspective is your responsibility to be politically effective. Even in healthy companies, every individual starts with different premises, experiences, personal and professional goals, and priorities … in short, a unique world view. Politics is the art of moving forward in the face of these differences. With technology pervading most businesses, every business decision leads to new or changed, and always conflicting technical requirements and priorities, so you operate in a highly political environment.

Why should you view the people who control your budget as your internal customers? Because that’s political reality. By definition they are your customers, and if you don’t treat them that way, they won’t make the right buying decisions about your products and services (they won’t approve your budget).

Then, most important of all, there’s a third perspective: your career. You personally have customers, and they’re also internal. They’re the people who approve your raises, bonuses, and promotions.

If you’re lucky, helping the business attract and retain external customers will make your personal internal customers happy. If you aren’t so lucky … well, they’re internal, but they’re still your customers.

It’s up to you to decide how you want to treat them.

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