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|In: Business Ethics|Last Updated:

In one of Keith Laumer’s novels, interstellar diplomat Retief spoke with a local chieftain on a problem planet. During the conversation the chieftain ascribes part of his negotiating position to his “charming naivete”.

“Chief,” responded Retief, “you don’t have enough naivete to last until lunch.”

Judging from the e-mail I’ve received since giving Microsoft credit for winning the office suite wars, there’s enough naivete in our business to last all day. (See “Office suites: Do you have a choice?” June 1.)

My exact words were, “And Microsoft won this one in a fair fight, by betting on Windows when WordPerfect bet on OS/2 and Lotus bet on its lawyers.” It’s remarkable how few people disagreed.

That is, few readers said, “I disagree with your interpretation.” Instead they told me I was practicing a disgusting form of revisionist history, that I was entirely ignorant and lacked historical perspective, and that I was a sycophant who lacked any sense of ethics.

And I thought you already knew I was a journalist.

Since this is a column about succeeding in IS management, here’s a suggestion you can use on a daily basis: Give credit for honest disagreement. When you demonize everyone who disagrees with you, you sound like a member of Congress. Bad career move.

Microsoft has adopted the popular philosophy that business is war. In war, guile and deception have been recognized as legitimate tactics for thousands of years. Reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is as important for winning in competitive markets as Machiavelli is for surviving office politics. I recommend it.

Sure, Microsoft recommended developing for OS/2 to Lotus and WordPerfect back in the 1980s. Microsoft either deceived them or changed its mind after its OS/2 development partnership with IBM fell apart, but the 1980s, non-monopoly Microsoft wasn’t under oath and wasn’t required to tell the truth in either case.

Lotus and WordPerfect gave away their franchises through stupidity. CEOs don’t get their ridiculous salaries to accept a competitors’ public relations at face value, any more than a highly ranked military officer should be taken in by a noisy flank attack.

While Microsoft had a top-quality word processor and spreadsheet to sell with Windows 2.0, 1-2-3 for Windows was surpassed by both Excel and Quattro Pro. Lotus never even bothered to create a word processor – it eventually bought the nearly unknown Ami Pro to throw in a box with 1-2-3.

WordPerfect’s first Windows version came out far too late and its office suite even later, cobbled together out of spare parts since WordPerfect never bothered to create a decent spreadsheet.

Yes, Microsoft has its hidden APIs. Yes, they probably make a small difference in overall product quality. Since product quality has almost nothing to do with either mind share or market share, though, you’re left with an important question: So what?

Let’s take this personal. You’re in a leadership position, which means some of your peers may be ethically challenged. They’re your organizational rivals, too, and with organizational rivals promotions are a win/lose proposition, budget fights are a win/lose proposition, and staffing contests are a win/lose proposition too.

Imagine one of your rivals tries to mislead you, perhaps encouraging a foolhardy risk. Is trust your best course of action?

Not if you want your career to advance. Not if you want your department to get enough funding to succeed next year. Not if you want to hire enough staff to get the job done, either.

Never mind selfish considerations. Your staff counts on you to get them promotions, resources, and quality team members. You aren’t paid for your charming naivete, any more than were the dear, departed leaders of WordPerfect and Lotus.

Microsoft won in a fair fight, with fair defined by what’s allowed in the world of commerce. It won by being smarter than its competitors.

You have to adhere to your own sense of ethics. Your rivals don’t, though, and assuming they do doesn’t make you honorable. It makes you lose.

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|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

Some magazine or other once asked me to identify the biggest barrier to computer telephone integration (CTI). “No logical organizational sponsor,” I replied. “Telecom managers see it as just another headache, IS directors figure it’s telephone stuff, and call center managers see it as the devil’s tool since callers will have to interact with technology.”

It was a good answer, but wrong. Lack of a sponsor (now a non-issue) was reason number 2. The biggest obstacle to CTI, then and now, is PBX reliability.

PBXs deliver “five-nines” quality — they work at a 99.999% service level. That’s good, and it’s why telecom managers do well running data centers — they don’t think downtime is normal.

It’s also bad, because as long as your PBX continues to deliver dial-tone, explaining why you need a new one is hard. Old PBXs don’t support CTI, though, so they, rather than lack of sponsor, are the biggest obstacle to its implementation.

We’re continuing with our series on creating an integrated IS plan. This week we focus on the company’s operational goals — perhaps “infrastructural” is a better term, or “pain-in-the-neck”. Dial-tone delivery is an important operational goal. So is messaging (voice mail, e-mail, fax), collaboration (groupware), and support for general office tasks (word processing, spreadsheets and so on).

Everything about figuring out operational goals is awkward. Setting concrete goals is hard, calculating payback is impossible, and getting the executive suite interested in discussing anything about the subject other than cost is almost embarrassing since they expect you to be thinking strategically.

The basic question, which can only be answered in the executive suite, is one of lifestyle. We’re dealing with the basic furnishings of day-to-day work life. Over the years we’ve learned two basic lessons: (1) Eventually every desk gets one; and (2) There’s a ratchet effect — you can add items to the list but you can’t take any off. Lifestyle reduction is hard — once you own two cars, going back to one is demoralizing.

The basic lifestyle question is for you what benefits is to human resources. There’s no demonstrable ROI or benefit to the P&L, but the company has to do it anyway. It may not be value-adding in the accounting sense, but not doing it is value-subtracting so you’re stuck.

Settle the basics in the executive suite, then move on to the next agenda item. As CIO your personal focus should be on value-adding activities, so delegate the detailed planning to an up-and-comer who wants it and can get enthusiastic about it (your Information Center manager?), teamed with your data center/network manager.

The plan itself includes a few key elements:

  • Lifestyle description — little more than a list of the key tools you’ll be providing and supporting. This list should be by category (telephones, e-mail, groupware). You’ll deal with specific products and standards later on, in your technical architecture plan.
  • End-user interest group — a collection of power users, end-user technology thought leaders, and PC mentors. It should meet monthly with your Information Center manager, and be closely involved in your planning and priority setting. It’s an invaluable resource.
  • End-user support plan — giving employees a great toolkit and then cheaping out when it comes to helping them use the tools is dumb. Be sure to balance the need for support with a goal of self-sufficiency, though, or you’ll create a bottomless money pit.

That’s about it. Added to the strategic and operational goals we’ve planned for over the past few weeks you have validated, consensused, syndicated, and generally spread around your thorough understanding of what your company needs from information technology.

All that’s left is doing something about it.

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