CIOs: Lead People, Not Technology

My latest article on Discover Performance covers the “how” of delivering IT in service to business goals.

One big challenge I note in the article is that as IT becomes more automated, we’re asking IT people to plan their way out of a job. I see two options to that dilemma: IT leaders can bury their heads in the sand and wait for change to happen tomorrow (which can lead to failures that threaten their careers), or they can tackle the problem head on.

The human element

As IT professionals, we’re continually faced with the next wave of technology and delivery models. We have to get comfortable with change and evolve our careers, while helping those around us to do the same. If we don’t, we risk ending up on a melting iceberg. If we embrace the change, however, we gravitate toward far more meaningful capabilities.

Consider the car manufacturing process: The assembly line has changed dramatically since Ford introduced the concept to speed up production of its Model T. Auto manufacturers today use robotic assembly lines that put together a host of complex parts with far less human intervention.

So, how do we manage through similar changes in our own industry? Good leaders have to help people move from building cars on the assembly line to designing and building the robots that put them together.

To get teams enthusiastic about adoption, leaders have to align incentives by providing a glimpse into what the other side of transformation looks like. In the New Style of IT, we need fewer IT people doing similar, repeatable roles, and more IT people handling new and emerging roles. This requires training teams in new activities like cloud administration, blueprint scripting, automation scripting, and any other methods to deliver services through automation. Many of us need more people in security, Big Data, mobility, and cloud automation, for example. Without a vision and strategy to show your team what IT looks like after these changes, you’ll run into resistance at every step of the journey.

Ultimately, it’s not enough to think about where technology is going. You have to think about roles and the entire IT team structure—because you’re not leading technology, you’re leading people.

To read more on managing the “how” of IT service delivery, be sure to check out my most recent article in Discover Performance.