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Increasing strategic influence in IT

1_31_13 DCG Infl Str Decisions

Everywhere you turn, you find people who are ready to give you the secret on how to be more “strategic” – or at least after you hire them or buy their books. However, despite all the amazing claims, I really don’t believe that IT influence depends on where you sit, who you report to, whether or not you had P&L experience, or the size of your personal brand. As I tell my CIO clients, your influence is limited ONLY by your ability to demonstrate exactly how IT capability will create better business results.

Unfortunately, for most IT leaders, causality is a challenging claim to make and a difficult conversation to have. So, instead of entering those strategic conversations, many IT leaders (even some CIOs) fall back into the more comfortable “order taking” role. They try to identify stated needs and then give clients exactly what they request – on time and on budget, of course! The challenge is that clients often don’t know how IT might be able to drive their results, so they ask for familiar or popular capabilities, and they sometimes even sub-optimize IT resources to achieve functional or personal goals.

A common IT reaction is to negotiate some method to control priorities and budgets – like a steering committee or rigorous program management process. However, the issue isn’t about power or control – it’s about the capability to define, create, deliver and then CLAIM value against critical business results. IF you have the strategic perspective and skills required for THAT conversation, you would be influential no matter where you sat.

And, you don’t need to become an expert on your client’s role, despite almost universal claims about “understanding the business.” Instead, you need to become incredibly skilled at linking your capabilities to the purpose and goals of others, and then explaining exactly how that capability helps them achieve their goals. You must also be able to surface and resolve conflicts that block action, and then execute on useful solutions that people recognize as causal to improved results.

A big part of my coaching is about helping leaders learn how to describe value in the context of another person’s interests. You can’t say, “this is important” but then talk only from your own viewpoint.

In order to succeed, you must be able to say…
1 – Here is what I think you care about and why. (and follow-up with “do I understand your interests correctly?”)
2 – Here is what I propose and here is SPECIFICALLY how this idea will help you achieve your goals. (and then demonstrate the path of cause and effect)
3 – Here is how you can test this approach. (and show how it will work the way I claim)

When IT leaders can connect to senior leaders’ purpose and goals, explain solutions in plain language and use examples (no “trust me” or mystical claims), give people specific ways to measure the expected value, and also surface and manage any resistance from others’ viewpoints – then they will have a good chance of creating valuable solutions and getting directly involved in strategic conversations.


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