Is IT a service organization?
“Whoever wants to be first, needs to be last”
In the often perceived cutthroat environment of the corporate world, to get ahead, certain camps believe you need to aggressively push your own agenda to go up the ladder.
Fortunately, my experience has always been the opposite in the technology organizations I have been blessed to be part of. IT groups, and I would dare say service organizations in general, that truly adopt an initial subservient posture are the ones that quickly gain acceptance as peers to the business organizations. On the flip side, IT groups that barge in with their own agenda in the forefront, miserably fail in their attempts to sell their ideas to the business.
The sad thing is that these same IT organizations actually believe that theyhave the organization’s interests at heart. Unfortunately, lofty ideas are not worth it if the actual business needs according to the business teams are not being met.
For example, why would the business support a parallel processing project if they can’t even get their emails reliably? Or why create an entirely new system if the existing systems don’t have adequate support?
In the IT world, nothing can be a worse project killer than lack of engagement. And yet we still continuously see projects initiated targeting specific business groups but with people from the technology team listed as the project’s sponsor.
For IT groups and any service organization, painful as it may be, serving the needs of the business needs to come first before trying to be an equal to the rest of the business units – and that cuts to the heart of putting oneself last to become first. Build credibility with the business first by learning what they actually need/want and taking care of those needs first.
